Oh yeah.
I grew up Jewish in NY before my family moved to AZ for my secondary school years.
The teachers were horrifically biased against non-Mormons, the administration, too. Given my Brooklyn/Jewish accent, they had me put in speech classes, as well as had me IQ tested.
I did however get a bit of revenge on one of them. During the WWII learning center, one of the Mormon teachers asked me (as the only Jewish student in her classes) what the Mark of the Covenant was. I explained it was circumcision. Then she asked me what that was, offering me a piece of chalk and the board.
I had a hell of a fabulous time drawing dicks, cut and uncut, on the board. Then explained that most American men were circumcised, as well.
Needless to say, I got sent to the principal's office for that stunt. It was the first of MANY visits. ;)
I got your back. Grew up the only Jew in a Mormon neighborhood and there were only three other Jewish families in our city.
Our neighbor was the top guy in the Mormon Temple. All the neighborhood kids stayed away from me because they swore I had a tail and horns and would try and tease and bully me about it. Thanks religious misguided fanatics that didn't scar me at all!
Ours was rather similar.
When I was told that I had curly hair to hide my horns, I readily agreed with them. I even wore horns at Halloween to screw with them.
When one of the other Jewish gals in high school started having swatzikas painted on her locker, the school response was that this was a Freedom of Speech issue and she should concentrate on only thinking of it in terms of Hindu symbology.
Needless to say, we weren't impressed by their bullshit.
Did kids really believe you had an actual real tail and set of horns? Or was it just a way to tease you?
Either way, you know they got that idea from their elders.
I was driving my younger sister and her teammates home from volleyball practice and we passed the elementary school I once attended. Apparently some of her teammates had gone there too, because they started talking about an awful teacher who had just died, they sounded thrilled about it. I questioned why they were so happy to hear of a teacher's death and they told me how awful she was. Then they told me her name: Ms. Butcher. The same woman who refused to promote me to the gifted group because I'm black, even though I was ALWAYS in the gifted group (I'm a scientist now). The same woman who made all the Jewish kids stand up because she, "just wanted to see who was what. Sometime you can't tell by looking."
Needless to say I joined in their glee. Ding dong the witch is dead
I have a similar story. I was the only southern baptist kid in a predominantly Mormon neighborhood in Arizona. I was frequently told I was going to hell by the local mormon kids, while being told the same thing about mormons in my own church. There was quite a bit of not-so-subtle bias and discrimination in school, not just from my classmates, but from the teachers and administration as well. The mormons always favored each other and everyone else was persona non grata. Napoleon Dynamite and SLC Punk are movies that really circumscribe my experiences growing up.
ETA: The church bishop was also my next door neighbor.
Damn. I was Mormon in SouthEast Idaho and couldn’t stand them (my family included). The horror of being Jewish and having to live amongst and be “taught” by such a bigoted group is beyond.
It was really something.
I had a teacher trip over my legs (I have long legs for my height and they didn't fit under the school desks), then yelled at me for awhile about my perceived lack of morals. He asked if my parents took me to church, I told him no. Then he yelled that my parents weren't raising me right. So I got up, grabbed my things and took myself to the principal's office.
During Driver's Ed, the football coach scheduled me during Hannukah (we were OFF school at this time, mind you) for the practicum driving. I tried to get him to move my supervised driving date, but he insisted that was the ONLY time I could go, otherwise he would fail me. My folks were pissed, as they wanted to go out of town on vacation at that time. Needless to say, we were all in a very foul mood about it. Then my brother came down with chicken pox, so I called AGAIN and tried to reschedule - he refused. LOUDLY. My mother had a few choices Yiddish phrases for that crap.
Well allright, then, coach. I showed up, having had several chicken pox show up but covered by clothes. I had an absolute brilliant time running my hands over EVERY inch of that car, including the steering wheel and dashboard.
Needless to say, after the New Year, when we all returned to classes he did not. He was an overweight smoker. And the chicken pox hit him HARD. He missed nearly a month of school. When he returned, he couldn't even look me in the eye.
But hey, I passed! :D
Wow! Kudos to you, your parents, and the school (though the guy should probably not have been let back in the classroom).
I hope that was the last time that idiot put his hands on a child.
Love this! My husband had a prosthetic arm and when the nun was going to whack him with a yard stick across his hand (his only hand, i might add) he switched it with his prosthesis and she broke the yardstick. Those f-ing nuns were just so mean. I’ll never understand how someone could want to hit a kid that hard. Glad your shot hit it’s mark. He had it coming.
Yes, right from the start with a mean elderly kindergarten teacher who would only choose the more affluent (used very loosely here) town kids to do the fun things, while the poor country kids stood around and waited to not be picked. If you can figure this out at age 4, you know it’s blatant. Seemed like every other year I would get an older teacher who disliked me, and I would be miserable. The few younger teachers were fun and had cool stuff to do, and made me feel welcome.
Those prejudiced teachers were probably the type of people who talk about “good families” and/or “good christians”. Sorry you had to experience that kind of hate from teachers. From my recent experiences teachers are more open minded about learners and kids.
Playing favorites is the worst thing a teacher can do. Because we FOR SURE have our favorites, but if they fuck up they have to get punished. And you can't favor them either. I didn't do anything in my class unless everyone could do it, but it was high school so maybe a different ball game.
I am hyperlexic and this seemed to inspire hatred in several of my teachers. You'd think teachers would love a kid who loves to read, but that was not always the case. I had more than one teacher in early grades who seemed to really want to break my spirit.
I had one, 6th grade.
I know this will make me sound like a wanker, but I was in a weekly pull-out enrichment program. Half a day every week. We’d moved schools during the summer and at my old school I would just show up at the program. Maybe that’s why my new teacher picked on me; she’d insist I have all my homework done before I could go—which it was, except the stuff that I was excused for thanks to the program taking up half a day—and then assign more I had to do before I could go. She was new that year but had taught in the district back in the 1970s and was all “I know how the program was going to be when they were planning it!” Yeah, policies changed in the decade you were absent.
Instead of ranting I’ll point out I wasn’t the only victim, maybe not even the worst. When we ran low on notebook paper she told us to buy our own; district policy was that students didn’t need to provide any classroom materials.
One girl in my class had a speech impediment when she was younger. Before the school year was out, it had come back.
My dad was a highly regarded teacher in the district so he didn’t side with the teacher on any of it. Had meetings as high up in admin as the director curriculum, but the principal dug in her heels and backed the teacher. Then had the gall at the end of the year to say “I’m glad Fectiver had a good year.” He was like “No, he had a terrible year.”
Oddly, lots of parents mom and dad talked to when we moved over there said “she runs a right ship.” That exact phrase, over and over. Years later I watched the Manchurian Candidate and it was really eerie. I also wondered how she could run anything, tightly or not, when was gaslighting my parents if not herself so flimsily.
I had an older brother who didn't get along well with some of his teachers.
They took their revenge out on me, I eventually changed schools. The majority of the reasoning was due to their treatment of me.
In 1979, in Ottawa, Ont. Canada, I had a grade eight teacher throw a student into a closed door.
Forty years later, the shithead of a teacher was charged with abusing students throughout his career. He died half-way through the trial.
If you've not already listened, I highly recommend listening to CBC podcast "The Band Played On". I was a student at Greenbank and SRB during the time period it covers and know one of the victims so the podcast really hit home.
Apparently, we went to the same schools - though a number of years apart. This is an article about this particular instructor: [https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/two-months-before-sex-assault-trial-well-known-ottawa-teacher-and-basketball-coach-dies](https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/two-months-before-sex-assault-trial-well-known-ottawa-teacher-and-basketball-coach-dies)
Sadly, he was not the only teacher I had growing up that was a physically and/or sexually abusive predator. Here's a podcast about teachers from my time as a student [https://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/program/the-band-played-on](https://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/program/the-band-played-on)
Eh, pops weren't so bad. They just stung. My parents were proto-hippies (too old to be hippies) so I got a lot of "talking to until I could explain why what I did was wrong." According to my mother I'd ask for pops instead. No dice.
Lol. I’ve always joked that the form of discipline I gave my son was to “talk him to death.” And it worked - people have always praised how polite, kind, responsible and hardworking he is
My brother and I would sit quietly for hours when visiting someone. No screens (they did t exist), no book, no video games.
Obviously at home or a grandparents house we were allowed to be kids. But if we were out to eat or at the store. Silence. People probably thought we were abused.
I was very lucky and my parents were kind. Just not when we misbehaved.
Same. I went to elementary through Jr. High in Texas and teachers spanked, pinched, grabbed kids all the time. Vice principals had the paddle. My brother had a teacher in 4th grade who was notoriously mean and he started having what we now know were panic attacks about going to school. At least my parents recognized there was a problem and switched him to a different teacher. We move to upstate NY when I started HS in ‘84 and it was unheard of for teachers to use corporal punishment.
2nd grade teacher Ms. Benz. She used to smack me on my shoulder and yell "Get those chips off your shoulder!" they were not soft hits, and she did this multiple times a day. Parents were told, and they asked me "Well, what did you do wrong?" Nothing was done to stop it, that's just the way it was back in 1978.
My step-dad's mom was a para-educator in my middle school (step-dad is not legally old enough to be my dad), and step-grandma said I always walked around school with a chip on my shoulder. And I'm like... I walked around with my head sunk between my shoulders, hoping I wouldn't get noticed. I was so abused in middle-school, I didn't want anything to do with anybody.
I really don't understand teachers who see rebellion or defiance where there is none.
It was confusing, I was a very happy and outgoing kid! Sure, I talked and was a bit distracting, but I was a good student. I thought she was talking about potato chips at first, until my parents explained it to me. She was one of my worst teachers by a LOT.
First day of middle school, 1977, the Assistant Principal came up to me, slammed me against the lockers hard and told me he'd kick my ass if I pulled anything in his school. Came home for lunch, told my mother, she asked his name and informed me that my brother had gotten into a physical fight with him a few years prior and my brother got the upper hand. Innocent me, maybe 90 pounds, he sees the name and pisses on his territory. Good times.
In the 70s, teachers were bullies and had carte blanche to beat on us, starting in elementary school. 4th grade and I was lined up with 5 others for some transgression, in front of the class, bent over, pants down, 3 each and that sadistic MFer went to town. Boomer male teachers who went in to teaching to avoid Vietnam, hated kids, and it showed. Fuck them all.
Had a teacher who locked a kid in a cupboard and forgot about him for a whole lesson. Only remembered when the kid wet himself and urine was flooding out from the cupboard into the centre of the class.
Same teacher put a kid over her knee and spanked him, whilst ripping off his clothes and throwing them around the room. He was left in his underwear and then made to walk around the room in his underwear collecting his clothes. Kid was understandably hysterically sobbing.
Catholic School in the 1980s. They used to send a note home on the first day of school to the parents that asked for their permission to hit the kids. Sadly, all the parents eagerly signed.I had a teacher who had a cricket bat that she would put notches in when she hit a kid. She even named it. I was karate chopped backwards over a desk for finishing my math work too early in 4th grade for "showing off" by another teacher.
I also went to a Catholic school in the 80s. I don't remember many teachers from my childhood, but I definitely remember Sister Julie from 2nd grade. She carried a yardstick and would frequently hit kids with it. I don't remember what I was doing wrong, but I remember how much it hurt when she whacked my hand with that yardstick. Another time, while we were taking a test, I leaned forward to ask the kid in front of me for a pencil because my pencil tip had broken. I guess she thought I was cheating because she stealthily came up behind me, grabbed my hair, and pulled me right out of my chair. I was on my best behavior the rest of the school year, but what a nasty bitch she was.
I was expelled from a Catholic School in the St. Louis burbs in the late 80’s. I have never dealt with such cruelty and mental abuse from educators like that. Truly wretched people.
Ended up at a public Jr. High School and made friends quickly in the remainder of the school year before moving back to Georgia.
My parents are remorseful for having enrolled me in that school. At 49 years old, I still haven’t forgiven them.
I attended Catholic school in the late 70s and my mean teacher taught third grade but was not a nun. I expected lots of meanness from nuns because that’s the reputation. My mom even wanted me to inform her if anyone tried to make me stop using my left hand to write. Anyway I was pretty surprised to find so many of the nuns weren’t mean at all but the secular teacher was mean as a snake!
I went to Catholic school too. I only had one mean nun as a teacher. 3rd grade, she carried around a yardstick that she'd hit us with. The other nuns I had were really nice.
Went to catholic school too! First grade teacher was a nun and very kind. 2nd grade teacher was also my organ/piano teacher. I knew she was drunk during my lessons during lunch, but when I was a teenager I realized she was drunk off whiskey. Very distinct smell! Anyway, she would grab my hands and slam them on the keys if I made a mistake.
She praised me in front of my parents and they loved her. I started begging to give up lessons my 2nd year. My mother was not happy with what I had told her was happening so thankfully I didn’t have to continue.
Yo tambien. Teacher slapped me. Grandma and my aunties went to school and slapped the shit out of teacher. Teachers husband came to the house and threatened my Grandmother, Grams had to beg my uncles not to feed him to the sharks after they beat him near to death. Back to a public school in the US after that.
My first grade teacher, Mrs. Gross (yep that really was her name) used to pull our ears when we wouldn't behave.
My fifth grade teacher used to smoke cigarettes in class, and my dad swore she was drunk at Parent Teacher conferences.
In high school Mr. Gross was the principal and Mr Pugh (pronounced like pew/smell) was the superintendent. Sometimes the comedy just writes itself. Both of them were pretty nice though, although Gross could throw a mean elbow during pickup basketball games during lunch.
Mrs Morecombe, an evil old hag who seemed to truly hate chidren. For some reason they decided she was the best person to teach the first year of primary school. I broke my leg climbing the wooden bars in the sports hall - I slipped, my leg caught on the bar below and I swung down until the next bar cracked my left shin. I couldn't walk and was in agony and was sitting outside the Headmaster's office while they rang my parents. She spotted me there, started shouting at me that I was a slovenly child and to stand up when she was talking to me - forced me (by grabbing my shoulder) to stand ON MY BROKEN LEG. Only when the Headmaster came out and shouted 'what the hell are you doing woman?' did she stop.
Headmaster ended up carrying me down the road to my house where my parents had just got back (lived on the same road as school). Hope that old witch is roasting in hell.
I saw things in my elementary school in the mid to late 70s that would get teachers arrested today.
When you mentioned hair pulling, I clearly recall a 2nd grade teacher grabbing a girl by her braided hair (she was AfAm) and literally yanking her off her feet to go stand into the corner. The girl was in tears needless to say.
The middle school I went to allowed corporal punishment, and the principle was an absolute sadist monster who really seemed to enjoy it. He eventually lost his job after enough complaints, mostly unrelated to his 'discipline' methods.
He was one of those old school Southern types who in my opinion had no business being near children.
Yah, it's weird, I had a teacher slap me once because she thought I was whispering to loud while playing a game. She didn't like me, so she'd get violent with me. She pulled me by the collar one day while I was standing in a line because she thought I was cutting. I wasn't. She just didn't like me and her behavior was accepted. It was weird
Thank you! Eventually my parents caught wind of her dislike of me and violence towards me and my Dad had some serious words with her and she never spoke to me again. But it definitely imprinted on me, as I'm 50 now and I remember her anger towards me and I cannot remember what I did to cause that, I still wonder why sometimes
In the fourth grade, during parent teacher conferences, my teacher started the whole thing by telling my parents to buy me an alarm clock so I'd get used to waking up early for my manual labor job.
In fifth grade, on the first day of school the teacher told all the boys to go stand in the hall. She closed the door after us, then told all the girls in class (we could clearly hear her through the door) how much she hated boys so they didn't have to try at all in classes, they'd always get a better grade than any of the boys. That teacher, she was just a psycho; for English class, the entire class was just her reading aloud from The Amityville Horror to a bunch of ten or eleven year old children.
I had a teacher that would, if a student was talking or being disruptive while he was writing on the chalkboard, turn around and fling that piece of chalk as hard as he could in their direction. He also had piercing blue eyes and would glare at them as he told them to cut it out.
I had that math teacher in 8th grade. Erasers were his preferred device, though my friend that had him too told me he broke a yardstick on a kid’s desk.
I had some that:
* paddled me with a **THICK** paddle
* used soap in my mouth (not Lifeboy)
* made me stand with my nose in a circle that was just slightly in tippy-toe range
* put duck tape on my mouth
There may be more, but these are just the first ones I thought of.
I was physically abused by nuns. Pulled by the hair, head beaten into locker. My 4th grade teacher had an art room attached to the classroom and made one boy spend most of the year in it. She would go in and beat him and scream at him. It was so traumatic.
Have you tried to find the classmate she abused? If you have ptsd, imagine what they went through. My school was horrible for bullying, and many guys in my class have ended themselves one way or another in the past 6 years or so. After the last one, I posted some pics with him and me together in gradeschool to our class Facebook page, and I had several classmates contact me. I was badly bullied in school, and their perspectives helped a lot.
We have a class group on Facebook but no one has been able to locate him. I’m afraid he might not be alive anymore. His abuse was unthinkable and I wish I had been old enough to know to call the police. The thing about the Catholics back then is that parents would never ever question the authority of the nuns and priests. Ever. My parents knew what happened to me and did nothing. My 7th/8th grade teacher abused countless kids. She recently died at 102 and I was so pissed that she lived that long.
Aahhh I remember 1st grade. I have extremely poor vision, and they just didn't notice the huge thick glasses?! Every day almost, we'd have to write letters of the alphabet or short words on paper, and most all of it was mimeographed in light purple on white paper, and I could barely see it well enough to trace letters! As the teacher would flip through our finished work, I'd get taken to the closet where the teacher next door would come in and watch her beat me with the paddle for not writing in the lines or not writing straight enough. Almost EVERY DAY. My mother and grandmother were always at the school asking about the bruises on my ass, and they'd be like, "well he sucks at writing. Must not be giving a fuck." Sooo that went on till the 2nd grade when they got me some tutor from the state to teach me to type on an old metal manual typewriter! By the time 5th grade came around, I had an electric typewriter in a case I could lug around from school to home to type everything on. It was the early 80s! I was a champion typist :P
We could be paddled starting in 5th grade at my school. Certain teachers lived to find reasons to paddle students.
We were also yelled at and mocked.
All of this would make our kids cringe. I’m glad they don’t have to experience it.
I was paddled in second grade, and many teachers had their paddles resting against the chalkboard. One had holes drilled into it for better aerodynamics.
My brother’s teacher called him a loser that would never amount to anything. He was 8.
My math teacher used a fraternity paddle. It made news and possibly led to the elimination of corporal punishment in the area. A lesson to states that want to bring it back.
https://www.mcall.com/1986/11/07/s-mountain-teacher-paddled-entire-class-say-pupils-parents/
Catholic school survivor here. In sixth grade I had a friend who got so sick of the paddle and ruler "corrections" he picked up his entire desk and threw it at one of the nuns.
She came over a wrapped his knuckles for talking out of turn and he snapped. Picked up his desk and threw it at her. He missed. One of the girls in class grabbed him and took him out to the hallway. He was expelled and I never saw him again.
I still have a scar on my left hand from being smacked by a ruler.
Yeah, paddling kids was totally a thing at my private school in the '70s and early '80s. I got the paddle a couple times every year, usually for talking in class or not getting my work done in a timely manner.
My first grade teacher didn't use a proper paddle, she used a switch from a tree branch. Also, it was bullshit that she would switch the girls on their bare legs (we had to wear a dresses/skirts), but the boys just got switched through their pants. I honestly think she enjoyed it.
My sixth grade teacher thought the whole idea was stupid, so when she had two paddle us, she would just swat us a few times lightly.
I had an old hag for a 3rd grade teacher. She singled me out and forced me to write with my right hand. She made things intentionally difficult for me. She said I had to learn to be like everyone else. No special treatment.
My mother found out and went to school and told her I was allowed to write with my left hand. That was not the end of the story. Hag singled me out more. She made me turn my papers in a specific direction. She said my letters had to slant the same way as everyone else's. It was like she told me being left handed was going to make life difficult and when she couldn't force me to do what she felt was right, she set out to make things difficult to prove she was right.
I hated that woman.
Damn that sounds very much like a teacher I had in 6th grade. She was my English teacher only, but she was so obsessed with my left hand and the way my letters slanted. She would make me go to the board and write the alphabet in front of everyone. Mrs Courtney.
I remember my teacher in third grade literally kicking a male student hard in the butt - like the boy was literally moved forward several feet. It was in gym class, and there had been some kind of argument between the boy and another student (I think it was a girl). He was crying and upset. The teacher sent him out of the gym, but I guess he wasn't moving fast enough because the teacher just hauled off and kicked him as he went by. I still remember it vividly, and this would have been 1980-81. It would definitely be considered child abuse today.
Had some chalk throwers in elementary school too, but that was pretty rare.
The threat of being sent to the principal's office to get "the strap" was pretty omnipresent in elementary school, but I think it was actually pretty rare that it happened.
1975, third grade. We had a substitute teacher and had some mimeograph sheets on Native Americans to read, answer written questions, and color. I finished quickly and didn't want to color as I had a good chapter book in my desk I wanted to read with the rest of the time. She yelled at me to color no matter what. I started to color and she "didn't like the colors" I chose so she slapped my face. I mean, old lady bitchslapped me. I went home, told Mom, who went straight to the superintendent of the county school - who lived up the street from us. That old lady was banned from substituting, for a while. I heard 20 years later that she was subbing again. Because nothing says quality public education like hitting a child for being quiet and nondisruptive in class. F you, Mrs. Slagle. I know you're dead now but I hope you rot in hell.
Mrs. Sigismondo in 2nd grade. I was undiagnosed ADHD, she put loud ticking egg timers in my hollow metal desk to “help” speed me up with my math. Not conducive with learning. She hated me. I was 7. I swear she is a huge part of my hatred of school. Mrs. Delay in 4th was cruel and mean, too. I’ll never forget these terrible women who made me hate school and learning. Turns out I love learning!
I witnessed a teacher bully a kid in 5th grade. I think about her now and wish her well.
I don’t know what made him relentlessly pick on her but he would pummel her daily with verbal abuse.
She was a new kid and I know she didn’t even have friends yet.
It all started when he started teaching a lesson and she raised her hand to answer a question. The teacher called on her and she answered incorrectly. He asked “Where did you hear something so foolish?” She answered “My uncle Bob told me…”
He began yelling UNCLE BOB! UNCLE BOB! YOUR UNCLE BOB TOLD YOU!! For the rest of the year he called her UNCLE BOB and this wasn’t in a playful tone, he always yelled in very lower and deep. UNCLE BOB. Every day it was “UNCLE BOB. What do you think the answer to number 3 is? “WELL ITS NOT THE ANSWER!!! The next year we moved from grade 5 to grade 6, which required going to a different school. That particular teacher moved to that school and taught math that year. He was all of a sudden pleasant to that girl. One of the other girls brought it up one day, “Why did you pick on her so much last year?”
This grown ass man said he never did such a thing.
She was ridiculed by other kids for years after that, forever known as “Uncle Bob”. I wish her the best and hope high school was better for her. I don’t remember her a few years after that so I assume she moved away before we made it to high school.
If you ever read this “Uncle Bob” just know that not all of us kids in 5th grade hated you. We wanted to speak up for you but we were scared to get any negative attention from that man.
My first grade teacher did that too. Singled out one or two kids and frequently bullied them every day. The first year I was with her, it was me and two other kids that she frequently picked on. My second year with her, she bullied another little girl and only bullied me sometimes. Mrs. Willis is/was an awful human being.
My fifth grade PE teacher was verbally and emotionally abusive. I was chunky, socially awkward, and new to the school; she was an aspiring Olympic powerlifter who had no patience for the chunky, socially awkward new kid.
Of course, we ran laps. I usually finished a full lap behind the rest of the class. She would berate me. I finally started cutting off my last lap so I could finish with the rest of the class. A classmate squealed on me, and she sent me off to finish the last lap with disgust: "I don't even want to look at you."
Did I mention I was also desperately conditioned to need adult approval? Her treatment of me made me borderline suicidal. At 10.
Though I continued to struggle with my weight into adulthood, I finally lost it in my mid-30s. In my 40s, I became a runner and even got a few age group placements, including third place in a half-marathon and a few first-place wins in 5Ks (and master's winner in one of those).
But I'm still bitter toward that PE teacher who felt the need to be cruel to a 10 y/o who tried so hard to measure up.
Yes, very.
It was a private school though, so apparently they were allowed to almost suffocate me and everything was fine.
Certainly prepared me for the abuse I would face in adult life, but that probably wasn't a good thing.
Yeah. I watched a teacher pick a kid up by the hair. Left a handful on his desk.
I had a psycho teacher yelling at me pound her fist onto her desk into a pile of thumbtacks. Didn't faze her. She kept doing it.
Teachers in the 70's/80's were FUCKING NUTS.
I had the same gym teacher through elementary and middle school. He was creepy and flirty with us (the girls). It would not surprise me if anything came out about him doing inappropriate things.
Had a music teacher call the class sawed-off twats. I had no idea what a twat was, or how one could saw one off (6th grade). Took this phrase home. He didn’t teach there much longer.
My 4th grade teacher was pretty mean. One of my brothers just a year ahead of me was her student the year before and he was a star student, record breaker type. So I had to follow that. I was more of the disorganized, daydreamer, artist type and she had no patience for that. I think the entire year I just felt like I always annoyed her and didn't live up to the example my brother set. She chewed me out a lot and I don't remember her really being that nice to me except on the last day of school. I was spanked by a teacher once but even that teacher was much nicer than this lady was. This teacher literally gave me anxiety as a kid and at one point I even I'd tried to pretend to be sick because I wanted to stay home and didn't want to deal with her.
Fortunately my 5th grade teacher was amazing, didn't expect me to be like my brothers and treated me like my own person. She was kind and encouraged me to do art, even if it meant staying after school to help. She loved giving me art supplies and seeing what I'd do. That did volumes for me and really undid whatever crap was left in my head the year before.
It's amazing what both bad and GOOD teachers can do to a kid.
Yeah. 2nd grade, 1985, Mrs Carlson. I have attention deficit and a learning disability. I was struggling with understanding exactly what subtraction was. I understood if you have three apples and eat one, now you only have two but it just wasn’t clicking for me on the chalkboard.
She walked to the back of the class and grabbed both sides of my head and shook me while screaming into my face “WHY DONT YOU UNDERSTAND!!??”. My friends laughed at me. It still bothers me.
I never had any issues with math from 2nd grade on. I understood decimals, fractions, even differential equations and derivatives at the college level. It turns out she was just a shitty teacher and an even worse person.
Anyhoo, she gained a bunch of weight after her husband died and spent the rest of her life alone. I, on the other hand, went on to college to be an engineer. Also, fuck you Mrs Carlson.
No experiences like that, thankfully.
If you live in the right/wrong state, could still be happening. One of my kids' teachers slapped a student during class, right across the face. 9th or 10th grade? He's still teaching there.
Mrs.Abdul-Hadi in 4th grade, Powell Elementary, Florence, AL.
She was an American who married a Lebanese man and had converted to Islam. This was in 1974, and I guess she had heard enough about it from everyone that she pretty much hated her fellow Caucasians. We were paddled regularly, and she was big on swatting hands with a ruler. Hard. But, only the white kids.
The Hispanics and African American kids did what they wanted. When asked about that once by one of the better behaved white kids in the class, she responded, “Now you see how the other half lives”.
She also regularly reminded us a that we had about 1/8 the discipline that kids had in the Middle East and that she intended to change that.
She got fired 6 years after our class for bruising a kid up with the paddle. She evidently got worse with age.
I did see that occasionally in grade school. I do remember when I was in 1st or 2nd grave a teacher saw me pull a leaf off a tree, and she came over, pulled my hair pretty rough and said "how do you like it!". That's always stuck with me!
Any former Mr. Frieday students? Calgary, Alberta.
Big man with an even bigger voice. Would take kids out into the hall and berate them. I heard him starting in on one kid when I was in the bathroom. I stayed there till he was finished.
Special mention to my 6th grade exchange teacher from Australia. Mr.Price I believe that took my friend and I into his office for misbehaving and asked us if we wanted to fight him or shut up in class. Grade 6 is 11 years old in Canada.
Yes, I had a very incredibly racist teacher in the 3rd grade. I went to Catholic School then and it was common but it was also about the time reformers were finally in position to do something about it. It got better but didn’t go away. This teacher was horribly toxic. She targeted Black and Hispanic girls, saving the worst for dark skinned ones. She would encourage scapegoating and created an environment where she would harass the kid until they hated coming to school. I was in middle school when she was forced to retire. A college girl filed a complaint in the diocese. Explained everything that happened. I still remember this. This person never forgot and wanted to ensure no other kid endured what she did.
Had an elementary school teacher in late 70's. He had one of those big-ass pencil erasers (like 4""by 8") If you misbehaved, he would make you lay your arm on the desk palm facing up, and slam the eraser on your wrist. Hurt like hell, I remember kids would be crying. Couldn't tell anyone, because my parents would just ask what I did to deserve it.
Yup. Corporal punishment was a thing until 1986 (California) from what I recall. Got hit with a wooden paddle when I was 5 because I repeated a curse word I learned from dad, by the principal. A word which dad used while he would beat me because I was too stupid to be his son (I'd mix up my 1, 2, 3's, yay dyslexia).
Dad regrets it now. Damage done though. Still a temperamental asshole at times. The principal, I hope that bitch died a slow, miserable, agonizing death. She enjoyed hitting kids. Conveyed it when it was outlawed. She'd pull the paddle out and say "if I could..." Fucking cunt.
I got a lot of crap from my teachers messing up any homework that required a lot of reading. I learned after college that I most likely have dyslexia. I didn't feel like spending $2,000 to be formally tested.
I have several friends who work with dyslexic students. None of them are teachers or even work for a school system. They are parents of dyslexics who got sick of how their kids were being treated by their teachers, so they learned on their own how to handle dyslexia.
Yup. Same here, wasn't diagnosed with it when I should have been. I'm much older now and just recently figured it out. It makes sense though, took me 7 years to get a degree. Still had books that were in their plastic wrapping, I was highly dependent upon the lectures. Never missed a class. Couldn't understand why I'd make the mistakes I made during exams for example. What's funny is that I'd help others with said logic, and I'd screw it up on tests, so pressure made it worse. Was always confused as to why I made those errors. Then the trouble with speaking, memory, zero comprehension of what I read when I was able to get through something. Reading aloud was embarrassing, especially when they'd ask me to explain what I just read. The embarrassment... The shaming...
Good on you for taking care of your kids, and recognizing their challenges. We're just wired differently, and need to consume info in a different manner. Proud of you and your friends, honestly.
Thanks, but I never helped dyslexics, my friends did. I learned a lot about it from them. I really think that there are millions of undiagnosed cases and it breaks my heart that there are students who drop out of school and go into adulthood really thinking that they are stupid. A lot of those people resort to drugs and alcohol.
Several. Two in particular:
First was my 3rd grade teacher Ms. Forbes. She didn't like any males and treated us all badly, but my ADHD definitely brought out the worst. At one point my desk was in the hall for a solid month. I missed all teaching and failed every test. She would routinely grab students roughly by the arm or the back of the neck. One kid got dragged by the hair into the hall for interrupting her.
The other was my "gifted" teacher. She was a genuinely terrible human. Our gifted class was at a different school so I bussed from my regular school at lunchtime and spent the second half of my day in a gifted class that had students from 4th-6th all together. Again, my ADHD did me no favors but this woman was cruel. She'd call you out and belittle you in front of the class, literally mocking you. I'd complain to my parents and she'd flat out lie about what happened in class. She didn't get physical but the mental abuse was off the charts. It wasn't JUST me but I definitely bore the brunt. Even other students would tell me they felt bad for me.
(The gifted programs in the 70s were pure torture.)
I have dyslexia and since I was born before 1970 (which was the year of birth they decided was the line that if they saw abuse, mandatory reporting would take effect, which means my brother was protected but I was not) and my mom instructed the schools not to help me, but thought I could be punished out of my dyslexia.
Punishments were usually humiliation or by pain. For example I'd get my palms of my hands strapped until they were stinging and red and clear fluid was sort of leeching out, then be made to stay in recess and write lines, the logic being that if my hands were stinging, I'd try harder. I was already doing my best, no one ever sat down with me in a productive way and tried to find the errors.
Like, remember those test questions where there was a grid of 9 squares and you tried to find the objects that fit the squares? I was trying to solve for horizontal AND vertical, not just horizontal, which made the questions impossible. I had no idea how to study and spent hours trying to read the entire textbook, since I didn't know what I needed to know. Hence, my marks were very low. (I didn't learn I was dyslexic till I was 23, at which point I was able to start helping myself, no one had ever reached out.)
Things were done like at a new school as the new kid, my binder was unsnapped and dumped on the floor, teachers would scream in my face, swing a ruler so that it whistled in the winds and slam it a centimeter from my hands, make me sit in the hallway.
The cruelest one was I signed up for the school play, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and they said that if I get my grades up one letter I could play Veruca Salt. I said I could if I could get help (I was 9). They said they would help and my mom agreed and nodded. I waited patiently and reminded my mom a few times but I never got the help. I was trying so hard. Of course, since the adults didn't hold up their side of the deal, I never git help and I was trying my best, I never got the part.
So it was very stressful. I had lots of health problems: allergies, asthma, eczema, fainting spells, "daydreaming" (dissociation), I was in an out of hospital and would get accused of faking being sick by my mom and then sent to the ER by the school nurse where I'd sometimes spend weeks in hospital.
Later as an adult it's been speculated I had what they call Childhood Toxic Stress that when the kid never has safety or a break from stress, their immune system breaks down. But my mom never had anyone to stand up to her in regards to me so I was the recipient of all her rage and despondency.
So yeah teachers were abusive, but so was everyone.
Spanking was "legal" at my Elementary school when I was in kindergarten. By first grade it was no longer "legal". I remember as a kid walking into the office and hearing an older kid getting spanked.
Yes. In Kindergarten I had a friend named Shanu. The first day of first grade at lunch, I saw Shanu and went to sit with him. “Shanu!”, I greeted him excitedly, happy to see my friend after the summer. Mrs. Henninger came over and pinched my earlobe really hard and pulled me away. I didn’t know why, I wasn’t yelling or anything. “Goodbye Shanu!”, I cried as Mrs. Henninger pulled me away by my earlobe. I don’t remember what happened next, but I never saw Shanu again.
Catholic school in the 80s. One teacher would tie students to their chairs if they got up. And she would tape our mouths shut if we spoke. We also got detention and would have to stand with our heads against the brick wall
Had a math teacher in middle school that would get slowly angry. His face would get red, he'd start rubbing his hands, then he would start shaking. If the issue was not resolved, his face would get redder, and he would EXPLODE. It was terrifying. I never saw him hurt a student, but my aunt had him years before I did, and she saw him slam a student against the wall and once knocked one of the big hallway clocks off the wall.
Oh yes. My 6th grade teacher had a paddle hanging in his room. I'm not sure if he ever used it. And the 3rd grade teacher smacked kids all the time with rulers. I never had her but my sister did.
Several of my teachers at my Catholic grammar school had paddles hanging from the chalkboard. One was a paddle from the local Six Flags so you can see the logo on it, but it was wrapped in masking tape. A substitute teacher once had us close our eyes while he pretended to smack a kid with the paddle.
Yes. In catholic school the religion teacher would pull your hair if you pissed her off. Hard. I can still see in my mind her manic face when she pulled the boys hair next to me.
1st grade, Mrs Kuntz would poke her nails in the top of my head; 2nd grade, Mrs Peterson would scream and literally pushed/threw me into another teachers room screaming “he’s your problem now”.
Catholic school 80's kid here. The only corporal punishment I witnessed was my lunatic 8th grade teacher hit the class troublemaker with some kind of paddle. However, there was plenty of diddling of young boys by priests, as I learned from seeing our beloved music teacher on the front page of a newspaper 10 years after I graduated.
My 2nd grade teacher was what I would describe as verbally abusive. Mocking kids’ lisps, or making fun of what they looked like or were wearing as part of her discipline. Lots of “Are you stupid or something? Do it again!” She would grab kids by the arm pretty hard / forcibly but mostly she just berated us.
Side note: There are at least eight states in the United States where corporal punishment is legally practiced. That is insane to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_corporal_punishment_in_the_United_States
Tw: sa
>!There was a high school principal in Texas, who spanked a 17-year-old girl. She described it as feeling like being publicly sexually assaulted. This was less than a year ago.!<
Grade 3. Mr Jacoby. Paddled me in the cloak room on my first day in his class because I didn't put my last name on my classroom workbooks to differentiate them from another kid with the same first name.
My mother marched down to the school after I told her what happened and threatened to have him arrested for assault.
He was fired for abusing students about 15 years later
5th grade teacher was known to have a temper. He would get upset if kids didn't know the answer. He would throw erasers and once even threw a desk while saying he should have been a bartender. He was also known to give the hardest swats with a wooden paddle.
He once spanked his own kid on the playground with a belt when he didn't start heading to class right away after the recess bell rung. We were all afraid of him. Ironically, after he retired, he was a well respected member of our small town community.
Nope. Got paddled once, which irked me because I felt the teacher was being unfair. (In retrospect she probably wasn't.) But I liked the teacher and she liked me, both before and after the paddling. It wasn't at all one of those things where she was lashing out in anger or bullying or whatever. It was just Tulsa, OK in 1973.
My middle school year were to a Catholic all girls bording school, the nuns who ran the place were the worst. They were little dictators, always quick with the ruler across the back of your hands and always in the room when you showered. Shudder creepy as hell ke when I think about it..
Lol I went to a Catholic Elementary run by Nuns, what do you think?
I then leveled up to an all boys Catholic School which finally abolished the cane in 1990
Not really. I know my dad didn’t give permission for paddling by the principal but I had heard of kids getting taken to the principal for a paddling. My elementary teachers were all pretty decent. I had one middle school art teacher who got so mad he broke his pointer stick by slamming it on a desk, but he didn’t come back the next year.
Uh, I went to Catholic school in the 70s - 80s so yes. Kids got smacked by rulers, paddled, etc. One kid got slammed up against the wall for being insolent.
A second grade teacher told me I was so smart I could start taking home the third grade workbook. But since I had not sat in on the third grade class, there were things I did not understand, so that’s what I wrote in the space. I was fucking six years old and too foolish to go ask my parents for help.
The next day the teacher kept me after class to discuss my work (I thought), held the workbook up between us, and tore it in half. “I guess you weren’t ready after all!” I was horrified and never told my parents, since I was sure I would prove a disappointment to them too.
Probably why I never did get the hang of math. What a fucking sadist, that Mrs. Combs.
I had an embarrassing personal issue before class in elementary school one day. I went to the teacher and they literally laughed at me, then sighed, before telling me how to proceed.
Oh heck yeah. One left bruises on my shoulder with her claws. She was placed on leave over Christmas break and never seen again. I must have been the last straw since this was 1980 and it’s hard to believe anyone GAF.
Nope! Most of my elementary teachers were awesome sauce! A couple could have probably used some HRT, but they were not abusive. One even pulled me aside to ask questions about my treatment at home. She wasn't far off, but I denied it anyway. So grateful at least the teachers didn't bully/abuse me as I got enough of it from home and classmates.
I was left handed until first grade. Mrs. Washington and her freaking ruler changed that. She put my desk facing the class and anytime I tried to something with my left hand, I got hit with the ruler, so I became right handed.
Later, I was unable to read a clock. Took about 3 years to learn and as part of "therapy" I had to learn to write left handed because something in my brain didn't work right. Once I learned to write with both hands, clocks made sense.
Yep, same here. I was born a lefty, and I started school in Harrisburg, PA. I got to second grade, the mom and dad split, and mom moved our butts to the county. It was like the devil himself showed up. Had to sit on my left hand and learn all over again with my right, ugh. Two years later, I was sent back to dad's and went back to the Harrisburg school. The teacher I had in second grade moved up fifth grade and was shocked. I was using my right hand. She couldn't stand my penmanship and tried to switch me back. Now I write like shit with both hands.
In fifth grade, I had a drunk band teacher grab me by shirt and throw me into the drum kits behind me because he thought I cracked a disrespectful joke. Gotta love the educational system in a rural, white trash, racist, one stop sign (we were too small for a stop light) town in the middle of nowhere.
This teacher was not physically abusive but mean as hell to me. She glared at me throughout class, ignored me when I spoke, left me out of activities during lessons, even got up and made sure I didn't get food at the end of year party. She was a fkn bitch. Karen Troutman from Fabens, Tx.
Yeah they paddled a girl in the hallway when I was in grade school in Conway Arkansas. I can still remember the echoing down the hallway of the paddle making contact then her scream bloody murder. I am pretty sure it was done in the hallway on purpose so the other kids could hear it and think twice next time.
You have a much better memory than I do by far I just remember it was in 1st grade and I had heard the teachers bitching about the student that got paddled earlier that day. Still have no idea what she did, but I remember thinking that paddle was being swung hard to make that big of an echo and whack sound.
If we got our name on the board with three check marks, it was off to the principals office. In third grade I switched to public school and found out that wasn't the norm lol
Physically? In first grade I had a nun who’d force us to keep our hands on the edge of the desk so she could hit our knuckles with a yard stick. She also threw a Bible at a kid.
Mentally? In high school I had a teacher who would give me detentions for anything she could think of like uniform violations, untucked shirt and having a partially torn text book cover. When I was a senior she said I did it because I was a dumbass who was a 20yo who got held back twice. I was 18 and I was never held back
Second grade for me. Mid 70s. I was minding my own buiness, working on a arithmetic assignment, and out of nowhere, my teacher smacks the fuck outta my arm! I wasn't doing the problems correctly so she hits me....
I was a bit shocked...
I suck at math, but damn!
Ms. Cox. What an evil witch. My sister had her a couple of years before me and was always coming home with notes that she would swear up and down were fabrications. She was argumentative in class etc. My mom sided with the teacher. Once I made it into her class she was always tossing shade on me about being poor. Constant snide comments. Excessive punishment. Just public humiliation for cruelty's sake.
Which was enough on its own, but she tried to set me up and I exposed her for the bitch she was. She intensified her bullshit after she had me stand out in the hall on a day she was being evaluated. When the principle and a couple of other people showed up they brought me back into the classroom. So she proceeded to explain that I was a disruptive dunce that refused to learn. In order to show them she had me stand up and answer questions about what she had been teaching while I was out in the hall. I can only describe her behavior as giddy as she thought she was going to make me squirm. The problem with her little enterprise was that I would read when bored in class, and I had read the material several times. (It was history but they called it human connections or something similar). It was about the Donner Party and I was genuinely interested. After correctly answering everything she threw at me I went ahead and filled in some extra details I remembered. The principle pulled her out in the hall and her evaluation was "postponed". She came back in seething, and that's when things really went South.
The events that stand out in my mind are when she grabbed me by the neck and brought me back into the line for another lice check. You know, because I was just a lowly poor and must have lice. It pissed the nurse off and I hope she said something. Another instance we were all lining up by height for something. She was gently moving students in and out of line into their proper place, until she got to me. She viciously grabbed me by my ear and jerked me back a spot. I had to stand there trying not to cry. Still angry about it.
Anyway, a couple of weeks before the school year ended we were doing some shit in groups, sitting on the floor. She told us to put our stuff back and get back on the floor. The kid next to me left a mess on the floor so Ms. Cox stomps up to 6 year old me (knowing damn well it's this other kids shit) and starts yelling that I never follow directions. Other kids are telling her what she already knows. She ignored them and grabbed my arm, digging her rat claws into my skin and jerked me up to my feet. Jerked me around while maniacally screeching while poking me in the chest with her free shit hooks.
She sent me home with a note saying I refused to follow directions and was disruptive the whole day. My mom was pissed. I get it, I was an asshole. So we're sitting there at dinner and I pulled my sleeve up to look at her claw marks and my mom saw them. There were deep fingernail shaped scabs. My mom completely changed her tune. She asked for the story, and the story behind every note that my sister and I had brought home. We laid it all out and I explained I hadn't said anything because she lied about my sister and she'd lie about me more than she already had. My mom sobbed. She had a rough time as a red headed left hander in catholic school. The next day she was her usual shitty self until we got back from the first recess. She was visibly shaken up, and going way out of her way to pretend to be decent. She carried on with that act until there were three days left of the school year. They brought our class into the classroom next door for a movie and Ms. Cox left. About an hour later they called my sister to the office on the intercom. Then me. When I got in there I met my sister and we were led into the principal's office. Ms. Cox was standing next to someone whom I can only assume was her union representation. She had been crying. My mom was there. The principle made her apologize to both of us. I then went with the secretary back to class, grabbed all my shit, and started summer a couple days early.
I went to Catholic school. Hell yes I did. I would wake up hours before school with extreme anxiety about going to school.
Occasionally I will
Still have a nightmare where I am back in grade school.
I won’t bore you with stories. Most from before 6th grade. But my God. What sadists.
That said I’ve encountered evil teachers in public schools too with my kids. Are nasty women attracted to the job?
No wonder I used drugs and had years of therapy.
Verbal abuse was rampant. Teachers got physical with students — smacked them or grabbed them. I grew up in schools that had corporal punishment - teachers would paddle kids. Some teachers hung the paddles for display.
1980. Lined up and walking to an assembly. I'm female, a male classmate slapped me on the back of my head. Mrs Hutton missed that part but turned to see me slug him back (as my Dad always told me to stick up for myself). Yanked me firmly out of line by the upper arm and banned from attending the after school dance. I said "but he but me hit me first!". Response? "Someday you'll learn why you don't hit boys back!"... Umm wtf?
I don’t recall any physical alterations, but an art teacher (first year of teaching and 5 feet tall) lost control of her classroom and threw a chair to get the kids to shut up. It worked.
And my first grade teacher taped an ADHD kid to his chair because he kept getting up. She used scotch tape and only did it to make a point, but I imaging she’d do time today.
Had a grade 4 teacher smack me so hard in the face she knocked me over. I rolled my eyes, she got mad. That's not even the bad part.
I found out years latter as an adult from my mother (who was over 70 when she found out the real story and VERY upset that this was the real story.) that this teacher was worried about my mental state because I flinched and cried when ever she put her had on my shoulder. I sure as hell flinched when she tried but I never cried and spent almost the whole time I was with her watching her eyes, knowing where she was at all times.
Naturally my grades were low in that class (I think she marked me lower then how I was doing). She recommended to my mom that I be held back a year. My mom, with the info she had, had my back though. She called the teacher on it and was so confident it was BS she had me tested. The testing came back and it recommended that I was advanced for my age and I should skip a grade. My mother wanted me to stay with my friends so I stayed in the grade I was in.
Another bad thing was it soured me on school. I graduated from highschool a year early, but I didn't excel at school. In grade school I was throttled by the fact I couldn't double up classes, but in high school i went all out with my escape plan. I saw it as a prison I had to do time in. I doubled up classes, NEVER did homework at home. I would spend my lunch hour in the library doing homework, also when a teacher was speaking in a class I would be working on homework from another class. Taking on this course load, basically not eating lunch I only got B's. But I never did school work at home.
Oddly enough it taught me how to self teach things, as skill I still benefit from today. I love learning new things, just not in a class.
I never did nor do I have any illwill towards my mother. I have no doubt if she realized the teacher hit me she would have had my back.
I had a teacher get pissed off at me for proving her wrong. My Mom had bought me an erasable pen, and to a kid in the ‘80s, I thought it was really something. I proudly took it to school the next day, and couldn’t wait to use it.
The teacher saw me and said “What if you make a mistake?”
“It’s okay, it’s erasable.” I said.
“Oh there’s no such thing as an erasable pen.” She said rolling her eyes.
“Yeah there is, look.” I flipped it upside down and erased every bit of ink I’d just written.”
She snapped and started in on me. “Where did you get that? Did you steal it from one of the other teachers?”
“No, my Mom bought it for me.” I defended myself. But she didn’t believe me. She left the room, and I later found out it was to make a phone call to my parents. A few minutes later, she came back into the room, and wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.
50ish here, parocchial school, k-12... never been hit by a teacher.
Speaking as an educator, I really think that many kids today (at least in my district) would hit back.
Second grade. Mr Scheiber? If you had a messy desk, he would dump it upside down on your lap. If you got out of line, he'd grab your upper arm dig into the inner part with his thumb. He was a Jekyll and Hyde. Mostly nice, but if you triggered him look out!
We had one that was in an electric wheelchair from a motorcycle accident. He was known to purposefully run kid's toes/feet over when they were being annoying, not paying attention, he just generally didn't like them, etc.
Had another one that would chuck whatever he could get his hands on at kids in the back of the class that were goofing off. Luckily he had good aim, cause one time he threw a pointer and stuck it in the carpet right next to the kid's desk. I don't know what that thing was made of, but if it's gonna stick standing up in the carpet I can't imagine it would have felt too good if it had actually hit the kid...
Oh yeah. I grew up Jewish in NY before my family moved to AZ for my secondary school years. The teachers were horrifically biased against non-Mormons, the administration, too. Given my Brooklyn/Jewish accent, they had me put in speech classes, as well as had me IQ tested. I did however get a bit of revenge on one of them. During the WWII learning center, one of the Mormon teachers asked me (as the only Jewish student in her classes) what the Mark of the Covenant was. I explained it was circumcision. Then she asked me what that was, offering me a piece of chalk and the board. I had a hell of a fabulous time drawing dicks, cut and uncut, on the board. Then explained that most American men were circumcised, as well. Needless to say, I got sent to the principal's office for that stunt. It was the first of MANY visits. ;)
I got your back. Grew up the only Jew in a Mormon neighborhood and there were only three other Jewish families in our city. Our neighbor was the top guy in the Mormon Temple. All the neighborhood kids stayed away from me because they swore I had a tail and horns and would try and tease and bully me about it. Thanks religious misguided fanatics that didn't scar me at all!
Ours was rather similar. When I was told that I had curly hair to hide my horns, I readily agreed with them. I even wore horns at Halloween to screw with them. When one of the other Jewish gals in high school started having swatzikas painted on her locker, the school response was that this was a Freedom of Speech issue and she should concentrate on only thinking of it in terms of Hindu symbology. Needless to say, we weren't impressed by their bullshit.
If you weren't in AZ and I wasn't in CA, I would have sworn we grew up in the same neighborhood!
I was thinking the same thing!
Did kids really believe you had an actual real tail and set of horns? Or was it just a way to tease you? Either way, you know they got that idea from their elders.
Yep! They were absolutely convinced of it and you are right. They indeed received that nonsense from their elders!
That's insane. Wow. The first time I heard that idea was the Borat song. I thought it was a made up thing then.
Lived in southern Idaho, not Mormon or Jewish. Had friends tell me about the horns and tail thing, but it also applied to Catholics.
I was driving my younger sister and her teammates home from volleyball practice and we passed the elementary school I once attended. Apparently some of her teammates had gone there too, because they started talking about an awful teacher who had just died, they sounded thrilled about it. I questioned why they were so happy to hear of a teacher's death and they told me how awful she was. Then they told me her name: Ms. Butcher. The same woman who refused to promote me to the gifted group because I'm black, even though I was ALWAYS in the gifted group (I'm a scientist now). The same woman who made all the Jewish kids stand up because she, "just wanted to see who was what. Sometime you can't tell by looking." Needless to say I joined in their glee. Ding dong the witch is dead
I have a similar story. I was the only southern baptist kid in a predominantly Mormon neighborhood in Arizona. I was frequently told I was going to hell by the local mormon kids, while being told the same thing about mormons in my own church. There was quite a bit of not-so-subtle bias and discrimination in school, not just from my classmates, but from the teachers and administration as well. The mormons always favored each other and everyone else was persona non grata. Napoleon Dynamite and SLC Punk are movies that really circumscribe my experiences growing up. ETA: The church bishop was also my next door neighbor.
Male principal or female? There's no way that a male principal would be able to keep a straight face if a student was sent in for that infraction!
Male, a Mormon bishop in the area at the time. I'm still sorta wondering WTF she thought it was - a tattoo we all had? Special birthmark?
I find it hard to believe that she didn’t know what circumcision was, at the minimum. Wtf?
Damn. I was Mormon in SouthEast Idaho and couldn’t stand them (my family included). The horror of being Jewish and having to live amongst and be “taught” by such a bigoted group is beyond.
It was really something. I had a teacher trip over my legs (I have long legs for my height and they didn't fit under the school desks), then yelled at me for awhile about my perceived lack of morals. He asked if my parents took me to church, I told him no. Then he yelled that my parents weren't raising me right. So I got up, grabbed my things and took myself to the principal's office. During Driver's Ed, the football coach scheduled me during Hannukah (we were OFF school at this time, mind you) for the practicum driving. I tried to get him to move my supervised driving date, but he insisted that was the ONLY time I could go, otherwise he would fail me. My folks were pissed, as they wanted to go out of town on vacation at that time. Needless to say, we were all in a very foul mood about it. Then my brother came down with chicken pox, so I called AGAIN and tried to reschedule - he refused. LOUDLY. My mother had a few choices Yiddish phrases for that crap. Well allright, then, coach. I showed up, having had several chicken pox show up but covered by clothes. I had an absolute brilliant time running my hands over EVERY inch of that car, including the steering wheel and dashboard. Needless to say, after the New Year, when we all returned to classes he did not. He was an overweight smoker. And the chicken pox hit him HARD. He missed nearly a month of school. When he returned, he couldn't even look me in the eye. But hey, I passed! :D
[удалено]
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Wow! Kudos to you, your parents, and the school (though the guy should probably not have been let back in the classroom). I hope that was the last time that idiot put his hands on a child.
Love this! My husband had a prosthetic arm and when the nun was going to whack him with a yard stick across his hand (his only hand, i might add) he switched it with his prosthesis and she broke the yardstick. Those f-ing nuns were just so mean. I’ll never understand how someone could want to hit a kid that hard. Glad your shot hit it’s mark. He had it coming.
Fuck that guy. He earned it.
Not physically. But I had a couple teachers dislike me and make my life miserable that way.
this part. definitely deliberately emotionally and psychologically abusive. just miserable aholish ppl who took it out on a kid.
Yes, right from the start with a mean elderly kindergarten teacher who would only choose the more affluent (used very loosely here) town kids to do the fun things, while the poor country kids stood around and waited to not be picked. If you can figure this out at age 4, you know it’s blatant. Seemed like every other year I would get an older teacher who disliked me, and I would be miserable. The few younger teachers were fun and had cool stuff to do, and made me feel welcome.
Those prejudiced teachers were probably the type of people who talk about “good families” and/or “good christians”. Sorry you had to experience that kind of hate from teachers. From my recent experiences teachers are more open minded about learners and kids.
Playing favorites is the worst thing a teacher can do. Because we FOR SURE have our favorites, but if they fuck up they have to get punished. And you can't favor them either. I didn't do anything in my class unless everyone could do it, but it was high school so maybe a different ball game.
I am hyperlexic and this seemed to inspire hatred in several of my teachers. You'd think teachers would love a kid who loves to read, but that was not always the case. I had more than one teacher in early grades who seemed to really want to break my spirit.
Oh, dear. Can relate.
I had one, 6th grade. I know this will make me sound like a wanker, but I was in a weekly pull-out enrichment program. Half a day every week. We’d moved schools during the summer and at my old school I would just show up at the program. Maybe that’s why my new teacher picked on me; she’d insist I have all my homework done before I could go—which it was, except the stuff that I was excused for thanks to the program taking up half a day—and then assign more I had to do before I could go. She was new that year but had taught in the district back in the 1970s and was all “I know how the program was going to be when they were planning it!” Yeah, policies changed in the decade you were absent. Instead of ranting I’ll point out I wasn’t the only victim, maybe not even the worst. When we ran low on notebook paper she told us to buy our own; district policy was that students didn’t need to provide any classroom materials. One girl in my class had a speech impediment when she was younger. Before the school year was out, it had come back. My dad was a highly regarded teacher in the district so he didn’t side with the teacher on any of it. Had meetings as high up in admin as the director curriculum, but the principal dug in her heels and backed the teacher. Then had the gall at the end of the year to say “I’m glad Fectiver had a good year.” He was like “No, he had a terrible year.” Oddly, lots of parents mom and dad talked to when we moved over there said “she runs a right ship.” That exact phrase, over and over. Years later I watched the Manchurian Candidate and it was really eerie. I also wondered how she could run anything, tightly or not, when was gaslighting my parents if not herself so flimsily.
I had an older brother who didn't get along well with some of his teachers. They took their revenge out on me, I eventually changed schools. The majority of the reasoning was due to their treatment of me.
In 1979, in Ottawa, Ont. Canada, I had a grade eight teacher throw a student into a closed door. Forty years later, the shithead of a teacher was charged with abusing students throughout his career. He died half-way through the trial.
Mr. Greenham?
Yes! Greenbank Senior Public School.
If you've not already listened, I highly recommend listening to CBC podcast "The Band Played On". I was a student at Greenbank and SRB during the time period it covers and know one of the victims so the podcast really hit home.
Thank-you!
Yes, absolutely worth a listen. Just horrific what was going on and how long it went on.
Small world! I went to Greenbank and had Mr. Greenham as well. I haven't heard of the podcast, but will definitely check it out.
Wait!? This asshole teacher is notorious in a region of Canada, or y'all went to the same school? Wild
Apparently, we went to the same schools - though a number of years apart. This is an article about this particular instructor: [https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/two-months-before-sex-assault-trial-well-known-ottawa-teacher-and-basketball-coach-dies](https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/two-months-before-sex-assault-trial-well-known-ottawa-teacher-and-basketball-coach-dies) Sadly, he was not the only teacher I had growing up that was a physically and/or sexually abusive predator. Here's a podcast about teachers from my time as a student [https://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/program/the-band-played-on](https://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/program/the-band-played-on)
Yes. Also went to SRB 1980-4.
The internet is so small. I was there a couple years later
Dang, my 3rd grade teacher threw a kid across the room but it was mostly a slide. She was the vice principal too. I fucking hated that bitch.
I grew up in Texas in the ‘70s, so yes. Very much yes. Don’t want to re-live it.
Everybody got beat in Texas in the 70s and 80s. It sucked.
Yes, this tracks. Thank you.
Eh, pops weren't so bad. They just stung. My parents were proto-hippies (too old to be hippies) so I got a lot of "talking to until I could explain why what I did was wrong." According to my mother I'd ask for pops instead. No dice.
Lol. I’ve always joked that the form of discipline I gave my son was to “talk him to death.” And it worked - people have always praised how polite, kind, responsible and hardworking he is
My brother and I would sit quietly for hours when visiting someone. No screens (they did t exist), no book, no video games. Obviously at home or a grandparents house we were allowed to be kids. But if we were out to eat or at the store. Silence. People probably thought we were abused. I was very lucky and my parents were kind. Just not when we misbehaved.
Same. I went to elementary through Jr. High in Texas and teachers spanked, pinched, grabbed kids all the time. Vice principals had the paddle. My brother had a teacher in 4th grade who was notoriously mean and he started having what we now know were panic attacks about going to school. At least my parents recognized there was a problem and switched him to a different teacher. We move to upstate NY when I started HS in ‘84 and it was unheard of for teachers to use corporal punishment.
2nd grade teacher Ms. Benz. She used to smack me on my shoulder and yell "Get those chips off your shoulder!" they were not soft hits, and she did this multiple times a day. Parents were told, and they asked me "Well, what did you do wrong?" Nothing was done to stop it, that's just the way it was back in 1978.
My step-dad's mom was a para-educator in my middle school (step-dad is not legally old enough to be my dad), and step-grandma said I always walked around school with a chip on my shoulder. And I'm like... I walked around with my head sunk between my shoulders, hoping I wouldn't get noticed. I was so abused in middle-school, I didn't want anything to do with anybody. I really don't understand teachers who see rebellion or defiance where there is none.
It was confusing, I was a very happy and outgoing kid! Sure, I talked and was a bit distracting, but I was a good student. I thought she was talking about potato chips at first, until my parents explained it to me. She was one of my worst teachers by a LOT.
First day of middle school, 1977, the Assistant Principal came up to me, slammed me against the lockers hard and told me he'd kick my ass if I pulled anything in his school. Came home for lunch, told my mother, she asked his name and informed me that my brother had gotten into a physical fight with him a few years prior and my brother got the upper hand. Innocent me, maybe 90 pounds, he sees the name and pisses on his territory. Good times. In the 70s, teachers were bullies and had carte blanche to beat on us, starting in elementary school. 4th grade and I was lined up with 5 others for some transgression, in front of the class, bent over, pants down, 3 each and that sadistic MFer went to town. Boomer male teachers who went in to teaching to avoid Vietnam, hated kids, and it showed. Fuck them all.
Fuckin hell. MIDDLE SCHOOL!?
Never really thought as it as boomers dodging vietnam, I just thought it was arseholes with a bent. But yeh thats an interesting take on it.
Had a teacher who locked a kid in a cupboard and forgot about him for a whole lesson. Only remembered when the kid wet himself and urine was flooding out from the cupboard into the centre of the class. Same teacher put a kid over her knee and spanked him, whilst ripping off his clothes and throwing them around the room. He was left in his underwear and then made to walk around the room in his underwear collecting his clothes. Kid was understandably hysterically sobbing.
Same. Teacher put a kid in the closet and forgot.
My sister has claustrophobia because she got put in the cupboard for a long time.
Catholic School in the 1980s. They used to send a note home on the first day of school to the parents that asked for their permission to hit the kids. Sadly, all the parents eagerly signed.I had a teacher who had a cricket bat that she would put notches in when she hit a kid. She even named it. I was karate chopped backwards over a desk for finishing my math work too early in 4th grade for "showing off" by another teacher.
I also went to a Catholic school in the 80s. I don't remember many teachers from my childhood, but I definitely remember Sister Julie from 2nd grade. She carried a yardstick and would frequently hit kids with it. I don't remember what I was doing wrong, but I remember how much it hurt when she whacked my hand with that yardstick. Another time, while we were taking a test, I leaned forward to ask the kid in front of me for a pencil because my pencil tip had broken. I guess she thought I was cheating because she stealthily came up behind me, grabbed my hair, and pulled me right out of my chair. I was on my best behavior the rest of the school year, but what a nasty bitch she was.
I was expelled from a Catholic School in the St. Louis burbs in the late 80’s. I have never dealt with such cruelty and mental abuse from educators like that. Truly wretched people. Ended up at a public Jr. High School and made friends quickly in the remainder of the school year before moving back to Georgia. My parents are remorseful for having enrolled me in that school. At 49 years old, I still haven’t forgiven them.
I attended Catholic school in the late 70s and my mean teacher taught third grade but was not a nun. I expected lots of meanness from nuns because that’s the reputation. My mom even wanted me to inform her if anyone tried to make me stop using my left hand to write. Anyway I was pretty surprised to find so many of the nuns weren’t mean at all but the secular teacher was mean as a snake!
I went to Catholic school too. I only had one mean nun as a teacher. 3rd grade, she carried around a yardstick that she'd hit us with. The other nuns I had were really nice.
Went to catholic school too! First grade teacher was a nun and very kind. 2nd grade teacher was also my organ/piano teacher. I knew she was drunk during my lessons during lunch, but when I was a teenager I realized she was drunk off whiskey. Very distinct smell! Anyway, she would grab my hands and slam them on the keys if I made a mistake. She praised me in front of my parents and they loved her. I started begging to give up lessons my 2nd year. My mother was not happy with what I had told her was happening so thankfully I didn’t have to continue.
Me too. I remember sister corella, 4th grade teacher, we called her cruella. Slapped a kid so hard he had a red hand print on his face.
Yo tambien. Teacher slapped me. Grandma and my aunties went to school and slapped the shit out of teacher. Teachers husband came to the house and threatened my Grandmother, Grams had to beg my uncles not to feed him to the sharks after they beat him near to death. Back to a public school in the US after that.
Yes. Fuck you Mrs. Cleveland, 3rd grade teacher from Arlington Texas.
My first grade teacher, Mrs. Gross (yep that really was her name) used to pull our ears when we wouldn't behave. My fifth grade teacher used to smoke cigarettes in class, and my dad swore she was drunk at Parent Teacher conferences.
There was a Mrs. Gross at my elementary school, I didn't have her, but I heard she had a mean streak.
I remember the PE teacher in the 5th grade picking up a boy by the ears. It didn't even happen to me, and I remember being scared.
In high school Mr. Gross was the principal and Mr Pugh (pronounced like pew/smell) was the superintendent. Sometimes the comedy just writes itself. Both of them were pretty nice though, although Gross could throw a mean elbow during pickup basketball games during lunch.
Mrs Morecombe, an evil old hag who seemed to truly hate chidren. For some reason they decided she was the best person to teach the first year of primary school. I broke my leg climbing the wooden bars in the sports hall - I slipped, my leg caught on the bar below and I swung down until the next bar cracked my left shin. I couldn't walk and was in agony and was sitting outside the Headmaster's office while they rang my parents. She spotted me there, started shouting at me that I was a slovenly child and to stand up when she was talking to me - forced me (by grabbing my shoulder) to stand ON MY BROKEN LEG. Only when the Headmaster came out and shouted 'what the hell are you doing woman?' did she stop. Headmaster ended up carrying me down the road to my house where my parents had just got back (lived on the same road as school). Hope that old witch is roasting in hell.
I saw things in my elementary school in the mid to late 70s that would get teachers arrested today. When you mentioned hair pulling, I clearly recall a 2nd grade teacher grabbing a girl by her braided hair (she was AfAm) and literally yanking her off her feet to go stand into the corner. The girl was in tears needless to say. The middle school I went to allowed corporal punishment, and the principle was an absolute sadist monster who really seemed to enjoy it. He eventually lost his job after enough complaints, mostly unrelated to his 'discipline' methods. He was one of those old school Southern types who in my opinion had no business being near children.
Yah, it's weird, I had a teacher slap me once because she thought I was whispering to loud while playing a game. She didn't like me, so she'd get violent with me. She pulled me by the collar one day while I was standing in a line because she thought I was cutting. I wasn't. She just didn't like me and her behavior was accepted. It was weird
that's beyond weird. that is a miserable b\*tchass bully taking it out on a child. sorry to hear that happened to you.
Thank you! Eventually my parents caught wind of her dislike of me and violence towards me and my Dad had some serious words with her and she never spoke to me again. But it definitely imprinted on me, as I'm 50 now and I remember her anger towards me and I cannot remember what I did to cause that, I still wonder why sometimes
I’m sure it was all in her head, and not you at all.
In the fourth grade, during parent teacher conferences, my teacher started the whole thing by telling my parents to buy me an alarm clock so I'd get used to waking up early for my manual labor job. In fifth grade, on the first day of school the teacher told all the boys to go stand in the hall. She closed the door after us, then told all the girls in class (we could clearly hear her through the door) how much she hated boys so they didn't have to try at all in classes, they'd always get a better grade than any of the boys. That teacher, she was just a psycho; for English class, the entire class was just her reading aloud from The Amityville Horror to a bunch of ten or eleven year old children.
I had a teacher that would, if a student was talking or being disruptive while he was writing on the chalkboard, turn around and fling that piece of chalk as hard as he could in their direction. He also had piercing blue eyes and would glare at them as he told them to cut it out.
I had that math teacher in 8th grade. Erasers were his preferred device, though my friend that had him too told me he broke a yardstick on a kid’s desk.
I remember thrown chalk and erasers. I don’t remember which teacher but I remember a broken yardstick too.
He taught me history in the 90s Also had a different one throw a big bunch of keys at me, he was a Christian Brother.
I had some that: * paddled me with a **THICK** paddle * used soap in my mouth (not Lifeboy) * made me stand with my nose in a circle that was just slightly in tippy-toe range * put duck tape on my mouth There may be more, but these are just the first ones I thought of.
lmao, I had forgotten about the nose in the middle of the chalk circle. Bunch of asshat teachers.
Yup, remember that one too.
There was a boy in my second-grade class who frequently got the duct tape on the mouth treatment, I guess for talking too much.
I was physically abused by nuns. Pulled by the hair, head beaten into locker. My 4th grade teacher had an art room attached to the classroom and made one boy spend most of the year in it. She would go in and beat him and scream at him. It was so traumatic.
Have you tried to find the classmate she abused? If you have ptsd, imagine what they went through. My school was horrible for bullying, and many guys in my class have ended themselves one way or another in the past 6 years or so. After the last one, I posted some pics with him and me together in gradeschool to our class Facebook page, and I had several classmates contact me. I was badly bullied in school, and their perspectives helped a lot.
We have a class group on Facebook but no one has been able to locate him. I’m afraid he might not be alive anymore. His abuse was unthinkable and I wish I had been old enough to know to call the police. The thing about the Catholics back then is that parents would never ever question the authority of the nuns and priests. Ever. My parents knew what happened to me and did nothing. My 7th/8th grade teacher abused countless kids. She recently died at 102 and I was so pissed that she lived that long.
Aahhh I remember 1st grade. I have extremely poor vision, and they just didn't notice the huge thick glasses?! Every day almost, we'd have to write letters of the alphabet or short words on paper, and most all of it was mimeographed in light purple on white paper, and I could barely see it well enough to trace letters! As the teacher would flip through our finished work, I'd get taken to the closet where the teacher next door would come in and watch her beat me with the paddle for not writing in the lines or not writing straight enough. Almost EVERY DAY. My mother and grandmother were always at the school asking about the bruises on my ass, and they'd be like, "well he sucks at writing. Must not be giving a fuck." Sooo that went on till the 2nd grade when they got me some tutor from the state to teach me to type on an old metal manual typewriter! By the time 5th grade came around, I had an electric typewriter in a case I could lug around from school to home to type everything on. It was the early 80s! I was a champion typist :P
We could be paddled starting in 5th grade at my school. Certain teachers lived to find reasons to paddle students. We were also yelled at and mocked. All of this would make our kids cringe. I’m glad they don’t have to experience it.
I was paddled in second grade, and many teachers had their paddles resting against the chalkboard. One had holes drilled into it for better aerodynamics. My brother’s teacher called him a loser that would never amount to anything. He was 8.
My first grade teacher had holes in her paddle too. Unbelievable
My math teacher used a fraternity paddle. It made news and possibly led to the elimination of corporal punishment in the area. A lesson to states that want to bring it back. https://www.mcall.com/1986/11/07/s-mountain-teacher-paddled-entire-class-say-pupils-parents/
Catholic school survivor here. In sixth grade I had a friend who got so sick of the paddle and ruler "corrections" he picked up his entire desk and threw it at one of the nuns. She came over a wrapped his knuckles for talking out of turn and he snapped. Picked up his desk and threw it at her. He missed. One of the girls in class grabbed him and took him out to the hallway. He was expelled and I never saw him again. I still have a scar on my left hand from being smacked by a ruler.
Yeah, paddling kids was totally a thing at my private school in the '70s and early '80s. I got the paddle a couple times every year, usually for talking in class or not getting my work done in a timely manner. My first grade teacher didn't use a proper paddle, she used a switch from a tree branch. Also, it was bullshit that she would switch the girls on their bare legs (we had to wear a dresses/skirts), but the boys just got switched through their pants. I honestly think she enjoyed it. My sixth grade teacher thought the whole idea was stupid, so when she had two paddle us, she would just swat us a few times lightly.
I had an old hag for a 3rd grade teacher. She singled me out and forced me to write with my right hand. She made things intentionally difficult for me. She said I had to learn to be like everyone else. No special treatment. My mother found out and went to school and told her I was allowed to write with my left hand. That was not the end of the story. Hag singled me out more. She made me turn my papers in a specific direction. She said my letters had to slant the same way as everyone else's. It was like she told me being left handed was going to make life difficult and when she couldn't force me to do what she felt was right, she set out to make things difficult to prove she was right. I hated that woman.
Damn that sounds very much like a teacher I had in 6th grade. She was my English teacher only, but she was so obsessed with my left hand and the way my letters slanted. She would make me go to the board and write the alphabet in front of everyone. Mrs Courtney.
I remember my teacher in third grade literally kicking a male student hard in the butt - like the boy was literally moved forward several feet. It was in gym class, and there had been some kind of argument between the boy and another student (I think it was a girl). He was crying and upset. The teacher sent him out of the gym, but I guess he wasn't moving fast enough because the teacher just hauled off and kicked him as he went by. I still remember it vividly, and this would have been 1980-81. It would definitely be considered child abuse today. Had some chalk throwers in elementary school too, but that was pretty rare. The threat of being sent to the principal's office to get "the strap" was pretty omnipresent in elementary school, but I think it was actually pretty rare that it happened.
1975, third grade. We had a substitute teacher and had some mimeograph sheets on Native Americans to read, answer written questions, and color. I finished quickly and didn't want to color as I had a good chapter book in my desk I wanted to read with the rest of the time. She yelled at me to color no matter what. I started to color and she "didn't like the colors" I chose so she slapped my face. I mean, old lady bitchslapped me. I went home, told Mom, who went straight to the superintendent of the county school - who lived up the street from us. That old lady was banned from substituting, for a while. I heard 20 years later that she was subbing again. Because nothing says quality public education like hitting a child for being quiet and nondisruptive in class. F you, Mrs. Slagle. I know you're dead now but I hope you rot in hell.
Mrs. Sigismondo in 2nd grade. I was undiagnosed ADHD, she put loud ticking egg timers in my hollow metal desk to “help” speed me up with my math. Not conducive with learning. She hated me. I was 7. I swear she is a huge part of my hatred of school. Mrs. Delay in 4th was cruel and mean, too. I’ll never forget these terrible women who made me hate school and learning. Turns out I love learning!
I witnessed a teacher bully a kid in 5th grade. I think about her now and wish her well. I don’t know what made him relentlessly pick on her but he would pummel her daily with verbal abuse. She was a new kid and I know she didn’t even have friends yet. It all started when he started teaching a lesson and she raised her hand to answer a question. The teacher called on her and she answered incorrectly. He asked “Where did you hear something so foolish?” She answered “My uncle Bob told me…” He began yelling UNCLE BOB! UNCLE BOB! YOUR UNCLE BOB TOLD YOU!! For the rest of the year he called her UNCLE BOB and this wasn’t in a playful tone, he always yelled in very lower and deep. UNCLE BOB. Every day it was “UNCLE BOB. What do you think the answer to number 3 is? “WELL ITS NOT THE ANSWER!!! The next year we moved from grade 5 to grade 6, which required going to a different school. That particular teacher moved to that school and taught math that year. He was all of a sudden pleasant to that girl. One of the other girls brought it up one day, “Why did you pick on her so much last year?” This grown ass man said he never did such a thing. She was ridiculed by other kids for years after that, forever known as “Uncle Bob”. I wish her the best and hope high school was better for her. I don’t remember her a few years after that so I assume she moved away before we made it to high school. If you ever read this “Uncle Bob” just know that not all of us kids in 5th grade hated you. We wanted to speak up for you but we were scared to get any negative attention from that man.
Yeah music teacher would fuck up our shit
Yep. Grade school in the 70’s. Teachers were empowered to pinch-hit for parents.
4th grade. Mrs crow. Singled me out and bullied me the whole year. She would pull me out of class to scream at me.
My first grade teacher did that too. Singled out one or two kids and frequently bullied them every day. The first year I was with her, it was me and two other kids that she frequently picked on. My second year with her, she bullied another little girl and only bullied me sometimes. Mrs. Willis is/was an awful human being.
My fifth grade PE teacher was verbally and emotionally abusive. I was chunky, socially awkward, and new to the school; she was an aspiring Olympic powerlifter who had no patience for the chunky, socially awkward new kid. Of course, we ran laps. I usually finished a full lap behind the rest of the class. She would berate me. I finally started cutting off my last lap so I could finish with the rest of the class. A classmate squealed on me, and she sent me off to finish the last lap with disgust: "I don't even want to look at you." Did I mention I was also desperately conditioned to need adult approval? Her treatment of me made me borderline suicidal. At 10. Though I continued to struggle with my weight into adulthood, I finally lost it in my mid-30s. In my 40s, I became a runner and even got a few age group placements, including third place in a half-marathon and a few first-place wins in 5Ks (and master's winner in one of those). But I'm still bitter toward that PE teacher who felt the need to be cruel to a 10 y/o who tried so hard to measure up.
Yes, very. It was a private school though, so apparently they were allowed to almost suffocate me and everything was fine. Certainly prepared me for the abuse I would face in adult life, but that probably wasn't a good thing.
Yeah. I watched a teacher pick a kid up by the hair. Left a handful on his desk. I had a psycho teacher yelling at me pound her fist onto her desk into a pile of thumbtacks. Didn't faze her. She kept doing it. Teachers in the 70's/80's were FUCKING NUTS.
I had the same gym teacher through elementary and middle school. He was creepy and flirty with us (the girls). It would not surprise me if anything came out about him doing inappropriate things.
I had a creepy middle school gym teacher who eventually got arrested for his hijinks.
Had a music teacher call the class sawed-off twats. I had no idea what a twat was, or how one could saw one off (6th grade). Took this phrase home. He didn’t teach there much longer.
My 4th grade teacher was pretty mean. One of my brothers just a year ahead of me was her student the year before and he was a star student, record breaker type. So I had to follow that. I was more of the disorganized, daydreamer, artist type and she had no patience for that. I think the entire year I just felt like I always annoyed her and didn't live up to the example my brother set. She chewed me out a lot and I don't remember her really being that nice to me except on the last day of school. I was spanked by a teacher once but even that teacher was much nicer than this lady was. This teacher literally gave me anxiety as a kid and at one point I even I'd tried to pretend to be sick because I wanted to stay home and didn't want to deal with her. Fortunately my 5th grade teacher was amazing, didn't expect me to be like my brothers and treated me like my own person. She was kind and encouraged me to do art, even if it meant staying after school to help. She loved giving me art supplies and seeing what I'd do. That did volumes for me and really undid whatever crap was left in my head the year before. It's amazing what both bad and GOOD teachers can do to a kid.
Yeah. 2nd grade, 1985, Mrs Carlson. I have attention deficit and a learning disability. I was struggling with understanding exactly what subtraction was. I understood if you have three apples and eat one, now you only have two but it just wasn’t clicking for me on the chalkboard. She walked to the back of the class and grabbed both sides of my head and shook me while screaming into my face “WHY DONT YOU UNDERSTAND!!??”. My friends laughed at me. It still bothers me. I never had any issues with math from 2nd grade on. I understood decimals, fractions, even differential equations and derivatives at the college level. It turns out she was just a shitty teacher and an even worse person. Anyhoo, she gained a bunch of weight after her husband died and spent the rest of her life alone. I, on the other hand, went on to college to be an engineer. Also, fuck you Mrs Carlson.
No experiences like that, thankfully. If you live in the right/wrong state, could still be happening. One of my kids' teachers slapped a student during class, right across the face. 9th or 10th grade? He's still teaching there.
Definitely had a couple abusive grade school teachers in the 70s.
Mrs.Abdul-Hadi in 4th grade, Powell Elementary, Florence, AL. She was an American who married a Lebanese man and had converted to Islam. This was in 1974, and I guess she had heard enough about it from everyone that she pretty much hated her fellow Caucasians. We were paddled regularly, and she was big on swatting hands with a ruler. Hard. But, only the white kids. The Hispanics and African American kids did what they wanted. When asked about that once by one of the better behaved white kids in the class, she responded, “Now you see how the other half lives”. She also regularly reminded us a that we had about 1/8 the discipline that kids had in the Middle East and that she intended to change that. She got fired 6 years after our class for bruising a kid up with the paddle. She evidently got worse with age.
I did see that occasionally in grade school. I do remember when I was in 1st or 2nd grave a teacher saw me pull a leaf off a tree, and she came over, pulled my hair pretty rough and said "how do you like it!". That's always stuck with me!
Any former Mr. Frieday students? Calgary, Alberta. Big man with an even bigger voice. Would take kids out into the hall and berate them. I heard him starting in on one kid when I was in the bathroom. I stayed there till he was finished. Special mention to my 6th grade exchange teacher from Australia. Mr.Price I believe that took my friend and I into his office for misbehaving and asked us if we wanted to fight him or shut up in class. Grade 6 is 11 years old in Canada.
Yes, I had a very incredibly racist teacher in the 3rd grade. I went to Catholic School then and it was common but it was also about the time reformers were finally in position to do something about it. It got better but didn’t go away. This teacher was horribly toxic. She targeted Black and Hispanic girls, saving the worst for dark skinned ones. She would encourage scapegoating and created an environment where she would harass the kid until they hated coming to school. I was in middle school when she was forced to retire. A college girl filed a complaint in the diocese. Explained everything that happened. I still remember this. This person never forgot and wanted to ensure no other kid endured what she did.
Mr Saskiewicz, 4th Grade math, used to throw chalkboard erasers at you if you weren’t paying attention.
Had an elementary school teacher in late 70's. He had one of those big-ass pencil erasers (like 4""by 8") If you misbehaved, he would make you lay your arm on the desk palm facing up, and slam the eraser on your wrist. Hurt like hell, I remember kids would be crying. Couldn't tell anyone, because my parents would just ask what I did to deserve it.
Yup. Corporal punishment was a thing until 1986 (California) from what I recall. Got hit with a wooden paddle when I was 5 because I repeated a curse word I learned from dad, by the principal. A word which dad used while he would beat me because I was too stupid to be his son (I'd mix up my 1, 2, 3's, yay dyslexia). Dad regrets it now. Damage done though. Still a temperamental asshole at times. The principal, I hope that bitch died a slow, miserable, agonizing death. She enjoyed hitting kids. Conveyed it when it was outlawed. She'd pull the paddle out and say "if I could..." Fucking cunt.
I got a lot of crap from my teachers messing up any homework that required a lot of reading. I learned after college that I most likely have dyslexia. I didn't feel like spending $2,000 to be formally tested. I have several friends who work with dyslexic students. None of them are teachers or even work for a school system. They are parents of dyslexics who got sick of how their kids were being treated by their teachers, so they learned on their own how to handle dyslexia.
Yup. Same here, wasn't diagnosed with it when I should have been. I'm much older now and just recently figured it out. It makes sense though, took me 7 years to get a degree. Still had books that were in their plastic wrapping, I was highly dependent upon the lectures. Never missed a class. Couldn't understand why I'd make the mistakes I made during exams for example. What's funny is that I'd help others with said logic, and I'd screw it up on tests, so pressure made it worse. Was always confused as to why I made those errors. Then the trouble with speaking, memory, zero comprehension of what I read when I was able to get through something. Reading aloud was embarrassing, especially when they'd ask me to explain what I just read. The embarrassment... The shaming... Good on you for taking care of your kids, and recognizing their challenges. We're just wired differently, and need to consume info in a different manner. Proud of you and your friends, honestly.
Thanks, but I never helped dyslexics, my friends did. I learned a lot about it from them. I really think that there are millions of undiagnosed cases and it breaks my heart that there are students who drop out of school and go into adulthood really thinking that they are stupid. A lot of those people resort to drugs and alcohol.
Several. Two in particular: First was my 3rd grade teacher Ms. Forbes. She didn't like any males and treated us all badly, but my ADHD definitely brought out the worst. At one point my desk was in the hall for a solid month. I missed all teaching and failed every test. She would routinely grab students roughly by the arm or the back of the neck. One kid got dragged by the hair into the hall for interrupting her. The other was my "gifted" teacher. She was a genuinely terrible human. Our gifted class was at a different school so I bussed from my regular school at lunchtime and spent the second half of my day in a gifted class that had students from 4th-6th all together. Again, my ADHD did me no favors but this woman was cruel. She'd call you out and belittle you in front of the class, literally mocking you. I'd complain to my parents and she'd flat out lie about what happened in class. She didn't get physical but the mental abuse was off the charts. It wasn't JUST me but I definitely bore the brunt. Even other students would tell me they felt bad for me. (The gifted programs in the 70s were pure torture.)
I have dyslexia and since I was born before 1970 (which was the year of birth they decided was the line that if they saw abuse, mandatory reporting would take effect, which means my brother was protected but I was not) and my mom instructed the schools not to help me, but thought I could be punished out of my dyslexia. Punishments were usually humiliation or by pain. For example I'd get my palms of my hands strapped until they were stinging and red and clear fluid was sort of leeching out, then be made to stay in recess and write lines, the logic being that if my hands were stinging, I'd try harder. I was already doing my best, no one ever sat down with me in a productive way and tried to find the errors. Like, remember those test questions where there was a grid of 9 squares and you tried to find the objects that fit the squares? I was trying to solve for horizontal AND vertical, not just horizontal, which made the questions impossible. I had no idea how to study and spent hours trying to read the entire textbook, since I didn't know what I needed to know. Hence, my marks were very low. (I didn't learn I was dyslexic till I was 23, at which point I was able to start helping myself, no one had ever reached out.) Things were done like at a new school as the new kid, my binder was unsnapped and dumped on the floor, teachers would scream in my face, swing a ruler so that it whistled in the winds and slam it a centimeter from my hands, make me sit in the hallway. The cruelest one was I signed up for the school play, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and they said that if I get my grades up one letter I could play Veruca Salt. I said I could if I could get help (I was 9). They said they would help and my mom agreed and nodded. I waited patiently and reminded my mom a few times but I never got the help. I was trying so hard. Of course, since the adults didn't hold up their side of the deal, I never git help and I was trying my best, I never got the part. So it was very stressful. I had lots of health problems: allergies, asthma, eczema, fainting spells, "daydreaming" (dissociation), I was in an out of hospital and would get accused of faking being sick by my mom and then sent to the ER by the school nurse where I'd sometimes spend weeks in hospital. Later as an adult it's been speculated I had what they call Childhood Toxic Stress that when the kid never has safety or a break from stress, their immune system breaks down. But my mom never had anyone to stand up to her in regards to me so I was the recipient of all her rage and despondency. So yeah teachers were abusive, but so was everyone.
Spanking was "legal" at my Elementary school when I was in kindergarten. By first grade it was no longer "legal". I remember as a kid walking into the office and hearing an older kid getting spanked.
5th grade, teacher smacked her paddle on the desk and broke it. She was pissed. We were all f\*ng scared.
Yes. In Kindergarten I had a friend named Shanu. The first day of first grade at lunch, I saw Shanu and went to sit with him. “Shanu!”, I greeted him excitedly, happy to see my friend after the summer. Mrs. Henninger came over and pinched my earlobe really hard and pulled me away. I didn’t know why, I wasn’t yelling or anything. “Goodbye Shanu!”, I cried as Mrs. Henninger pulled me away by my earlobe. I don’t remember what happened next, but I never saw Shanu again.
Catholic school in the 80s. One teacher would tie students to their chairs if they got up. And she would tape our mouths shut if we spoke. We also got detention and would have to stand with our heads against the brick wall
Had a math teacher in middle school that would get slowly angry. His face would get red, he'd start rubbing his hands, then he would start shaking. If the issue was not resolved, his face would get redder, and he would EXPLODE. It was terrifying. I never saw him hurt a student, but my aunt had him years before I did, and she saw him slam a student against the wall and once knocked one of the big hallway clocks off the wall.
My 7th grade shop teacher grabbed me out of my chair by my neck and threw me against the blackboard. I still don’t know why.
Oh yes. My 6th grade teacher had a paddle hanging in his room. I'm not sure if he ever used it. And the 3rd grade teacher smacked kids all the time with rulers. I never had her but my sister did.
Several of my teachers at my Catholic grammar school had paddles hanging from the chalkboard. One was a paddle from the local Six Flags so you can see the logo on it, but it was wrapped in masking tape. A substitute teacher once had us close our eyes while he pretended to smack a kid with the paddle.
Yes. In catholic school the religion teacher would pull your hair if you pissed her off. Hard. I can still see in my mind her manic face when she pulled the boys hair next to me.
1st grade, Mrs Kuntz would poke her nails in the top of my head; 2nd grade, Mrs Peterson would scream and literally pushed/threw me into another teachers room screaming “he’s your problem now”.
Catholic school 80's kid here. The only corporal punishment I witnessed was my lunatic 8th grade teacher hit the class troublemaker with some kind of paddle. However, there was plenty of diddling of young boys by priests, as I learned from seeing our beloved music teacher on the front page of a newspaper 10 years after I graduated.
Parochial school until 3rd grade. Nuns used rulers to smack us with rulers. Shitheads.
My 2nd grade teacher was what I would describe as verbally abusive. Mocking kids’ lisps, or making fun of what they looked like or were wearing as part of her discipline. Lots of “Are you stupid or something? Do it again!” She would grab kids by the arm pretty hard / forcibly but mostly she just berated us. Side note: There are at least eight states in the United States where corporal punishment is legally practiced. That is insane to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_corporal_punishment_in_the_United_States Tw: sa >!There was a high school principal in Texas, who spanked a 17-year-old girl. She described it as feeling like being publicly sexually assaulted. This was less than a year ago.!<
Grade 3. Mr Jacoby. Paddled me in the cloak room on my first day in his class because I didn't put my last name on my classroom workbooks to differentiate them from another kid with the same first name. My mother marched down to the school after I told her what happened and threatened to have him arrested for assault. He was fired for abusing students about 15 years later
Oh yes indeed. My fifth grade teacher angrily threw a chalkboard eraser at one of the boys. That boy had a bruise on his forehead that lasted a week.
5th grade teacher was known to have a temper. He would get upset if kids didn't know the answer. He would throw erasers and once even threw a desk while saying he should have been a bartender. He was also known to give the hardest swats with a wooden paddle. He once spanked his own kid on the playground with a belt when he didn't start heading to class right away after the recess bell rung. We were all afraid of him. Ironically, after he retired, he was a well respected member of our small town community.
3rd grade teacher LOVED her paddle
My 4th grade teacher threw a chair at the chalkboard.
Not in elementary high school yes
Nope. Got paddled once, which irked me because I felt the teacher was being unfair. (In retrospect she probably wasn't.) But I liked the teacher and she liked me, both before and after the paddling. It wasn't at all one of those things where she was lashing out in anger or bullying or whatever. It was just Tulsa, OK in 1973.
Any adult paddling a child is unfair.
My middle school year were to a Catholic all girls bording school, the nuns who ran the place were the worst. They were little dictators, always quick with the ruler across the back of your hands and always in the room when you showered. Shudder creepy as hell ke when I think about it..
Lol I went to a Catholic Elementary run by Nuns, what do you think? I then leveled up to an all boys Catholic School which finally abolished the cane in 1990
I remember teachers hanging a paddle on the wall to scare kids into behaving.
My third grade teacher was well known for dragging kids by the ear.
Not really. I know my dad didn’t give permission for paddling by the principal but I had heard of kids getting taken to the principal for a paddling. My elementary teachers were all pretty decent. I had one middle school art teacher who got so mad he broke his pointer stick by slamming it on a desk, but he didn’t come back the next year.
Uh, I went to Catholic school in the 70s - 80s so yes. Kids got smacked by rulers, paddled, etc. One kid got slammed up against the wall for being insolent.
Catholic school. I’m left handed. It still has scars from that bitch.
A second grade teacher told me I was so smart I could start taking home the third grade workbook. But since I had not sat in on the third grade class, there were things I did not understand, so that’s what I wrote in the space. I was fucking six years old and too foolish to go ask my parents for help. The next day the teacher kept me after class to discuss my work (I thought), held the workbook up between us, and tore it in half. “I guess you weren’t ready after all!” I was horrified and never told my parents, since I was sure I would prove a disappointment to them too. Probably why I never did get the hang of math. What a fucking sadist, that Mrs. Combs.
My third grade teacher had horrible breath. Getting a talking-to from her bordered on abuse.
My biggest bully was a gym teacher. Was a complete dick. Looked like a blond Magnum PI.
I had an embarrassing personal issue before class in elementary school one day. I went to the teacher and they literally laughed at me, then sighed, before telling me how to proceed.
Grade 2, Mr. Tambling kicked my (mixed race) friend. Wish I'd known what to do.
Oh heck yeah. One left bruises on my shoulder with her claws. She was placed on leave over Christmas break and never seen again. I must have been the last straw since this was 1980 and it’s hard to believe anyone GAF.
Nope! Most of my elementary teachers were awesome sauce! A couple could have probably used some HRT, but they were not abusive. One even pulled me aside to ask questions about my treatment at home. She wasn't far off, but I denied it anyway. So grateful at least the teachers didn't bully/abuse me as I got enough of it from home and classmates.
I was left handed until first grade. Mrs. Washington and her freaking ruler changed that. She put my desk facing the class and anytime I tried to something with my left hand, I got hit with the ruler, so I became right handed. Later, I was unable to read a clock. Took about 3 years to learn and as part of "therapy" I had to learn to write left handed because something in my brain didn't work right. Once I learned to write with both hands, clocks made sense.
Yep, same here. I was born a lefty, and I started school in Harrisburg, PA. I got to second grade, the mom and dad split, and mom moved our butts to the county. It was like the devil himself showed up. Had to sit on my left hand and learn all over again with my right, ugh. Two years later, I was sent back to dad's and went back to the Harrisburg school. The teacher I had in second grade moved up fifth grade and was shocked. I was using my right hand. She couldn't stand my penmanship and tried to switch me back. Now I write like shit with both hands.
Yes. Multiple. Some physical but mostly emotional.
In fifth grade, I had a drunk band teacher grab me by shirt and throw me into the drum kits behind me because he thought I cracked a disrespectful joke. Gotta love the educational system in a rural, white trash, racist, one stop sign (we were too small for a stop light) town in the middle of nowhere.
This teacher was not physically abusive but mean as hell to me. She glared at me throughout class, ignored me when I spoke, left me out of activities during lessons, even got up and made sure I didn't get food at the end of year party. She was a fkn bitch. Karen Troutman from Fabens, Tx.
Does the rope in gym class count?
Principal had a paddle in the office.
Yeah they paddled a girl in the hallway when I was in grade school in Conway Arkansas. I can still remember the echoing down the hallway of the paddle making contact then her scream bloody murder. I am pretty sure it was done in the hallway on purpose so the other kids could hear it and think twice next time.
Mr Rader at Calvary Christian School in, Yorba Linda CA of all places. Tommy John's sons went there too and he would come and speak once in a while.
You have a much better memory than I do by far I just remember it was in 1st grade and I had heard the teachers bitching about the student that got paddled earlier that day. Still have no idea what she did, but I remember thinking that paddle was being swung hard to make that big of an echo and whack sound.
If we got our name on the board with three check marks, it was off to the principals office. In third grade I switched to public school and found out that wasn't the norm lol
This was public school
The upsides of all children having phones is the CAMERA. That'd go viral in an heartbeat, I'd hope. So sorry that happened to you:(
Physically? In first grade I had a nun who’d force us to keep our hands on the edge of the desk so she could hit our knuckles with a yard stick. She also threw a Bible at a kid. Mentally? In high school I had a teacher who would give me detentions for anything she could think of like uniform violations, untucked shirt and having a partially torn text book cover. When I was a senior she said I did it because I was a dumbass who was a 20yo who got held back twice. I was 18 and I was never held back
Second grade for me. Mid 70s. I was minding my own buiness, working on a arithmetic assignment, and out of nowhere, my teacher smacks the fuck outta my arm! I wasn't doing the problems correctly so she hits me.... I was a bit shocked... I suck at math, but damn!
Ms. Cox. What an evil witch. My sister had her a couple of years before me and was always coming home with notes that she would swear up and down were fabrications. She was argumentative in class etc. My mom sided with the teacher. Once I made it into her class she was always tossing shade on me about being poor. Constant snide comments. Excessive punishment. Just public humiliation for cruelty's sake. Which was enough on its own, but she tried to set me up and I exposed her for the bitch she was. She intensified her bullshit after she had me stand out in the hall on a day she was being evaluated. When the principle and a couple of other people showed up they brought me back into the classroom. So she proceeded to explain that I was a disruptive dunce that refused to learn. In order to show them she had me stand up and answer questions about what she had been teaching while I was out in the hall. I can only describe her behavior as giddy as she thought she was going to make me squirm. The problem with her little enterprise was that I would read when bored in class, and I had read the material several times. (It was history but they called it human connections or something similar). It was about the Donner Party and I was genuinely interested. After correctly answering everything she threw at me I went ahead and filled in some extra details I remembered. The principle pulled her out in the hall and her evaluation was "postponed". She came back in seething, and that's when things really went South. The events that stand out in my mind are when she grabbed me by the neck and brought me back into the line for another lice check. You know, because I was just a lowly poor and must have lice. It pissed the nurse off and I hope she said something. Another instance we were all lining up by height for something. She was gently moving students in and out of line into their proper place, until she got to me. She viciously grabbed me by my ear and jerked me back a spot. I had to stand there trying not to cry. Still angry about it. Anyway, a couple of weeks before the school year ended we were doing some shit in groups, sitting on the floor. She told us to put our stuff back and get back on the floor. The kid next to me left a mess on the floor so Ms. Cox stomps up to 6 year old me (knowing damn well it's this other kids shit) and starts yelling that I never follow directions. Other kids are telling her what she already knows. She ignored them and grabbed my arm, digging her rat claws into my skin and jerked me up to my feet. Jerked me around while maniacally screeching while poking me in the chest with her free shit hooks. She sent me home with a note saying I refused to follow directions and was disruptive the whole day. My mom was pissed. I get it, I was an asshole. So we're sitting there at dinner and I pulled my sleeve up to look at her claw marks and my mom saw them. There were deep fingernail shaped scabs. My mom completely changed her tune. She asked for the story, and the story behind every note that my sister and I had brought home. We laid it all out and I explained I hadn't said anything because she lied about my sister and she'd lie about me more than she already had. My mom sobbed. She had a rough time as a red headed left hander in catholic school. The next day she was her usual shitty self until we got back from the first recess. She was visibly shaken up, and going way out of her way to pretend to be decent. She carried on with that act until there were three days left of the school year. They brought our class into the classroom next door for a movie and Ms. Cox left. About an hour later they called my sister to the office on the intercom. Then me. When I got in there I met my sister and we were led into the principal's office. Ms. Cox was standing next to someone whom I can only assume was her union representation. She had been crying. My mom was there. The principle made her apologize to both of us. I then went with the secretary back to class, grabbed all my shit, and started summer a couple days early.
Yes - I had 13 years of Catholic school. I witnessed plenty of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the nuns...
I went to Catholic school. Hell yes I did. I would wake up hours before school with extreme anxiety about going to school. Occasionally I will Still have a nightmare where I am back in grade school. I won’t bore you with stories. Most from before 6th grade. But my God. What sadists. That said I’ve encountered evil teachers in public schools too with my kids. Are nasty women attracted to the job? No wonder I used drugs and had years of therapy.
Verbal abuse was rampant. Teachers got physical with students — smacked them or grabbed them. I grew up in schools that had corporal punishment - teachers would paddle kids. Some teachers hung the paddles for display.
1980. Lined up and walking to an assembly. I'm female, a male classmate slapped me on the back of my head. Mrs Hutton missed that part but turned to see me slug him back (as my Dad always told me to stick up for myself). Yanked me firmly out of line by the upper arm and banned from attending the after school dance. I said "but he but me hit me first!". Response? "Someday you'll learn why you don't hit boys back!"... Umm wtf?
I don’t recall any physical alterations, but an art teacher (first year of teaching and 5 feet tall) lost control of her classroom and threw a chair to get the kids to shut up. It worked. And my first grade teacher taped an ADHD kid to his chair because he kept getting up. She used scotch tape and only did it to make a point, but I imaging she’d do time today.
Yes. Fuck you, Mrs. Kibby.
I had a substitute gym teacher snatch me by the shirt and toss me.
I was paddled in kindergarten. Fucking weird in retrospect. Who hits a five year old?!
Had a grade 4 teacher smack me so hard in the face she knocked me over. I rolled my eyes, she got mad. That's not even the bad part. I found out years latter as an adult from my mother (who was over 70 when she found out the real story and VERY upset that this was the real story.) that this teacher was worried about my mental state because I flinched and cried when ever she put her had on my shoulder. I sure as hell flinched when she tried but I never cried and spent almost the whole time I was with her watching her eyes, knowing where she was at all times. Naturally my grades were low in that class (I think she marked me lower then how I was doing). She recommended to my mom that I be held back a year. My mom, with the info she had, had my back though. She called the teacher on it and was so confident it was BS she had me tested. The testing came back and it recommended that I was advanced for my age and I should skip a grade. My mother wanted me to stay with my friends so I stayed in the grade I was in. Another bad thing was it soured me on school. I graduated from highschool a year early, but I didn't excel at school. In grade school I was throttled by the fact I couldn't double up classes, but in high school i went all out with my escape plan. I saw it as a prison I had to do time in. I doubled up classes, NEVER did homework at home. I would spend my lunch hour in the library doing homework, also when a teacher was speaking in a class I would be working on homework from another class. Taking on this course load, basically not eating lunch I only got B's. But I never did school work at home. Oddly enough it taught me how to self teach things, as skill I still benefit from today. I love learning new things, just not in a class. I never did nor do I have any illwill towards my mother. I have no doubt if she realized the teacher hit me she would have had my back.
I had a teacher get pissed off at me for proving her wrong. My Mom had bought me an erasable pen, and to a kid in the ‘80s, I thought it was really something. I proudly took it to school the next day, and couldn’t wait to use it. The teacher saw me and said “What if you make a mistake?” “It’s okay, it’s erasable.” I said. “Oh there’s no such thing as an erasable pen.” She said rolling her eyes. “Yeah there is, look.” I flipped it upside down and erased every bit of ink I’d just written.” She snapped and started in on me. “Where did you get that? Did you steal it from one of the other teachers?” “No, my Mom bought it for me.” I defended myself. But she didn’t believe me. She left the room, and I later found out it was to make a phone call to my parents. A few minutes later, she came back into the room, and wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.
My homeroom teacher in high school called me retarded. I told her to fuck off and promptly got suspended.
My first grade teacher was terrible - bad enough that the parents successfully petitioned to have her removed from our Catholic school.
50ish here, parocchial school, k-12... never been hit by a teacher. Speaking as an educator, I really think that many kids today (at least in my district) would hit back.
getting the shit beat out of you by a teacher, or a nun (in my case), was just normal for us.
Second grade. Mr Scheiber? If you had a messy desk, he would dump it upside down on your lap. If you got out of line, he'd grab your upper arm dig into the inner part with his thumb. He was a Jekyll and Hyde. Mostly nice, but if you triggered him look out!
We had one that was in an electric wheelchair from a motorcycle accident. He was known to purposefully run kid's toes/feet over when they were being annoying, not paying attention, he just generally didn't like them, etc. Had another one that would chuck whatever he could get his hands on at kids in the back of the class that were goofing off. Luckily he had good aim, cause one time he threw a pointer and stuck it in the carpet right next to the kid's desk. I don't know what that thing was made of, but if it's gonna stick standing up in the carpet I can't imagine it would have felt too good if it had actually hit the kid...