In fifth grade, we had this medieval month where we all built castles and competed in events to earn a knighthood. You only had to earn like three medals out of maybe 10 different games, like throw a ball into a circle, or make another student laugh.
Every contest, the students were helping each other, or bending the rules, and the teacher was like “whatever.” Except for me. I didn’t earn a single medal, and everytime it was close, I got fucked by the rules. There was one I remember vividly, because my thrown soccer ball was on the line, and was ruled out. Then another kid’s ball was on the line, and his was ruled in. I complained to the teacher, and he went up and toed the other kid’s ball into the circle.
That kid was then the one I had to make laugh. Every other jester attempt, kids were giving away laughs. Literally everyone got a courtesy chuckle, but I remember that fucking kid sitting there stone faced while I tried to tell him jokes knowing he’d never laugh no matter what I did or said.
Looking back, I’m sure I was probably an insufferable twat about the rules or something, but I was 10. I definitely believe that teacher had it out for me, and I was one of two kids who weren’t knighted, the other having missed the games with mono. My classmates definitely had it out for me, and it was a miserable year all around, but I remember the moment I realized that the teacher was also one of my bullies.
That really sucks. I had a hockey coach like that. If you weren’t in the main group, he either ignored you or humiliated you in front of other kids. I was a passable defense player and he only cared about forwards so I mostly escaped unnoticed but several friends and I stopped playing hockey because of this guy. In the league we were in they kept teams together and we kept getting him as coach. We were 13 or 14 at this point and it just wasn’t fun anymore which sucks because we all loved hockey but he was just such a bullying prick.
A middle school social studies teacher of mine gave me detention on numerous occasions because I refused to take notes in his class.
Partway into the year during parent-teacher conferences, where parents met with teachers to discuss their children’s performance in class, the issue was brought up.
“Pixelscript is having some difficulties in my class. He is not taking notes during lectures. I’ve given him detention several times.”
“Well that’s strange, it says on his report card that he has an A in the class.”
“Well, yes, he does extremely well on homework and tests, but you see, he doesn’t take notes…”
“…Are you kidding me?!”
The greatest irony of the situation was that on the few occasions he forced me to take notes, it lessened my comprehension, because focusing on writing in real time during the lecture actively harmed my understanding of the lecture. God forbid a student actually listens to what you have to say…
I think people learn differently. Most lectures I have to wait for the instructor to finish their slide or something and then begin copying notes. If they’re going really fast I don’t understand anything, at that point it’s just writing them down as fast as possible in order to study later instead of learning in class.
It’s a classroom management thing.
I didn’t understand this until I was a teacher but unfortunately, “if I let you do it, I have to let everyone do it” ends up being pretty true. Kids will absolutely point to other kids and say, “but you let Joey put his head down and listen.”
My response can’t be “but Joey is passing my class.” As much as I would like it to be.
It’s also a respect thing and I don’t mean that like you might think. I don’t demand unearned respect from everyone like an asshole. But one thing that happens is, if you let kids skirt classroom expectations and let them avoid doing things you ask them to do, they learn that your rules/expectations are actually just suggestions. Everything becomes negotiable.
Sorry dude, I would have made you take your notes too.
I’m sorry but you’re wrong here. Kids need to learn that everyone is different and everyone is not treated the same. The oft liar is never trusted. The fat kid is probably the one that stole the candy. The nerdy kid probably did most of the group work. If you get good grades, the teacher gives you more slack in some areas.
And your example sucks. Putting your head down and “listening” is not the same thing as sitting up and paying attention to a lecture but not taking notes.
Don’t get me wrong. I see where you’re coming from and agree generally, but on academics, there’s too many different ways to learn. Whatever someone figures out that works best for them should be left to that if their marks are good every evaluation.
Who said anything about putting heads down? I wasn’t pissing about reading a book or playing games on my laptop during lecture, I was paying attention. Head up, eyes locked, watching.
“Classroom expectations”? The only reasonable expectation here is that I pass the class. Whether the teacher thinks patting my head, rubbing my belly, and jumping up and down whilst doing so is the ideal way to acheive it is irrelevant. Especially so if it is demonstrably to the contrary. Literal data for this exists in the form of grades displaying the trend.
My response can’t be “but Joey is passing my class.” As much as I would like it to be.
Maybe my anecdote is no longer reflective of modern institutions where teachers are increasingly restricted and scrutenized over dumb factors they don’t even control, but I find this quite a strange take, because a different middle school teacher of mine in the same school played this exact card to great effect. It is not immediately obvious to me why you couldn’t.
EDIT: Sitting on that response for a moment, it seems that to some degree you read it as if I was being disruptive in class, or otherwise not paying attention and setting that example to my peers. In these cases I would take your side. You have a responsibility to teach students the soft skills of proper attention and listening comprehension.
I was not violating this. My whole debacle was very specifically the putting pencil to paper part. In my view, notes are strictly an assistive tool. If I demonstrably did not require this tool to perform (evidenced by grades), and even moreso performed worse with it (further evidenced by grades), I do not agree that I should be forced to use it, specifically at a time where students are arguably old enough to start making choices like study strategy for themselves.
And I am not sufficiently convinced that this specific kind of selectivity is sufficiently toxic to your teaching position that you have to cast aside your better judgement to not rock the boat. But perhaps things really are that dire now. If they are, well, I guess that’s just a bummer for both of us. :/
My dad was in construction (ran an excavator, mostly) when I was a kid. He found a large megalodon tooth in amazing condition at work and gave it to me. I brought it to school and my teacher took it from me. I never saw it again.
It’s especially infuriating now because I know the value of teeth in that condition and size
That’s fucked up, I would be seething if they happened to me
Had a woodshop teacher steal my dad’s hat exactly like this.
As a kid, I always took everything apart, because I can’t help myself and I need to know how everything works. I still do it today (it’s my job now!)
I’m 4th grade, I was taking apart my mechanical pencil and putting it back together, and my teacher took it, snapped it in half and under) threw it away.
She told me I’m no longer allowed to use mechanical pencils, I can only use wooden ones.
Since I didn’t have a wooden one with me, I was sent to the hall the rest of class.
They should be encouraging that behavior, seeing as it’s so common that that curious behavior leads to techy jobs and all.
I’m so sorry for the theft and damage too. She could have just hidden it from you until the end of class or something, if she had to.
I never let it stop me. I started working at a print shop, and the huge copier (xerox 1000i) kept jamming. I’m talking huge jams, this thing is about as long as 2 Mazda miatas.
The fuser belt tore on me at like 4 in the morning during an emergency print job, and the technician wouldn’t be there until about noon, so I broke into his parts cabinet and figured out how to replace the belt. I had it up and running about an hour later. The fuser on that machine is about as big as a Brother desktop multifunctional copier.
He did come in, and scolded me for repairing it, but was fascinated I did it (it’s a 2 week training in New York just to work on those).
I ended up bugging all the techs to hire me and eventually, they did! So now I work on photocopiers, and I absolutely love it.
Congratulations, that’s amazing!!! I worked in a print shop too and am now studying computer science, and printers are the toys of the devil as far as I can tell. Always determined to fail in the most inexplicable ways.
She could have just hidden it from you until the end of class or something, if she had to.
Or she could be more interesting than a disassembled mechanical pencil.
I had a high school math teacher who had me convinced I was too stupid to do the assignments. I literally couldn’t do high school algebra. I had an average of 11% in that class, and she would tell everyone their grades each quarter. Out loud, in front of the class, and I had an 11%. Questions were met with “You really should know how to do this”.
25 years later, and my lemmy shitposting is interrupted by a meeting where intelligent and talented people discuss drawings of a proposed building. Drawings that were created by me. For the building I was paid to design.
I can math just fine, when someone takes the time to show me how. Algebra, geometry, trig, I can do them all. But when I was a teenager, a supposedly smart and educated person had me convinced I couldn’t figure it out.
I got told all through high school and college I was bad at art. Turns out I just had to learn differently than what they were doing and I’m not bad at it. I draw, paint minis, pixel art, some 3d now and am really happy with my work. Same thing with music I can’t wrap my head around reading music so teachers all told me I wasn’t a creative type. But hand me an instrument that is intuitive to me and I’m actually decent at playing along to things or making my own music.
It can take so long to convince yourself that teachers were wrong about your capabilities. I didn’t unlearn all that self deprecation until my mid/late twenties.
I was feeling saucy after having learned about the metric system, and for a lab report I deliberately wrote 125 mL as 1.25 dL. I lost half of a letter grade for that.
Wtf thats completely valid
These mistakes happen when the teacher is not paying attention, or got their 12 year old child to help them grade papers. Should just talk to the teacher and get it fixed instead of holding a lifelong grudge.
I did go to her. This was at a religious school where I was lucky to be learning any science at all, and when I asked her what was wrong about it, she refused to explain besides that we hadn’t learned about deciliters yet.
Oh so she’s a dumbass. Sorry to hear that
I think she just wanted to punish me for being a smartass, which I was, so perhaps some forgiveness is in order.
It was my final exam. Everyone , including the president (or whatever it’s called), but one said I was great and all, and we were chilling talking about my future. I said I wanted to get a CS degree, to which my math teacher replied with “People like you can only be good as carpenters”
EDIT: just to point out, I got the highest grade lol
people like you can only be good as carpenters
This reminds me of that meme like “teachers will tell you that yiu don’t want to end up collecting trash but won’t tell you that the trash collector makes more than they do.”
Had a teacher tell me my father was in hell because he lost his battle with mental illness. Catholic school was scarring.
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School yard monitor used to punish me any time I fought back (verbally) against the students that tormented me for years. Apparently them pulling my pants down, surrounding and attacking me was fine though. Eventually had enough, waited until one of them got too close and decked them. No punishment and the bullying stopped. What a lesson to teach children Ms. Mcbride you evil bitch.
I got bullied in the locker room and used a padlock to try to defend myself. I got in trouble for using a “weapon” and had to apologize to my attackers.
I had a similar incident, with similar results. One thing I noticed though, is that my parents wetent mad, and more importantly, a sweaty sock with a master lock in it will shut down a bully faster than anything the school ever did.
I had an art teacher when I was around 12 years old who hated my guts. I wasn’t the most well behaved student but the things she did was sometimes petty other times aggressive.
She once threw a water bottle at me because I had a chat with the guy next to me. She missed but the bottle damaged the wall next to me.
She told my girlfriend to stay after class because she wants to talk to her. She spent 10 minutes trying to get her to break up with me.
She never failed to tell me that I’m a good for nothing and I’ll probably end up as a homeless drunk and I’ll live beside the road.
She always made fun of my drawings and paintings trying to humiliate me in front of the class.
I wasn’t her only target, she had one in every class.
My classroom had this weird hidden “library” at the back of it and various teachers would randomly take students to the back of it under the pretext of performing “health checks” that really were them just taking us there and raping us. Mostly a few specific male teachers including the principal and my female teacher as well. One time I was selected to undergo a health check and refused and the teacher slapped me so hard across the face I fell out of my chair and hit the ground. This was in like second grade too so we were pretty young.
That school has been shut down and the buildings leveled now. No idea if anyone was ever persecuted over it though.
Name of the school
Are you insuating someone would just make something up. On the internet???
It’s not made up but I’m not going to name the school to a bunch of internet strangers. It’s not in the US if that matters at all.
I believe you. Everyone believes everyone on the internet.
I was 12 or so, rather depressed, in a new school which was crappy, and dealing with a difficult home life with my mother who has BPD, and I was doodling shitty things in my notebook in class, I didn’t feel like I had many friends so I wrote stuff like “Anna looks like a poodle with her perm” and 'Jennifer looks like a banana in her yellow jacket", just petty stuff but it was getting me through a bad day. The art teacher noticed me writing, took it away from me, and read it out loud to the entire class. I literally had zero friends after that. It was a pretty harmless thing for me to do and I was just trying to blow off a bad mood, obviously, but she decided to wreck my life out of spite.
I wasn’t right to do that, don’t get me wrong, but I was just a kid and didn’t deserve public humiliation for simply getting some feelings on paper.
I gave my kindergarten teacher a love letter when I was 6. Not only did she turn me down, but she also put it up on the board for everyone to see.
I was reading a book in class, and after finishing it my Earth Sciences teacher asked to read it. He never gave it back and swore for years I never lent it to him. It was a book one of a series that my dad had given me.
Princess of Mars, book 1 of Edgar Rice Borroughs’s Barsoom series. The edition from the 70s. I just recently found new copy of the missing book at the used bookstore so I could complete my shelf.
My kids know this teacher’s name, and call him my nemesis.
