[QUOTE=VunderBob]
Plain old oregano from the local Safeway smells the same, too.
[/QUOTE]
Nuh-uh. Not to this tokin’ herbalist, anyway.
Well, I was never one to be intimidated by a teacher, principal, or anyone else… this included my time in elementary school. When I was in 5th grade, I had my physical education teacher pull me out of class one day “to have a talk”. He told me that I had been reported by the school safety patrols some godawful number of times and that I had been banned from riding the bus. I told him that I never rode the bus. He told me that half the times I had been reported were for not riding the bus, and since I had been reported so many times… that I had been banned from riding it. I told him, “Okay, are we done now?”. He told me yes and sent me back to class.
The funny thing was that where I lived didn’t have a bus until that year and I have been walking to that school since I was in first grade, and I enjoyed the walk. Why he thought that tossing me off the bus was something that I’d be worried about I’ll never know.
When I was a senior in high school, I had a rather odd principal that I got along well with. I was standing near the front doors one day and he grabbed me by the back of my collar and hauled me out the front doors and yelled at me to get out!! I knew him well enough to know that he was joking, so I climbed back up the steps and went in the front door and grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out telling him to stay out. Other students were standing around confused and excited. They had no idea what was going to happen. The principal came back into the school, laughed, patted me on he back, and went to his office. I walked away also, not bothering to tell anyone what had actually happened.
Several years ago, I mentioned the last event to my younger brother. He looked at me strangely and said, “He did that to me too… so I just went home”. My brother always got the short end of the stick because I was outgoing, everybody knew me and liked me, but they never understood my brother.
I had a high school chemistry teacher who had been a demolitions expert in Viet Nam. Oh, all the FUN ways we learned to blow stuff up!!
Poor fellow was pretty shell shocked though because if you dropped a textbook or anything that was capable of making a very loud bang, he’d hit the floor behind his desk and not come out until someone went and got one of the principals to talk him out from behind the desk. He was kinda weird but a very interesting person. I wonder whatever happened to him as he disappeared after my jr. year.
[QUOTE=Who_me?]
When I was a senior in high school, I had a rather odd principal that I got along well with. I was standing near the front doors one day and he grabbed me by the back of my collar and hauled me out the front doors and yelled at me to get out!! I knew him well enough to know that he was joking, so I climbed back up the steps and went in the front door and grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out telling him to stay out. Other students were standing around confused and excited. They had no idea what was going to happen. The principal came back into the school, laughed, patted me on he back, and went to his office. I walked away also, not bothering to tell anyone what had actually happened.
Several years ago, I mentioned the last event to my younger brother. He looked at me strangely and said, “He did that to me too… so I just went home”. My brother always got the short end of the stick because I was outgoing, everybody knew me and liked me, but they never understood my brother.
[/QUOTE]
So, what you’re saying is this principal gave you a free day off and you didn’t take it, but your brother did? Do this for me, would ya: :smack:
[QUOTE=madmonk28]
I worked on the school paper in high school and one day we came back from lunch and the teacher had turned out the lights except for one desk lamp on the floor in front of him, shining up on his face. He was dressed in an army uniform and announced we were going to war. He was trying to drum up some enthusiasm for the paper staff to get fired up about journalism, but it came off as really sad.
[/QUOTE]
That reminds me of when Fred Willard was on Undeclared. So cringe-worthy.
I am loving this thread and promise to always give my kids the benefit of the doubt at parent-teacher meetings. I wish I had some comparable anecdotes, though I have had plenty of odd teachers (an Edna Krabappel-type who made students bring love letters to a younger teacher, an English teacher who talked about ponies, drinking and divorce in every single writing example then got replaced by a sub).
[QUOTE=Nutty Bunny]
So, what you’re saying is this principal gave you a free day off and you didn’t take it, but your brother did? Do this for me, would ya: :smack:
[/QUOTE]
I enjoyed school. There was no where else I could have as much fun.
[QUOTE=monstro]
I was in 10th grade English. The teacher had started in the middle of the semester, was new to the school, and just didn’t seem to come off as very intelligent. Hence, none of us kids really gave her a lot of respect.
[/quote]
Heh. We used to call her Ms. MacDummy, I remember. Those were good times.
This was in one of the primary school grades, something like third or fourth. When the class was being too loud, our teacher would make us stand on our desks (the seat, not the writing surface, thank goodness) with our hands on our heads. As she felt like it, she would allow individual rows to sit back down.
It just goes to show how brainwashed we were to listen to an authority figure. I never even thought to tell my mom, and she was rather taken aback when she finally heard about it years later.
[QUOTE=Who_me?]
I enjoyed school. There was no where else I could have as much fun.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, I did too. Whenever I was sick, my mother had to convince me to go to school. I thought I’d miss an opportunity to gaze at my secret crushes or show off my new jelly shoes or other equally embarrassing fashion choice.
[QUOTE=gigi]
It just goes to show how brainwashed we were to listen to an authority figure. I never even thought to tell my mom, and she was rather taken aback when she finally heard about it years later.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve thought this a lot looking back. So many things that were just a perfectly normal part of life back then are so bizarre and pointless in retrospect.
We had a literature teacher who read erotic short stories to the class (at an all boys Catholic high school, no less). None of the stories were explicit, and I don’t recall any of them actually involving sex. But every time Mr. L reached for *that *particular volume, even the rowdiest boys in the class settled down to listen. Funny thing is that none of this seemed the least bit unusual or creepy at the time, and I doubt anyone ever complained. (Note: further research has identified the anthology in question as Midsummer Passions and Other Stories, by Erskine Caldwell.)
[QUOTE=Snipe1978]
But the one thing he did that was just WAY beyone creepy was one day a year he would wear a full spandex suit with all of the body organs and stuff printed on it. Yeah…very, very, very creepy.
[/QUOTE]
Was this your teacher:?
Extremely oddly enough, he looks a lot like that teacher. But without glasses. that was very very creepy for me. I hope you’re happy…
[QUOTE=Troy McClure SF]
I’ve thought this a lot looking back. So many things that were just a perfectly normal part of life back then are so bizarre and pointless in retrospect.
[/QUOTE]
Which has just made me recall our grade school gym teacher. Every day before class we had to stand there, elbows out with fists pointed towards each other near our chest, and thrust our elbows outward. This was accompanied by him chanting “One, two three, four, get your elbows up!”
Can someone explain to me the calisthenic benefits of this exercise? Because in retrospect it appears as though he just wanted to watch us act like a brood of chickens.
Middle school. I’m waiting for my mother to pick me up after school. I’m sitting on the rail that borders the walkway. The principal comes over to me and without any warning, plants a giant kiss on my cheek.
Then he walks away.
That is the surrealest moment of them all.
[QUOTE=monstro]
Today, for no reason at all, I had a flashback to a specific moment in seventh grade math class. After we had our lesson, the teacher passed out scantron sheets. They were already filled in. She explained to us that they belonged to the class after ours–the remedial class. We were to erase their answers and haphazardly bubble in different answers. Her rationale was that the selected answers were most likely incorrect, so our intervention could only improve their scores.
The thing about it was that I wasn’t in the honors class. I was in the “average” class. If she was giving us the remedial kids tests to play around with, was it possible that she was doing the same thing to ours, with another class?
While I was thinking about it today, it occurred to me that it was so strange that I could almost convince myself that it never happened, that it was all a dream. But I know it happened. In fact, I recall it happening at least twice. And I also remember not having any particular qualms about it. Only when I got into high school did it occur to me that what she’d done (or made us do) was really unethical.
Do you have a strange tale from school that you’d like to share?
[/QUOTE]
Once, about a week after being absent due to illness, We were given back tests we had taken that earlier week, except that the paper I was given wasn’t mine. :eek: The teacher said that that paper did not a name written on it and since I did not have a paper it must have been mine so she wrote my name in. When I tried to explain to her that I was sick that day, she dismissed me and said we’d discuss it later after class. :dubious: However, since I knew I didn’t know the answers on that test and would have scored much much lower, I declined to take her up on her offer. 
My 8th grade wood shop teacher was an ex-Marine and ran his class like what most of us imagined a boot camp would be like. Absolutely. No. Nonsense. You didn’t speak unless given permission and you didn’t leave your desk unless explicitly told to do so. All in all, not a bad way to run things when you’re dealing with twenty five 8th graders and power tools.
He didn’t joke. He never smiled. He didn’t make small talk with any of the students like other teachers did. …so imagine our surprise when one day, we’re all working quietly at a project at our desks when he comes walking out of his office on wooden stilts. He walked around the classroom and then back into his office. The only thing he said was, “I bet you kids didn’t know I could do this!”
Definitely one of the more memorable WTF moments in my life.
In junior high we had a sub go crazy and hold the class hostage that’s about as weird as it gets but he surrendered when the cops showed up even weirder it didn’t even make the news. My parents were shocked when i brought it up in conversation much like this one years later.
I went to a Catholic high school so lots of weird stuff happen. My freshmen algebra teacher spent all year teaching us the songs from Grease. I still have to look up algebra rules but I can still sing along with most of the songs. My senior year we had a teacher fired for flashing the class, she took of her shirt down to a sports bra on a hot day and kept teaching class, Once she was fired she drove back on campus, naked, hanging out the window of her car screaming obstinacies at the principal. It was a most entertaining lunch I have several more but they are considerably more pedestrian.
We had Mr. Morton, our wood shop teacher in middle school. He was cute and youngish, maybe mid-20s? and all of us girls had a crush on him I guess. Four or five of us started hanging out with him regularly and I remember going to the mall with him and stuff. He seemed so cool at the time but now when I look back on it I wonder about him hanging out with a gaggle of 13 year olds.
Anyway, for the school talent show he knew how to swing dance and we all dressed up in poodle skirts and bobby socks and took turns dancing with him on stage. He would swing us around and flip us over his head, etc. We each had our own “trick” dance that we had practiced with him. Looking back on that makes me make this face: :dubious:
We had a math teacher with no fingers on his right hand. He had a thumb on that hand, so he held the chalk between his thumb and ‘stump’. When he wanted to make a point, he’d SLAM that stump against the blackboard and scare the crap outta all of us. He was a decent math teacher. Just loved to slam his stump on the blackboard!