Strange, surreal, and creepy things your teachers made you do

In My Humble Opinion
121

I had the opposite extreme happen in a college physics class. Prior to the midterm, someone asked if we had to memorize formulas. The professor answered, “No”. Everyone assumed this meant that we would be provided with a sheet of equations/formulas, as some professors in the department would do.

When he handed out the exam, there was no sheet of equations. Somebody pointed this out. His reply, “You do not need to memorize equations. They can all be derived from what you know”. Luckily, it worked for me.

122

You, obviously, didn’t go to school down the road from a battle monument. :smiley:

123

My daughter’s teacher wanted her to cut out letters from magazines or newspapers and stick them on paper to make a sentence. Training for ransom notes? Practice in cutting tiny letters out with scissors?

I can’t remember what grade it was, but I thought it was a dumb thing to make kids do.

124

Oh my god!! I just remembered something!!! In 9th grade we had a paperback that had “Romeo and Juliet” and “West Side Story” in it. We were reading “West Side Story” aloud. When it got to me, I had to read the words to the song “I Feel Pretty.”

Can you imagine how awful it was? I was nowhere near pretty. It was excruciating.

125

Not as weird as most of the stories on here, but kind od WTF for me at the time.

In my senior year of high school (1970), I had an older English teacher that was also the head of the English department. The semester started out like usual, but somewhere around the third six-week grading period, she changed. She no longer lectured or taught anything. Everybody just slept or did homework or talked. Everyday a bunch of students would get passes to go to the library, and then disappear. The teacher would sit at her desk and chat with the girls of the class and occasionally read. Sometimes we would get an assignment, but I know there was a couple of grading periods where no one turned in a single piece of work, completed one class assignment or participated in a class discussion. Everyone seemed to get A’s and B’s for grades, but nothing was ever done that could have been gradede on.

In my first semester of college English, I got another older lady who was also the head of the English department at the school. Her classes were very erratic. One day we would go over parts of speech and their application, the next class would be spelling, the next may be reading. We never had two classes in a row that were about the same area of English. Some days we would all just sit around and do what ever we wanted while the teacher graded papers from another class. About mid-semester, the class was down to about ten students and she told us that we had all passed and didn’t need to come to class anymore.

My second semester of English was a very young teacher that looked more like a student than a teacher. She was very laid back and open to new ideas and viewpoints. One day she surprised all of us while discussing “The Great Gatsby”. We were talking about when someone saw some words written in the sand at the beach and how shocked they were at reading them. The teacher said,“Kind of like the first time you went into a public restroom and saw where somebody had written"Fuck you” on the restroom walls. She certainly shocked us when she said this in class, so she illustrated her point quite well.

126

Never whisper under your breath, “you fat cow” while your 7-month-pregnant, soon to go on maternal leave school teacher is writing on the board. :o True, she had been bitchy all week.

She may make you stay after class and thus be late for P.E. or R.O.T.C.(whose instructors accepted no excuses for tardiness). :mad: When someone complained this was unfair, she said that was right and dismissed the girls. :eek: She then questioned each of us individually. I was the first questioned and I confessed I heard the comment and giggled, but I couldn’t identify whose voice or where it came from. Perhaps, taking my cue the rest of the class said more or less the same thing.

Later we heard that the culprit had had his underwear(which had his name stenciled on it) thrown into the girl’s locker room while he had been showering after P.E. :smiley:

127

I had a French teacher in 9th grade who somehow managed to speak French with an American, southern, ghetto accent. Her main activity in class was telling us “Y’all ain’t got no home-trainin’!” Her attempts at teaching where just laughable. The classed became more and more unruly. Halfway through the year, she was fired for incompetence.

 She was replaced by a fresh out of college, beautiful, VERY well endowed teacher who had never taught before. The now horribly unruly classes of her predecessor gave her fits, but eventually she got them to settle down. It's unfortunate for my French speaking ability that I moved that summer. I flunked out of French 2 like you wouldn't believe. I'm guessing the French 2 class at my old school got gentler treatment.

 I had an AP English class assignment in which we were asked to write a short essay describing our ideal mate. I use "they" instead of "he" or "she." I had points taken off for every instance of this (Yes, for each single usage.) I stayed after class and haltingly tried to explain why I wasn't comfortable using "she." She replied "I think I hear what you are trying to say One day, when you are an adult, you will learn that there are things you just need to keep!" I dropped out of school not long after that. I did go back to another school and graduated the next year.  (This was not the only reason)

A good friend of mine used to regular get high with several of her high school teachers.

I had a science teacher who, when discussing rockets and equal and opposite reactions, said “I guess so” when asked if a car was propelled the same way- by the exhaust from its tailpipe. I might have thought she was just having “a moment” or even joking, but she had previously told us that she had seen a machine that would lower the temperature of a substance to absolute zero. Just the previously week she had taught us that was not possible.

I was in a learning disability class for a year or so (fourth grade and part of 5th) in elementary school (I was in speech and the gifted program at the same time.) The LD teacher had a pet who had been held back at least twice. He was quite the thug. Her little Leroy would never do anything like the thumps, extortion of lunch money, etc that Leroy actually mad a routine of. The levels of absurdity she would go to in order to avoid seeing his behavior where incredible. Eventually he demanded my lunch money in the bathroom and I refused to give it to him. When he got violent, was not very good at defending myself. I cried, even. But I marched right back into the classroom still crying… she did believe that. (I guess I wasn’t proud.)

128

In college my advanced calculus teacher made us all put our thumbs in the air and then contemplate their fingerprints. He then said that thumbprints, proposed for the state’s driver’s licenses, were a sign of the apocalypse, and we should write our legislators.

This was not a religious school, and he never said anything else religious or political.

129

OK, I really did read the OP… I’m not sure where why i went from there to strange, surreal and creepy experiences in school…sorry about that.

130

In high school biology we studied the central nervous system at the beginning of the year. To simulate a nerve impulse, she had the class to “the wave” like at a sporting event. The rule of the class was whenever the class heard the word “stimulus” or any derivation thereof, we did the wave. All semester. It was like a Pavlovian response.

She was a really cool teacher. Always had our full attention and we learned quite a lot.

It was embarassing for all when they had some school district bigwigs visiting various classrooms to evaluate the new teachers, and the stuffy looking guy in a suit was overheard saying something along the lines of “Wow, it she really has the ability to stimulate these kids.” And the resulting wave left the group of visitors with the most priceless “WTF?..” expressions.

131

This didn’t happen to me, but to my younger sister. To set this up, I am three years older than she is and she was in 6th grade at the time.

Anyhow, she had a science teacher, Mrs. S. When I had Mrs. S she was a smart, funny teacher. When my sister had her, Mrs. S was…distracted. She would assign the kids paperwork to do, then leave the classroom. For the entire period, the kids would have no supervision. She’d assign homework, the kids would turn it in, and it would disappear into a black hole. Same with tests.

By the time I got to high school a year later, I had her husband, Mr. S, as my science teacher. Smart, funny, we had a great time in the class. However, I learned the next year from friends that Mr. S was angry, short-tempered, impatient with his class.

Then the scandal broke. Parents were wondering why their children were not getting homework and tests back and that their teacher was disappearing after class started, so questions were asked. It turned out, while my sister was in 6th grade with Mrs. S, Mrs. S was carrying on quite the hot and heavy affair with the principal, who was also married. I guess they needed each other so badly she took attendance, then bolted to his office for “conferences.”

Two years later, the year after I had Mr. S, I guess it all came out. Both the principal and Mrs. S were fired, and Mr. S was going through a nasty divorce.

Funny thing is, Mr. S married his second wife at my dad’s house…they were friends, my father had a nice house and yard, and asked that the ceremony be performed on my father’s back deck near the pool.

132

It’s okay. My own posts have deviated from the OP. No one cares! :wink:

133

My elementary school art teacher was a mean SOB. I’d say I was 7 or 8 years old. If anybody was disruptive or did anything he didn’t like you were punished. You stood with your arms outstretched to your sides holding trays of paint. You were left there until you cried, both boys and girls.

Freshman year of high school on the first day of woodshop Mr. W scared the shit out of us. A grizzled old fashioned shop teacher, this was in the mid 80’s and he still wore a jacket and tie everyday. We were his last class before retiring. He lined us up at one end of the room facing the big table saw. As a safety demonstration he tossed a block of wood onto the spinning blade. It careened off the ceiling and into the blinds over the windows. Later the metal shop teacher in the room next door said Mr. W broke a window every two or three years while proving his point about how dangerous the saw could be.

Mrs. M was a beloved 11th grade chemestry teacher. She had a true passion for both teaching and chemestry and it showed. Both of her daughters went on to be chemestry teachers themselves. Every year at Halloween she came in wearing full wizard robes pointy hat and all. For every class she did a magic show using chemistry. Mixing this to that for a big puff of smoke or other cool reactions. Sucking an egg into a beaker, Van de Graff generator, vacuums, all sorts of cool stuff. The classroom was standing room only for these shows as other non chemestry studends and teachers tried to get in as well.

Then there was the crazed Scottsman who taught English. With his rich deep voice and a wonderful brogue he would tell story after story that made you late for your next class because you had to hear the end. Other teachers would roll their eyes when you came in late when you said you were coming from Glen’s class. School lore retells the story of when he was demonstrating a mountain climbing technique relevant to one of his stories and the blackboard and a good portion of the wall came crashing down.

What really makes him memorable was for his annual spring ritiual. I can’t remember the book being discused, it was a war involving muskets. So he brought in his musket. Each class would troop out the back parking lot and he would show off the workings of a barrel loading black powder gun. Yes, he shot the gun in the parking lot. Several times a day.

Once I was in shop and the big doors were open, so most of us went out to watch too. He went through all the steps of loading and when he pulled the trigger, the hammer fell and the dab of powder in the pan flashed, but no shot.

Goddamn he quietly said.

More powder in the pan, pull the trigger and — flash — nothing.

Goddamn he says again.

More powder in the pan, pull the trigger and — flash — nothing.

Goddamn.

More powder in the pan, pull the trigger and — flash — nothing.

He turned to us and said in a manner of fact voice “and this is why they invented the bayonet.”

20 years later I still say Goddamn in a dramatic drawn out Scottish brogue.

134

Agreed. I may be misremembering a bit. There may have been some actual research into the person we had to do. I clearly remember going to the cemetery, but I don’t remember going through town archives or anything…

If it was just a story, it was uncharacteristically fluffy for that teacher, who had a well deserved reputation for rigor. We did a lot of primary source reading and a lot of analytical essays, averaging about 2 hours of homework per night from that one class. It was probably one of the toughest classes I ever took. (including college and grad school.)

The saddest part is that it was all moot. I went to engineering school and didn’t have an american history requirement at all. :smack:

135

The weirdest, probably meanest thing I ever saw a teacher do was reduce the class “cool boy” to tears over errors in math. This was in the fourth grade and I remember it clearly; in his subtraction problems, the boy hadn’t correctly borrowed from the tens’ place, repeatedly, in every single problem. She stood him up there in front of the class and asked him over and over again, “And here? What didn’t you do??” And he’d have to tearfully reply, “I didn’t take!” It was humiliating and I felt so sorry for him. Why did she feel the need to do this to a poor little 9-year-old boy?

I’m still annoyed by this pseudo-groovy guy who came into our small town to run the CCD program at our parish. This was the 70s, and he had a Superman T-shirt, just like Jesus in Godspell. His name was Butch, and we were allowed to call him that, rather than Mr. E__. One day during class – this is probably around the sixth grade – another boy referred to him under his breath as “Butchie-Poo.” Butch hauled his ass out of the desk and marched him off for punishment. I, meanwhile, giggled softly, “Butchie-Poo!?” He came storming back in and hauled me, Miss Goody Two Shoes, right out of there and had a conference with our parents.

Good lord, Butchie-Poo, get a grip! :stuck_out_tongue:

136

Ivylass, something like that happened at my high school! The AP English teacher was gettin’ it on with the principal during school hours; while we sat in the classroom watching movies of the books we were supposed to be reading, she was off having a “conference” with the principal. One semester I had her for two classes in a row (journalism and AP); several times she would enter the second class with her hair messily pulled back, or her shirt not quite right. The principal’s wife was also an English teacher at the high school. She came out of the divorce very well off from what I’ve heard. The principal was transferred to another school, and I’m not sure what became of the AP English teacher.

137

I remember being in sixth grade, trying, along with a handful of other students, to explain to the teacher what “conscious” meant. Our vocabulary was good enough to know that word, but not really good enough to explain what it meant.

138

I had an English teacher in 3rd grade named Mr. Anderson. He was considered to be strict, and a bit crazy. Used to paddle kids that were bad with a fraternity paddle, and with what appeared to be a fair amount of zeal.

One day the class was lined up into two teams, for a spelling bee. It was my turn.

“Spell ‘wring.’”

“R-I-N-G. Ring.”

“No, 'WRING.”

I could sense his frustration, but for some reason I couldn’t figure out what he was asking me to spell. “Uh…R-I-N-G. Ring.”

“Let me use it in a sentence for you,” Mr. Anderson says. “I want to wring your scrawny neck.”

I didn’t like him much.

139

I remember Bible class as a 7th Grader. I went to a Christian school, so Bible class was quite normal.

My Bible teacher, a very nice lady, told us that Adam and Eve were supposed to be the only people on Earth. She explained that after they sinned, they began to have sex and make babies. If they had never sinned, they would have just existed forever with no sex and never made babies and populated the Earth.

I thought this was odd, but perhaps just a quirk of her beliefs. I said, “That’s not in the Bible, is it?”

She told me it was in the Bible. I searched, and I saw nothing that stated this. She told me its all implied there.

She was single her whole life, that teacher. I always wondered if she thought sex was some kind of sin and only exists because humanity “crossed the line” into sinful nature.

Odd lady.

140

FTR I was also taught this in church as a child, so it wasn’t just that lady’s personal quirk.

But you’re right, it is strange.

-FrL-