The Teacher Doesn't Like Me

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’m pretty easy-going. I’ll usually accept late asignments with minor penalties, and if somebody has a reasonable excuse for missing class I don’t mind reviewing the material if they come to office hours. If people are just honest, and they’re willing to do the work, I’ve got no problem with making some allowances, and I don’t hold it against them unless it becomes a pattern. Turn in your homework, make up what you missed, and all is forgiven. That’s why I’m always amused when some dope trys to butter me up (I love your class! You’re the best TA I’ve ever had! You make everything so interesting!) and then starts asking for favors. If they’d just be honest, they woulda been in like Flynn, but, no, they had to go and try to play me . . .

When I don’t like somebody, I usually just grade them a little harder. Mostly I have to grade by pretty objective criteria, though, so all I can really do is be a bit more hawk-eyed and try to catch more of their little mistakes. So I doubt anyone even notices, but it makes me feel better. :wink:

Other than the smooth operators, I can’t think of any students I’ve taken an active dislike to. In general, they’re all good eggs.

Ooo, except for the plagairists and the cheaters. They can burn in hell. But revenge is a dish best served cold. If one of them sticks around to finish the class, I make sure I’m extra fair with them. Extra fair, and extra vigilant. Either they clean up their act, straighten up and fly right, in which case I’m happy for them, and glad I was fair, or they screw up again and I can come down on them like a load of bricks, secure in the knowledge that they dug their own graves.

22

When I was in, oh, I think the fourth grade there was a kid in the class who was VERY obnoxious, a wise mouth in class and a bully out.

One day the teacher took several points off him on a quiz - lowering his grade for the quiz, at least - because at the bottom of the first of two pages he wrote “please turn over.” She claimed he was being sarcastic.

Just possibly, I don’t think she liked that boy. (And in case anyone is getting psychological, no it wasn’t me.)

Fifteen Iguana

23

Yeah, I know what you mean, Podkayne. I tend to be pretty easy-going as well, and lots of my evaluations reflected this. But then there was the student (I’m not making this up) who was struggling a bit, so came to office hours and said something along the lines of “you know, I notice that you’re spending a lot of time on your students rather than to yourself… so I guess you don’t have any… err… social life. If you want, for a little grade consideration, I could find you some hookers or something.” :eek:

He did not do so well in my class.

24

I had a high school teacher who hated me. He was constantly cornering me verbally when I was in his class, and it seemed like every day ended in a huge fight. When I finally confronted him, during one of our arguments, he stopped in his tracks and said, “You know what? You’re right. I DO pick on you…I don’t know why, but something about you just rubs me the wrong way.”
He got a little better after that. It was awful, but at least he admitted it and tried to contain himself after that day.

As a teacher, I occasionally ran into kids I disliked. When I caught myself feeling that way, I would make it my goal to find a reason to like him/her. Usually, it worked…most kids are great, once you get through the issues that block their goodness.

I did have to deal with a teenage rapist. Oh, man. That was bad…but I never really disliked him. I was very, very angry with him, (I was also working with his victim, and knew from her injuries what he was capable of), but I couldn’t bring myself to hate him. I was so triggered by it all that it I had to sometimes remove myself from the room when he was there.

It’s tough. Not every kid and teacher are going to hit it off, unfortunately, and it’s hard to be on the kid end of the equation.

25

mandielise, if you don’t mind my asking, why did you choose to go to college in the South if you didn’t want to be there?

26

ADHD kid that went undiagnosed for the first 13 years of life = most of my teachers hated me. :p:eek::frowning:

27

Back then when I was 12 all my subjects were handled by a single teacher, with the exception of my mother tongue.

I had very poor handwriting, did not groom well (uncombed hair, shirt too big for me and so on), stammer when I talk and generally slower than the other kids in the class. Well…he demands everyone to have 90 and above for tests…if not you must have at least 80, or else he will go real mad at you.

I can’t sure for sure whether the teacher hated me but he was terrifying and he treated me quite badly. He has a way of making me feel like as if I am a blemish upon the world, the vilest creature ever to be born and the worst nightmare of every teachers. He picked on my handwriting, my hair, the way I speak and so on. I once stood outside the classroom for 2 hours because I forgot to bring a book. ~heh.

In my experiences, if a teacher has a bad impression / opinion of you, the teacher may over-react or be harsher on you. There was once a lecturer who taught digital sound manipulation and many people flunked the practicals because they treated it as a boring subject. But if you ask me, I don’t see much difference between my work and theirs, even though I passed.

28

burundi I went to college in the south even though I didn’t want to be there. It was the best school of those I’d been accepted to (I was rejected by my 1-4th choices). I don’t regret going there but let’s just say there was a small adjustment period.

29

Speaking as a teacher, I don’t have enough space in my head to rent out for hating any kid. A year or two is typically all we see of students and frankly, having taught hundreds of kids over the past decade, I can’t say that I’ve actually hated any, nor can I say that about any of my colleagues.

Oh, I’ve had plenty who’ve thought that I did and God knows I’ve had my share with whom I’ve enjoyed frustrating relationships, but penalizing students by dispensing low grades increases the likelihood that they will reappear in the same course next year. Hating someone to the point of promoting future frustration for me seems unreasonable.

Why do some of my students feel that I dislike them?

  1. Projection or denial. Seldom do I have students who enter my courses with high marks who end up thinking I dislike them. (BTW I never review a student’s academic record before teaching them to avoid pre-judging). Blaming me certainly lets them off the hook for poor performance.

  2. They hate school in general, especially those teachers who consider doing work an integral part of passing.

  3. We butt heads early on over style or approach to certain topics. I enjoy dialogue from my students, however, some are incapable of accepting that I or anyone else might be correct. Only once did I ever tell a student her opinion was wrong. She was and she later admitted it - without thinking I hated her.

  4. Some students suffer from black and white thinking. Either its the “Best” or it “sucks goat hole”. If I do not show them that I like them, by default I hate them.

  5. Some teachers may actually hate their students and therefore the students assume I might too.

  6. Their parents hated school… their grandparents hated school and dammit, they must carry on the family tradition. I just happen to be the first one to hand them a low mark.

I have on a couple of occassions had a couple students come to me with concern with my treatment of them. I encourage this. As a trained professional, I base my evaluation on quantifiable performance on proven assement methods of specific curriculum outcomes. There is no room for me to award or subtract points strictly on personal view. Students should ask to see their teachers’ evaluation record and be able to exlain it. Nine times out of ten, my “hate” turns out to be missed assignments, a failed test they forgot about, etc.

Finally, I’ll bet most teachers don’t realize that the student feels this way because little communication takes place. Teaching is hell to those who don’t enjoy it. Most of us are in it because we enjoy kids - smart and not so smart, good and bad, troubled and well-adjusted. If arbitraily hating others is part of our disposition, we’re not likely to last very long in this line of work.

30

I had a math teacher in HS that hated me - he was a football coach. My older brother was a star running back, I was a famous freak.
For some reason, I asked this guy to write a letter of recomendation for my college application :smack: and it was pretty harsh. I got in anyway. Why did I do that?
Also used to teach disabled infants. Some I guess I loved more than others, but grades not much of an issue there.

31

I had a teacher in college, it was a “public communications” class or something like that – I can’t remember exactly what it was, probably because of my bad experience with the teacher. He had showed up an episode of All In The Family and was discussing the dynamics of the relationships between the characters. He put forth the posit that Archie called Michael “Meathead,” as opposed to “something stronger,” because Archie was actually rather fond of Michael. If he had really hated Michael, he would have called him something stronger than “Meathead.”

At this point, I gently, non-sarcastically (I thought) suggested that the reason he did not call him something stronger than “Meathead” was because the networks Standards & Practices would not have allowed it.

I wish now that I had a picture of the teacher’s face, as he looked at me after I made that comment. You would have thought that I had pissed on his loafers. You could almost see the little thought balloon with the words “How dare you contradict me?” over his head.

From then on, whenever I had raised my hand with a question, or with an answer to a question he had asked the class, he would ignore me. I swear he wouldn’t look me in the eye the rest of the semester. Other people in the class noticed this and commented to me about it. “You might as well just drop the class.”

Up to that point I had considered that, but when my classmate brought that up, I didn’t like the sound of it. “Forget it. I ain’t giving that prick the satisfaction. And if he flunks me, I’ll report his ass to the dean.”

Well, I got through that class with a C, when my work probably merited at least a B. Just enough to send me the message, but not really enough to be actionable, or at least worth the effort.

32

I teach high school, and I hear kids say this about other teachers, usually when the teacher is a hard grader or a stickler for the rules, and the teacher from the year previous (namely moi) was more laid back (or permissive, as the case may be). I assure them it’s just a different teacher’s style, and not personal. It rarely is, as we usually have 80-100 students and not enough time or energy to hate anyone. I also make it a policy never to hate children.

However, sometimes it IS personal. At the Homecoming Game, one of my colleagues referred to the Homecoming Queen as “a slut.” She wasn’t. She was pretty and confident and flirtatious, but a very cool kid. I was a first year teacher and I was shocked. This year, one of my former students came to me with a paper she graded, upset that points were taken off unfairly. I read the paper, and to my chagrin, I found that she DID take points of for things that were not wrong. I told the kid to bring her supporting evidence to the teacher and ask for a re-grade, which she got, grudgingly.

Do I like all of my students? No, I do not. I am a human being and some behaviors are just alienating. The things I don’t like are kids who verbally abuse other kids, who are blatantly and self-servingly disruptive in class. I don’t take it personally when a kid cuts, or doesn’t do work, or lies right in my face (I think it’s foolish and often annoying though). That’s not about me. But when a kid tries to hurt or ridicule another kid, that makes me think less of the belittler. When a kid gets in the way of other students’ education b/c he/she wants to show off, that also is something I can’t respect.

Incidentally, I have never had a problem with a kid who was a “freak”-- the kids with multi-colored hair, dog collars, tie dyes, thugged-out gear, or multiple piercings always like me even when they are bad students and discipline problems (maybe b/c that was me 15 years ago). The only kids I’ve ever clashed with seriously are the jocks who feel (rightly) that they can and will get away with murder b/c there will never be consequences exacted for their infractions. This bothers me; as a former freak, I think punishments should be doled out equally. Sometimes that makes me seem like a hardcase, but I don’t care-- you screw up, you take the hit like a man or a woman just like everyone else.

This year, I have one character who NEVER pays attention in class-- I have to tell him to get out his book, to open it, to get out a pen, to copy notes. If I don’t, he does nothing, but will ask later for me to repeat everything, will claim he knew nothing about assignments I gave, and never turns anything in. That kind of kid is not worth my energy, so when he asks me what page we’re on, when it’s written on the board, I ignore him. He thinks I hate him. I don’t. I just have to save my energy for kids who actually want to learn.

I have only ever truly loathed one student. All the rest of them had redeeming qualities that enabled me to have a productive relationship with them. I like it when an articulate kid will assert a different POV from mine; I encourage them to check my grading, my math, and question my interpretations. This tends to defuse ego-based confrontations when I admit in advance that I make mistakes. Every year I learn something new from a kid who argues with me.

Now, does my opinion of a student affect his grade? No, I really try hard to prevent this. As it is my job to teach, if they have learned, I want them to pass. However, there is a participation grade, so if you behave disruptively, or cut class, or are never prepared, you will lose points from this portion of your grade. That is the only aspect of my grading that comes down to a judgement call, and 99 times out of 100, this grade helps an otherwise weak student who tries hard to pass the class.

The other side of this coin is when I really really like a kid but he/she is a bad student. Then too I have to remain objective and not help them too much. That is just as hard as not knocking down a kid you don’t like. I try to make things as empirical as possible-- I use scoring rubrics for everything, comment copiously, provide opportunities for re-writing.

Generally, I am a weirdo in that I genuinely enjoy the company of teenagers and find their energy invigorating. Some of my colleagues do not seem to like them or find them energizing; they are bitter and it shows. This can be mistaken for a personal hatred when it’s just a pervasive crap attitude.

I think I’ve babbled enough…

33

In grade 6, I had a teacher who really really hated me, I think. She was an english/drama teacher. I can’t remember that she marked me badly, but there is an incident that sticks out in my mind.

In my school, we had science fairs every two years. Generally, students would get one of those posterboards that have wings that fold in, do an experiment and glue relevant text boxes and pictures to it. That is what I did. Grade 6 is the first year you participate in this, so no one was expecting a nobel-prize worthy project. As a matter of fact, as far as I can recall, I did fairly well on it.

My English teacher was looking at the projects, usually there’d be an afternoon set aside for everyone to set them up and invite their parents. She came over to me, and screamed about how I could possibly hand in such shoddy work, I should be ashamed, I was a bad student etc. Pretty ridiculous, if you ask me. My mom was Not Happy. I cried. It’s just super-ridiculous cause the teacher that was actually grading it was quite happy with it, and my work was not significantly more “shoddy” than anyone elses. I did not like her either.

34

The only really bad issues I had were in 5th grade, Mrs. Beatie.
I was a pretty good kid, I spoke correctly, sir Ma’m whatever, I had always gotten straight A’s. I was even happy to get her because my sister had really liked her. I WAS WRONG!!!

If a teacher was hard on me, I could actualy attribute it to something I did, I talked alot, I was kinda sloppy. But she honestly didnt seem to enjot my presence at all. I always thought it was because I would correct her every now and then. But she actually seemed to do things ou of pure malice to an 11 year old girl.I was overweight and I went to gifted once a week, she actually told the class my weight the day I was at gifted, she used to call me fat right to my face.

There was anther girl in my class who for some reasons like to dramatize her life. she told the teacher that I was bragging about going to gifted and calling her stupid, I SWEAR to god that I didnt and because of that , the teacher withheld me from my onlt haven and tried to keep me out of gifted , I started to cry because she was yelling at me and then she said that only a baby would cry because of that and she kicked me out of her class for the day. GOD I hated her.

35

I taught high school for 30 years. I can honestly say that in that time, there were very few students that I disliked. (BTW, I’m not nearly so accepting of adults). I certainly realized that I disliked those few students, but I made sure that I never graded them differently, or treated them any differently…at least that I was conscious of at the time.

I found it interesting that ever once in a while there would be a student who though I disliked her/him. I generally would addess the problem very directly and tell the student that I did in fact like them. After all, why would I teach otherwise???

36

In freshmen English(HS) I had a teacher who hated me…there were two boys and the rest were girls in the class I took with her. She put me on one side of the room and the other boy on the other side and god forbid WE talked during class.(The girls who talked were barely given barely a SHHH)

We had a pretty blatant warfare going after awhile…there was an option for extra credit to give ORAL book reports and I ended up giving 174 during her class…every single free moment she had and I was free I was in there giving her oral reports on books I had read…she didn’t have any free time at all while she had me in her class.

Also we had to give a report in front of the whole class so I did mine on Demonology(with the most disgusting pictures I could find…quite a hit with the rest of the class but she wasn’t pleased)

I spite of the reports(which gave me 300 more points than the next highest person for the class)…I received a C(the ONLY C I ever got in a English class)

In retrospect it was worth it…she was gonna hate me no matter what but at least I got a little revenge.

BTW She was the exception not the rule…I got along just fine with virtually all the rest of my teachers(I was NOT a prick to all my teachers)

37

I don’t know if I have told this story here before, but in high school I had a teacher who definitely played favourites.

I was not the student that this teacher didn’t like. In fact, she loved me for some reason, even though I couldn’t stand her. The girl she hated was a straight A student, one of those kids who can’t stand to fail. She always tried her best, and did pretty good work. But the teacher was always picking on her, giving her lower grades than she deserved, and just being a huge bitch to her. And this teacher was really capable of being a bitch.

One of the most memorable events was the day that I was breaking a class rule by using the wordprocessing on my typrewriter (yes, this was a typing class – and in the 90s, too!) It made this distinctive whirring sound, and the teacher heard it. She immediately started YELLING at the other girl, and threatening to kick her out of class for using the wordprocessing. I wasn’t about to let this poor kid get into trouble for something that I was doing, so I said something. She spun around and told me to butt out before she sent me to the office as well, the resumed tearing into the other girl, who she eventually sent to the principal. I think I went with her and explained the situation to keep her out of trouble, but the teacher was never punished as far as we could tell.

38

BTW, the other student never did anything to this teacher in class. Her only response when being yelled at was to deny it and cry.

39

I went to school in the South because my parents made me. I don’t blame them, though - I was accepted to and offered scholarships everywhere I applied. Keep in mind, I didn’t exactly apply to Ivy League schools. Anyhoo, the place I really wanted to go would have cost about $25,000 a year AFTER my scholarship - and I got a full scholarship AND a work study offer at LSU.

In addition, my family has ties here. My parents were really worried about me being alone. I actually was born down here - my whole family and all my parents’ old friends live here. Also, at the time, my brother was going to college here as well.

Basically I was given this choice: Go to LSU or take out loans to pay your own $25,000 tuition… no matter what, my parents would pay everything else. It was a fair deal, but it sucked!

40

I found this very interesting, Teachers hmm…I have had friends who were teachers and as a group I found them to be caring responsible adults…However
As a child, I too, as many other’s here I am sure found an exception to the rule
My fifth grade and sixth grade teacher Mr. Thompson was worst example of a teacher, He once slapped me in the face for sitting on a counter in our home room at recess … all I said to when he asked why I was sitting on the counter was …no one was here in the room so I thought it was ok…with this he replied that I was being a smart mouth and slapped me very hard in the face all the while screaming at me to get down and never to talk back to him again …needless to say I never did in the next 2 years…mind you this was many, many years ago when it was pretty much allowed that whatever the teacher wanted to do to a student was allowed…this man… I hate to use the word hate… so I will say despised me…he sat me in the back of the classroom for 2 years and would berate me in class in front of my classmates…It was a horrible 2 years! At the end of those 2 years I had learned what a teacher could do with the power he was given, my self esteem became very low and it took years before I was able to over come and acknowledge that in that time and space I was just as good and equal to my other classmates and he was not justified nor warranted in his behavior towards me. And here’s a kicker to this story…towards the end of the 2nd year he would, when no one was looking come up to me grab my hand and swing it to you know where touching him. I was always afraid to say anything…being 11 at the time turning into a young lady and so naive. Several years later I had heard he had been caught and sent to jail for raping a few of the girls in his classes a very big scandal to say the least.

All in all though…when I think back on those years and all the “other” teachers I had, most were very good and caring…today’s teachers are so restricted on what they say and do towards their students. This is because of the freedoms that had been given before…good for children today?..somewhat… I believe that the guidelines put in place to protect our children of signaling out students the teacher does not like …but is this not more a personal behavior problem of that individual?.. People are what they are no matter what occupation they are in, should not teachers be held responsible for their actions? And lastly Should they be allowed to teach?
A foot note here:
On the whole most students and most teachers are good…there are bad students and bad teachers~!!!