paigepea
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Location: BC, Canada
Jun 26, 2014 4:28:55 GMT
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Post by paigepea on Sept 24, 2015 14:32:40 GMT
Reading the other thread about the sub, I feel like teachers say inappropriate things all of the time and I've just had to realize I can't say something every single time. I safe my complaints for the extra, extra inappropriate comments.
Last year, dd grade 4 had a visiting teacher tell her class all about the Isis be headings as seen on TV. I heard about this from another parent - apparently my dd said she tuned out because she wasn't interested. It was during a class on jewish identity.
Las year, one of dd grade 4's teachers told their class : I don't like teaching your class, the other class is easier to teach, I should get paid more money to teach your class (this last one I spoke to teacher / admin about). It was with two weeks left in the year. Teacher moved up with the grade! She is teaching Hebrew language 3x week. I've already told admin that if she says one wrong thing I'll be pulling my child from the class and they'll have to find her another teacher.
This year, my dd grade 2 was told by her new teacher (after dd changed the numbers in a math problem because she's curious/likes a challenge) I have 18 other kids in this class and you better learn how to follow directions properly. Dd came home crying. I'm letting this one play out as I figure there will be other more important issues I'll have to talk about - just a feeling I have.
So many more inappropriate comments - these just stood out to me.
What inappropriate things have you heard about from your kids.
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peabay
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Jun 25, 2014 19:50:41 GMT
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Post by peabay on Sept 24, 2015 14:38:00 GMT
Well, when I was in second grade (in Catholic school, no less) we had a sub who decided to tell us that curse words were just words and the middle finger was just holding up a finger. She then proceeded (I will never, ever forget this) to ask kids to come to the board and write "bad" words they knew on the board and a boy named Ronnie went up and wrote "shit" and she went on and on about how it was just a word, we only give it a bad meaning etc... she held up her middle finger and told everyone it was just a finger. I'm sure she was fired that day. In retrospect, it was like watching someone have a nervous breakdown right in front of you.
When my now 17 year old was in 5th grade, they did a history project where the kids picked events from history and did a report for the class on them. One boy picked the Kennedy assassination and the teacher pulled up the Zapruder film on the class computer and projected it onto the Smart Board. Well, he didn't know there was the Zapruder film that is heavily edited for public consumption and a much, much more graphic one. Guess which one he clicked on? My daughter didn't sleep for a week. The teacher was horrified, of course and there was a lot of hubbub over it.
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scorpeao
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Location: NorCal USA
Jun 25, 2014 21:04:54 GMT
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Post by scorpeao on Sept 24, 2015 14:38:44 GMT
The first two items you listed wouldn't sit well with me either, but the third? The teacher doesn't have time for that. She has a lesson plan. If your dd wants more of a challenge buy her a work book that she can do at home.
The only thing that ever pissed me off regarding a teacher was when my dd's 7th grade teacher tried to blame the fact that my dd was disorganized on the divorce. The divorce that occurred when my dd was in 3rd grade. I was PISSED! That teacher ended up being fired, so I guess I wasn't the only person she pissed off.
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Deleted
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May 18, 2024 14:09:03 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 15:06:18 GMT
The one that comes to mind is the 8th grade English teacher who gave DD grades of "C" and "D" because she didn't agree with DD's position in the papers. They were perfectly fine papers that should have gotten an "A" for the writing level and position defense.
She was the same teacher who told the class that one of the kids' moms was meeting with the principal to complain about her, and it was all the kid's fault.
She was fired, or more accurately, not asked back at the end of her first, probationary, year.
ETA: This teacher actually wrote comments on DD's papers saying her ideas (things like solutions to world hunger, and admiring a political leader) were incorrect and proceeded to bash them. That's not grading a paper. She should have been talking about idea development, writing flow, or or that the thesis wasn't backed up. Not commenting how much she hates Obama. That's her opinion and doesn't belong there.
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Post by Delta Dawn on Sept 24, 2015 15:14:18 GMT
The only thing my Grade 8 English teach did that was inappropriate was come to class drunk. You could smell it between the alcohol and perfume she would douse herself with. She was gone after Christmas. I was told we were lucky to have her as she was too drunk to teach. She would slur her words and mispronounce things in the stories we had to read. I also had all the "good people" in the grade in the class, so needless to say they gave her a hard time...
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Post by nurseypants on Sept 24, 2015 15:15:16 GMT
I would love to hear from teachers about inappropriate things parents say. Somehow I think theirs would be way more interesting.
when I see threads like this I wonder why anyone would ever consider teaching as a career anymore. Dealing with parents' 'special snowflake' issues would be unbearable.
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Post by honeyb on Sept 24, 2015 15:26:17 GMT
I am a teacher and I have said an inappropriate thing that I will NEVER forget. I'm sure the students in that class will never forget either.
I was subbing in a 5th grade class and the task was to label a map of our state. I was to read out the label that they put on their map and the student was to mark it on their map- sort of an informal assessment to see if they knew where all the places were.
We get to the Straits of Juan de Fuca. A student raises her hand and asks how to spell Fuca.
I proceed to say: (you see where this is going, right?) F*U*C*K. Silence, then laughter. I tried to play it off like I'd said A, but they most certainly weren't buying it.
This happened in 1994 and I'm still mortified about it.
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Kerri W
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Location: Kentucky
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Post by Kerri W on Sept 24, 2015 15:39:50 GMT
I would love to hear from teachers about inappropriate things parents say. Somehow I think theirs would be way more interesting. when I see threads like this I wonder why anyone would ever consider teaching as a career anymore. Dealing with parents' 'special snowflake' issues would be unbearable. I'm positive there are plenty of special snowflake stories and I'm sure many of them would make us laugh. I think incredibly highly of teachers...my DD is a teacher so I completely understand not only the time but the love she puts into her job. I'm very proud of the fact she became a teacher-it's the absolute perfect fit for her. But it has been my experience here (though oddly not in real life with the several teacher friends I have) that there is an attitude of all teachers being the patron saints of the classroom. Let's be realistic. There are some awesome, fabulous, knock your socks off teachers. My kids have had several. And there are some bottom of the barrel what were they thinking getting into a field they so obviously are not happy in or qualified for. AND there are some very mediocre teachers. It's OK to speak up on behalf of your kids. It's your job as a parent. |
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Post by gmcwife1 on Sept 24, 2015 15:42:13 GMT
Reading the other thread about the sub, I feel like teachers say inappropriate things all of the time and I've just had to realize I can't say something every single time. I safe my complaints for the extra, extra inappropriate comments.
Last year, dd grade 4 had a visiting teacher tell her class all about the Isis be headings as seen on TV. I heard about this from another parent - apparently my dd said she tuned out because she wasn't interested. It was during a class on jewish identity. Las year, one of dd grade 4's teachers told their class : I don't like teaching your class, the other class is easier to teach, I should get paid more money to teach your class (this last one I spoke to teacher / admin about). It was with two weeks left in the year. Teacher moved up with the grade! She is teaching Hebrew language 3x week. I've already told admin that if she says one wrong thing I'll be pulling my child from the class and they'll have to find her another teacher. This year, my dd grade 2 was told by her new teacher (after dd changed the numbers in a math problem because she's curious/likes a challenge) I have 18 other kids in this class and you better learn how to follow directions properly. Dd came home crying. I'm letting this one play out as I figure there will be other more important issues I'll have to talk about - just a feeling I have. So many more inappropriate comments - these just stood out to me. What inappropriate things have you heard about from your kids. I've had three kids in school and I'm sure they have heard something inappropriate at least once or twice each. But I honestly couldn't tell you what it was or who said it and when. I figure everyone says something dumb or inappropriate throughout their lives or their career so my kids will need to understand that. They will also say something inappropriate at some point, so they might as well learn how to deal with it from both sides. I don't want any one of my kids being that co-worker that goes to HR all the time because of something someone said. I've worked with those people and they are no fun for anyone. Everyone has to tiptoe around them and the whole team suffers  |
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Post by pretzels on Sept 24, 2015 15:42:07 GMT
DS's kindergarten teacher was always talking about Jesus and religion, which I didn't think was appropriate in a public school, but I didn't say anything.
That's been about it. (DS is a junior this year.)
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Post by littlemama on Sept 24, 2015 15:55:04 GMT
DS came home when he was in second grade and said "Miss C---- has a boyfriend". I said, "oh, she does?" He said, "yes, but he's married." I said, "Wait, what? Her boyfriend is married?" He replied, "Yeah, his name is Brad and he is married to some lady named Angelina" The moral of the story is : there is probably more to many of these stories than you are hearing.  |
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Deleted
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May 18, 2024 14:09:03 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 16:06:54 GMT
I transferred DS out of a 5th grade class (we had just moved states and this teacher was in no way the best choice for a brand new to the school kid). The teacher (male) decided daily to tell the kids it was the worst class he had ever had and how much he disliked teaching them, etc. What's funny is that this guy was a "favorite" and very requested teacher. I do think the class was just too big and my child got the brunt because we signed up the week before school started (due to when we moved). We got the best transfer teacher and DS loved the new teacher. I remember asking my sisters (who had both taught elementary school) if this was acceptable to say to students.
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Post by Linda on Sept 24, 2015 16:09:46 GMT
We mostly had wonderful teachers over the years but of course, there are always a couple of bad apples in every bushel - and sometimes, it's more a case of an overwhelmed teacher than a teacher who truly is inappropriate.
The one that stands out in my memory was my son's 10th grade video production teacher. I suspect she fell into the overwhelmed category, to be honest. She was teaching a combined class of yearbook (her passion) and video production and she made it clear to the kids - and to the parents at Open House - that she wasn't happy about that and would be focusing almost entirely on yearbook and the video production kids would be given assignments to complete in the library as she didn't have time for them. I did pull my son from that class - he took weight training instead that year. And that probably stands out for me because it is the one and only time I've ever complained about a teacher to the principal
His English teacher that same year was very young and very inexperienced and tend to overshare with her 10th graders. That one I let ride but I wasn't surprised she didn't return the following year.
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Olan
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Post by Olan on Sept 24, 2015 16:09:41 GMT
Well, when I was in second grade (in Catholic school, no less) we had a sub who decided to tell us that curse words were just words and the middle finger was just holding up a finger. She then proceeded (I will never, ever forget this) to ask kids to come to the board and write "bad" words they knew on the board and a boy named Ronnie went up and wrote "shit" and she went on and on about how it was just a word, we only give it a bad meaning etc... she held up her middle finger and told everyone it was just a finger. I'm sure she was fired that day. In retrospect, it was like watching someone have a nervous breakdown right in front of you. When my now 17 year old was in 5th grade, they did a history project where the kids picked events from history and did a report for the class on them. One boy picked the Kennedy assassination and the teacher pulled up the Zapruder film on the class computer and projected it onto the Smart Board. Well, he didn't know there was the Zapruder film that is heavily edited for public consumption and a much, much more graphic one. Guess which one he clicked on? My daughter didn't sleep for a week. The teacher was horrified, of course and there was a lot of hubbub over it. Me thinks your sub was a former Catholic school student who wanted some revenge against the sisters. What an odd lesson! |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 16:17:04 GMT
I had a teacher when I was in high school who became chronically inappropriate, but no one ever said anything about it. He was a favorite English teacher and the yearbook advisor. He had a stroke at the end of my junior year and was recuperating all summer. He did return at the beginning of my senior year but he was (unsurprisingly) not the same at all. He had lost his filter completely and would say some of the most outrageously inappropriate things - swearing, off color jokes and stories, graphic stories from his time in war, etc. - and he also had a hard time staying awake and sometimes would doze off at his desk.
I had him for Mythology and yearbook as a junior and then just yearbook as a senior. It was like he was a different person. Students talked about it, but no one told their parents or other teachers. I think we all just felt bad for him. He was still mentally very sharp - he knew his stuff, and students learned what they were supposed to, but his personality changed a lot and his classes became weird instead of fun and engaging as they had been before. He taught for two more years until he reached full retirement, and then he was gone.
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sweetandsour
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Jun 30, 2014 17:43:52 GMT
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Post by sweetandsour on Sept 24, 2015 16:25:54 GMT
My grade 12 French teacher blew up at me when I told her, "Je m'excuse Madame, je ne comprend pas" which didn't happen often. She went on about how I should learn English first (uh, I may be Chinese but I was born and raised in Canada) before taking Gr 12 French and ended with, "How stupid are you anyway?" The rest of the class was  and I told her, in Cantonese, exactly what she could do with her mother. She demanded to know what I said and I told her that sorry, I didn't learn English first, I couldn't possibly translate it properly. |
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Post by shanni on Sept 24, 2015 16:44:40 GMT
My kids have had teachers say things now and again that made me shake my head, but I usually just chalk those up to the teacher slipping up or having a bad day. My story is from when I was in high school.
I was about 20 points away from an A in my English class. I went to the teacher about a week before the end of the term to see if there was any extra credit I could do to bump me up to an A. He said, "Well, I don't know. How are you in the back seat of a car? Do you fog the windows up real good?". I just stood there, flabbergasted. I was 17 and very naive. I had NO idea what to say in response to that!! I just turned around and quickly left his classroom.
I did end up getting an A, but I assure you, it had NOTHING to do with my skills in the back of his car! I never told my mother that story either. I wish now that I would have. It makes me wonder how many girls that creep took advantage of.
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Post by wallyagain on Sept 24, 2015 16:45:26 GMT
Just heard about a sub teacher that called a student "he, she or it" as she didn't believe this student was a girl. She said this to the front office staff, so it's not just heresay from the kids. She also called the class of kids a bunch of liars as they defended the student and said she was a girl.
Needless to say, the sub has been removed from the sub list at the school board level.
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perumbula
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Location: Idaho
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Post by perumbula on Sept 24, 2015 16:56:31 GMT
My HS art teacher loved being inappropriate. He would tell off color jokes and had no problem with swearing in class, either by him or the students. Not incessantly, but at least once a week. He once made me the butt of an off color joke knowing I was from a conservative home and would be very embarrassed by it. I think he felt badly about it though because he never did it again.
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Post by Merge on Sept 24, 2015 16:59:09 GMT
Hmmm. Well, I don't think teachers are saints, but I don't think there's anything wrong with a kid hearing that she needs to follow directions, or with a poorly behaved class hearing that they are not meeting the same standard the other classes are. I think we coddle too much and worry too much about hurt feelings. We'd all be better off if kids learned to accept legitimate criticism and consider how their behavior is directly associated with the response they get from the teacher.
Signed, the teacher who just got argued with and called a bitch because I assigned detention to three girls whose parents think they can do no wrong.
You know what? They don't follow directions. They can't seem to close their mouths for more than 30 seconds at a time. And they are in a class that is among the worst behaved I have ever taught. And I don't think it hurts them at all to hear the truth about that.
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Post by 950nancy on Sept 24, 2015 17:12:50 GMT
I had parents come in ask me if I had said something that their child came home and told them about. Almost always I had to try to figure out what the kid was even saying! Sometimes kids make up things and sometime teachers say the wrong things. I would ask the teacher if the comment concerned me. I appreciated the parents who came and talked to me. One of my most memorable things that I did do… At the end of the day, if we were lined up before the bell rang, I would read jokes from a kids' joke book. A dog walks into a small western town with his foot wrapped and stares the sheriff in the eye and says, "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw." My intent was teaching kids that words have different meanings and that is where humor and anger can come from. Now the joke was written better than I just typed and once the kids figured out the double meaning of pa/paw they loved it and quoted it often. I had my teammate's daughter that year and her daughter was telling her siblings about it and they were all in the kitchen running around the island yelling, "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw!" Their father (who went AWOL in their lives) had committed suicide the previous year. Ugh. I felt awful. When you have a job where you talk for 7 hours a day, you are bound to mess up no matter how great your intentions are.
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Post by panda on Sept 24, 2015 18:13:33 GMT
I just heard this story on our local talk radio about a teacher in North Vancouver, and inappropriate things he's said that he has been suspended for. link |
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Post by gmcwife1 on Sept 24, 2015 18:54:19 GMT
DS came home when he was in second grade and said "Miss C---- has a boyfriend". I said, "oh, she does?" He said, "yes, but he's married." I said, "Wait, what? Her boyfriend is married?" He replied, "Yeah, his name is Brad and he is married to some lady named Angelina" The moral of the story is : there is probably more to many of these stories than you are hearing. I could totally see this happening in my household  My dd is very good at only hearing and relaying parts of conversations |
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Post by littlemama on Sept 24, 2015 19:05:27 GMT
DS came home when he was in second grade and said "Miss C---- has a boyfriend". I said, "oh, she does?" He said, "yes, but he's married." I said, "Wait, what? Her boyfriend is married?" He replied, "Yeah, his name is Brad and he is married to some lady named Angelina" The moral of the story is : there is probably more to many of these stories than you are hearing. I could totally see this happening in my household My dd is very good at only hearing and relaying parts of conversations He was 7 years old and (thankfully) had NO idea who Brad and Angelina were. I worked in his classroom a lot that year, so I did tell the teacher about it. She was mortified! LOL. She was a first year teacher that year. |
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Post by lancermom on Sept 24, 2015 19:08:01 GMT
When I was in 2nd grade, my teacher put the "naughty" kids under her desk and pushed the chair underneath. I was afraid I would go under. Now as an adult I realize that she only out certain kids under. She was extremely racist. At the time I had my mom go to class and sit with me all day. She didn't believe this could happen. Thirty years later she says it must have been true because my story never changed. I was so thankful we moved before the school year was out.
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Sept 24, 2015 19:25:31 GMT
I have a story but it isn't so much what the teacher said, but what she did. This was in fifth grade.
She would let girls in the class brush her hair for class credit for the day, and let the boys rub her feet for credit.
I never brushed her hair, and knew something wasn't right, but had never heard of a woman taking advantage of children like that. Thankfully she lasted less than half a school year before a long term sub was brought in to finish the year.
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Post by abr79 on Sept 24, 2015 19:26:11 GMT
My son is only in 1st grade and has been pretty lucky. Nothing inappropriate. Sure, they say things he doesn't like when he's being corrected, but that's part of life, kid.
When I was in 11th school, I had an English teacher who always pointed out the innuendos in some of the British Literature we'd read (Canterbury Tales is perverted, yo)...but only if we didn't catch them first. LOL.
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Post by chlerbie on Sept 24, 2015 19:31:36 GMT
When I was 16, my brother's 29 year old wife died suddenly after an asthma attack. As you can imagine, it was a horrible situation, he was an absolute mess and lived about two hours from us and we stayed with him for a few days. He's 14 years older than me and my company seemed to be one thing that was helping to keep him together. When I came back to school, having missed a week (she died on a Sunday morning), my English teacher told me that a week of school was too much to miss for a funeral. I explained what had happened and she said, "It's not like it was your brother who died. It was JUST his wife."
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breetheflea
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Post by breetheflea on Sept 24, 2015 19:40:46 GMT
Both my 3rd grade teacher and high school Spanish teacher said many things to me that weren't very nice (outloud for all to hear) that I still remember. For example, I fell off something in PE class and scraped just under my nose. When I asked for a tissue she told the class 'look what happens when you pick your nose".
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garcia5050
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Post by garcia5050 on Sept 24, 2015 19:48:51 GMT
My brother, early in his teaching career, told me about a time when he had a 3-day substitute assignment for a fifth grade class, in a fairly bad neighborhood. On the first day, the kids would not stop talking. He's trying to get their attention and nothing is working. He lost his cool and yelled "Shut the F*** UP!" That did the trick. But he immediately regretted it. He knew the principal and maybe a few parents would say something, or he would get the call that he didn't need to come back. It never happened. Either no one ratted him out, or the parents who knew didn't care all that much. He did say the students were absolute angels after that.
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and I told her, in Cantonese, exactly what she could do with her mother. 
My dd is very good at only hearing and relaying parts of conversations 
