People Share Stories of Terrible Teachers Who Radicalized Them Against Authority

Look, I am the daughter of a teacher. I love teachers. Teachers are so important and deserve to be paid more than they are. But there are also a lot of bad teachers out there, and in my school career, I had my fair share of them. In fact, I can remember the exact moment that I was "radicalized" against school and the adults who were in charge of us there.

For me, it wasn't a bad teacher, per se, but in fourth grade, I was so bored. We were handed boring worksheet after worksheet and they hurt my soul. My mom had a meeting with my teacher and basically came out of it saying, "She'll try to make things a little more exciting, but you just gotta do the worksheets. Do the work, do well in school because it's what will let you do cool things in the future, but don't expect that all your teachers are going try to make this experience great for you. They won't." 

And that's when I understood. Fourth grade. Justin Boldaji also had a moment where he realized that some teachers aren't actually concerned with helping you be the best you can be. They're just trying to get through the year. He shared his story, and many others chimed in with similar ones, some more horrifying than others, but all terrible in their own way!

The teacher took 10 points off because he was too prepared for the test, finished early, and decided to express a little creativity in the margins of the paper! That's soul-crushing. 

Fourth grade seems to be a formative year for a lot of us. I don't know what it is about it. Maybe that's the year you start to naturally question things that you're told. Maybe fourth-grade teachers are statistically worse than kindergarten through third-grade teachers. Who knows? 

Maybe not! Maybe third-grade teachers are just as bad as fourth-grade teachers. Can you imagine punishing a kid for being too smart? That's a real Ms. Trunchbull move right there. And she was straight-up evil.

I would have cried right then and there. That's horrible. Hopefully they didn't erase them too hard and could still see the answers to fill back in later.

Oh, I hate this. I had several teachers like this. You can't take away points for kids not being mind readers! If the answer is technically right, it's right. Why do some teachers insist on holding points hostage?! A good teacher wants their students to do as well as possible.

Don't get me started on how awful this is. This is proof that "gifted" programs are classist. Having a pencil on you at all times is not an indicator of intelligence! This is pencil privilege in action. Infuriating. 

The different ways boys and girls are treated in school situations is reprehensible! Boys get a pass for simply "being boys," while girls are held to a much higher standard of behavior. It's sexist, and this kind of double standard persists into adulthood.

What does this mean?! You can't make rules and then only apply them to certain kids! This is extraordinarily frustrating. Chances are we've all had experiences with teachers who think that because they're in charge, they can do things that make no sense and follow no logic without anyone questioning them. It's some sort of weird power trip for them. Gross.

It's sort of funny when teachers are clearly not as smart as their students, but it's only funny years later and if you weren't the actual person involved. I would be fuming years later if this happened to me.

Um, this story took so many turns that I don't even know how I feel. Whoa. What a roller coaster of a sentence. I have to go sit down and think about this one for a while.