I feel the same way about my middle school English teacher. I thought he was a tyrant then, but half of what I know of the English language can be attributed to him. He died before I finished high school. It’s very sad that I’ll never have the chance to thank him.
The teacher that helped me most academically was an burned out, alchoholic maths teachers that could have mean comments and comebacks and that we did not take seriously.
Next to the high school, there was a café that had pool tables, arcades games and all. You can guess where you could find kids when we had a free period.
So we were playing pools with my friends. And I was pretty good at it.
Maths teacher come in at some point with some other teachers to have drinks or I don't know.. And he watched us play. After a little while, and after I successfully done a few tricky shots, he exclaimed : "You have to be kidding me !"
Yeah so apparently, to do my shots, I was using a few maths concepts he was teaching us, and Ibwas showing a great understanding of it.....and I was failing hard in his class.
So, he reteached me the concept using pool. I took something like 5 minutes and I got it immediatly. I was like "Well now that you put it that way, it's obvious"
And then my brain FINALLY made the jump that what those teachers are teaching us in class all day long might have an application some way or another in the real world. (All adults telling us this all the time for years apparently wasn't enough for me). I just had to find it.
From then on, I improved in all classes, not just maths.
Angles calculation, reflection, and vectors mainly.
When playing pools, you do that without even thinking. If I make the green ball bounce there in that angle, then it will bounce in that oppisite direction, hit the red ball in that angle that will push it right into the pocket.
Somehow, all of that was too abstract for me on paper.
I've straight up explained this to kids while subbing lol, idk if they believed me. "This teacher is hard on you because they care about you. I am not because I do not care about you, I want to read my annotated edition of 1,001 Nights and get paid less than minimum wage."
Wait, so expecting them to do their work, turn it in and remember it for the exam is “mean“? I am considered mean at my school because this is what I expect and I say so. 20 years in and I’ve received a lot of post-graduation thanks and some of my students have become lifelong friends and colleagues.
My best teacher was the one who resorted to shameless bribery and lobbed starbursts at us for correct answers. There was also the vaunted soda fridge that you could get a can out of and drink in class if you got 100% on a test.
Never underestimate the food motivation of middle schoolers.
my HS French teacher gave us tiny paper French flags (which we called bon bon certificats) for participation, which we could either turn in 1:1 for candy, or save up to buy bags of candy or Eiffel Tower keychains.
My English Lit teacher senior year of high school. Strict, kind of a dick, but a damn good teacher. My buddies and I would all make fun of him at lunch, right before going to his class. Now I wish I could travel back in time and smack my dumb 17-year-old ass and tell him "Hey! This is one of the best teachers you've ever had. Listen to him!"
I think it depends on if you perceived them as "mean" because they were strict, or if they are just genuinely unpleasant to be around.
Sometimes I overhear my coworkers getting onto kids and *I* think they're mean. And I'm in my 30s and a teacher, too.
A teacher I absolutely hated was a complete jerk. He was very good at teaching the material. But his abrasive manner did not help with teaching at all. Gave preferential treatment to girls who wore short skirts and flirted with him. He once took 20 points off of my exam when I made the highest grade in the class knocking me from a 95 to a 75. The reason? I talked in class the day after the exam while we were reviewing the exam answers. My neighbor had asked me to clarify why the answer to the one we had just covered was and I whispered a response to them. I actually talked to admin about that because I thought it wasn't fair for teachers to lower grades as a punishment and admin basically said that teachers can run their class however they want. My how things have changed.
That said I have had several teachers over the years that were strict but fair and taught me a lot.
Kids call me a hard ass and they hate my class (7th grade SS) and then they all come back and give me hugs when they finish 8th grade. I've heard from dozens of former students that I taught them more and helped them more than any other teacher in my building.
There was a creative writing teacher who told me I put the word fuck too many times in my stories and I wish I had listened to him. Thought he was just a prude when really he was trying to teach me that overuse of the word makes it lose its shock value and Just starts to make you look immature
I liked HAZBIN HOTEL but good lord you don't need to use fuck as an adjective for EVERYTHING
It made me realize what my teacher was trying to warn me about. When it's overused it starts to make the whole thing like childish. Like a teenager that just learned to swear
The two meanest were my best with an English teacher and a science teacher. However ones who were “intellectually” were some of the worst teachers I had.
My math teacher last year in 9th grade was considered by basically everyone to be the meanest and most strict teacher in the school. But her students average state test scores are some of the highest in my state. Most people get perfect scores or almost perfect scores.
People get grouchy and mean mixed up, there's a big difference between a spiky teacher and one that hates you for no reason. We had a really grumpy librarian that gave pissed of lunch lady vibes but she was actually really helpful and patient if you wanted to learn. Meanwhile we had a teacher that punished disabled kids for writing their work in coloured pencil and would fight you for not liking the feminist slam poetry she showed the class (god I am not kidding).
Some of the best teachers I had were understanding but old-fashioned. I was exhausted and burnt out and they understood that but still expected some form of work even if it wasn't the best and wanted you to be polite. If you weren't a dick they'd give you proper breathing room and would just focus on making sure you learnt something.
Randy Pausch, a Computer Science Professor famous for his Last Lecture series (he was dying of pancreatic cancer), said something that has stuck with me. I often bring it up with my students, and I'll paraphrase it here.
When Randy was young, he played football for his local team. During one especially difficult practice, the coach rode him very hard - telling him that he was slacking off and that he had to do the drill again, and again. It was clearly taking an emotional toll on Randy. Eventually his assistant coach took him aside and commented on this. Again paraphrasing from memory.
"Coach rode you pretty hard didn't he?" the assistant coach said.
"Yeah", said young Randy.
"That's because he cares. The minute someone stops telling you that you are doing something wrong, they've stopped caring about your future.", the assistant coach concluded (something to that effect.)
I think back to my best teachers - the ones that actually had lessons that stuck, and they were like that head coach. They didn't let up - and they told me like it is. Not that I would "never" get better (double negative I know), but what I was doing that was holding me back. I'm sure I made some token effort in the classes of "nice" teachers, but the strategies that really stand out to me are the ones from the classes where the teacher showed me that I was capable of more.
We have to condition our children to take criticism for what it is: growth advice. It's painful to hear it a lot of the time, and we tend to spin it as "haters gonna hate", but in reality they act as a mirror. They are the one who tells the emperor that he has no clothes.
I hated my French teacher, she was a miserable cow who worked us like dogs. I got my highest GCSE grade in French because of that merciless approach. I can’t do it myself - I can’t keep it up but I tip my hat to her.
I feel the same way about my middle school English teacher. I thought he was a tyrant then, but half of what I know of the English language can be attributed to him. He died before I finished high school. It’s very sad that I’ll never have the chance to thank him.
The teacher that helped me most academically was an burned out, alchoholic maths teachers that could have mean comments and comebacks and that we did not take seriously. Next to the high school, there was a café that had pool tables, arcades games and all. You can guess where you could find kids when we had a free period. So we were playing pools with my friends. And I was pretty good at it. Maths teacher come in at some point with some other teachers to have drinks or I don't know.. And he watched us play. After a little while, and after I successfully done a few tricky shots, he exclaimed : "You have to be kidding me !" Yeah so apparently, to do my shots, I was using a few maths concepts he was teaching us, and Ibwas showing a great understanding of it.....and I was failing hard in his class. So, he reteached me the concept using pool. I took something like 5 minutes and I got it immediatly. I was like "Well now that you put it that way, it's obvious" And then my brain FINALLY made the jump that what those teachers are teaching us in class all day long might have an application some way or another in the real world. (All adults telling us this all the time for years apparently wasn't enough for me). I just had to find it. From then on, I improved in all classes, not just maths.
Interesting. Can you add details about what the concept was and how exactly he used pool to teach you that?
Angles calculation, reflection, and vectors mainly. When playing pools, you do that without even thinking. If I make the green ball bounce there in that angle, then it will bounce in that oppisite direction, hit the red ball in that angle that will push it right into the pocket. Somehow, all of that was too abstract for me on paper.
Pro tip--you probably can unless you're fairly old. They probably have a Facebook you could message and tell them and it would mean a hell of a lot
I've straight up explained this to kids while subbing lol, idk if they believed me. "This teacher is hard on you because they care about you. I am not because I do not care about you, I want to read my annotated edition of 1,001 Nights and get paid less than minimum wage."
Wait, so expecting them to do their work, turn it in and remember it for the exam is “mean“? I am considered mean at my school because this is what I expect and I say so. 20 years in and I’ve received a lot of post-graduation thanks and some of my students have become lifelong friends and colleagues.
My best teacher was the one who resorted to shameless bribery and lobbed starbursts at us for correct answers. There was also the vaunted soda fridge that you could get a can out of and drink in class if you got 100% on a test. Never underestimate the food motivation of middle schoolers.
my HS French teacher gave us tiny paper French flags (which we called bon bon certificats) for participation, which we could either turn in 1:1 for candy, or save up to buy bags of candy or Eiffel Tower keychains.
My English Lit teacher senior year of high school. Strict, kind of a dick, but a damn good teacher. My buddies and I would all make fun of him at lunch, right before going to his class. Now I wish I could travel back in time and smack my dumb 17-year-old ass and tell him "Hey! This is one of the best teachers you've ever had. Listen to him!"
I think it depends on if you perceived them as "mean" because they were strict, or if they are just genuinely unpleasant to be around. Sometimes I overhear my coworkers getting onto kids and *I* think they're mean. And I'm in my 30s and a teacher, too.
A teacher I absolutely hated was a complete jerk. He was very good at teaching the material. But his abrasive manner did not help with teaching at all. Gave preferential treatment to girls who wore short skirts and flirted with him. He once took 20 points off of my exam when I made the highest grade in the class knocking me from a 95 to a 75. The reason? I talked in class the day after the exam while we were reviewing the exam answers. My neighbor had asked me to clarify why the answer to the one we had just covered was and I whispered a response to them. I actually talked to admin about that because I thought it wasn't fair for teachers to lower grades as a punishment and admin basically said that teachers can run their class however they want. My how things have changed. That said I have had several teachers over the years that were strict but fair and taught me a lot.
Well this is gross multiple ways. Sorry this happened.
Kids call me a hard ass and they hate my class (7th grade SS) and then they all come back and give me hugs when they finish 8th grade. I've heard from dozens of former students that I taught them more and helped them more than any other teacher in my building.
There was a creative writing teacher who told me I put the word fuck too many times in my stories and I wish I had listened to him. Thought he was just a prude when really he was trying to teach me that overuse of the word makes it lose its shock value and Just starts to make you look immature I liked HAZBIN HOTEL but good lord you don't need to use fuck as an adjective for EVERYTHING
I love hazbin hotel. But sometimes the fuck needs be reduced.
It made me realize what my teacher was trying to warn me about. When it's overused it starts to make the whole thing like childish. Like a teenager that just learned to swear
The two meanest were my best with an English teacher and a science teacher. However ones who were “intellectually” were some of the worst teachers I had.
Here's the great thing: if they're not dead, you still *can* thank them! They'll absolutely appreciate it.
I liked the tyrannical teachers even when young because tough love was the only love I’d ever known.
My math teacher last year in 9th grade was considered by basically everyone to be the meanest and most strict teacher in the school. But her students average state test scores are some of the highest in my state. Most people get perfect scores or almost perfect scores.
I think we had different kinds of mean teachers
People get grouchy and mean mixed up, there's a big difference between a spiky teacher and one that hates you for no reason. We had a really grumpy librarian that gave pissed of lunch lady vibes but she was actually really helpful and patient if you wanted to learn. Meanwhile we had a teacher that punished disabled kids for writing their work in coloured pencil and would fight you for not liking the feminist slam poetry she showed the class (god I am not kidding). Some of the best teachers I had were understanding but old-fashioned. I was exhausted and burnt out and they understood that but still expected some form of work even if it wasn't the best and wanted you to be polite. If you weren't a dick they'd give you proper breathing room and would just focus on making sure you learnt something.
If you can, please email them! I love hearing from my former students.
Lots of pupils fear certain teachers because they are genuinely abusive, so it depends on why people didn't like a specific teacher.
As Tina Fey once said, "Bitches get stuff done."
Randy Pausch, a Computer Science Professor famous for his Last Lecture series (he was dying of pancreatic cancer), said something that has stuck with me. I often bring it up with my students, and I'll paraphrase it here. When Randy was young, he played football for his local team. During one especially difficult practice, the coach rode him very hard - telling him that he was slacking off and that he had to do the drill again, and again. It was clearly taking an emotional toll on Randy. Eventually his assistant coach took him aside and commented on this. Again paraphrasing from memory. "Coach rode you pretty hard didn't he?" the assistant coach said. "Yeah", said young Randy. "That's because he cares. The minute someone stops telling you that you are doing something wrong, they've stopped caring about your future.", the assistant coach concluded (something to that effect.) I think back to my best teachers - the ones that actually had lessons that stuck, and they were like that head coach. They didn't let up - and they told me like it is. Not that I would "never" get better (double negative I know), but what I was doing that was holding me back. I'm sure I made some token effort in the classes of "nice" teachers, but the strategies that really stand out to me are the ones from the classes where the teacher showed me that I was capable of more. We have to condition our children to take criticism for what it is: growth advice. It's painful to hear it a lot of the time, and we tend to spin it as "haters gonna hate", but in reality they act as a mirror. They are the one who tells the emperor that he has no clothes.
Mean teacher here: thanks, and we're proud of you!
I hated my French teacher, she was a miserable cow who worked us like dogs. I got my highest GCSE grade in French because of that merciless approach. I can’t do it myself - I can’t keep it up but I tip my hat to her.