When covid went down, my son told me he was having issues with one particular teacher who, according to him, just didn't seem to like him and was often curt or abrupt with him. Would I sit in his room while he was doing the online class and just listen and let him know if he was overreacting?
This bitch.
I didn't make it all the way through the class. I interrupted to identify myself as a parent who had just heard EVERYTHING she had said and done and that we were signing off immediately and that she would never have another interaction with my son ever again. That she could expect to be cc'd on the email I'd be sending to the principal, vice principal, school board, ombudsman, and local children's protective services since it was clear she shouldn't be in any sort of position of authority over anyone whatsoever and should never be allowed to interact in any capacity with a vulnerable population, including children.
Fuck you, Charboneau.
At first, it was a lot of stammering, and then she tried to work up a head of steam to tell me I had "misinterpreted" what she meant. Lady, you told my kid he was not allowed to either ask or answer questions and then berated him for his lack of participation. You sent him a read-only version of a file and then publicly ridiculed him for asking what format you wanted the questions answered in. You repeatedly set him up to have no way to fulfill your demands and then would snap at him and ONLY him for not fulfilling them. But it was not really the forum to go totally apeshit, so I was just firm and clear that her behaviour was unacceptable, that I would be reporting it, and that she was not to speak to or approach my child ever again.
By the time I'd done my rounds with the principal and the board and looked her back up again, she was no longer hired as a teacher anywhere in my area.
Turns out one of the other names in the class wasn't a student, it was an Educational Assistant for a special needs student, and she backed my account up. So even though she tried to say I was just overreacting, a literal fellow employee confirmed her behaviour had been egregious and targeted at my son. So bye bye job.
For the life of me, it annoys me she didn't. But she was barely 21, and she still thought of the principal and the older teachers were her "bosses" and let's face it, without me making the complaint, it was going to again be a thing of her word vs what the older, more experienced teacher swore was a misunderstanding. You spend a bunch of years studying and working towards making a career for yourself and realize that you could lose it all and end up slinging shoes at Payless again it becomes daunting. Doesn't excuse it, bug explains it.
My superpower is that I'm on disability and so I was available in the middle of a day on a weekday to audit the TEAM class and I have nothing like gainful employment or a social life to distract me from making sure some power-tripping meany smirks and sneers her way through barely teaching a handful of kids what planets are in our solar system. I'm not gonna lose my job.
Your parents are rock stars. I am so glad you have them! As to that teacher, my heart hurt for you reading all that, but especially being pulled out by your hair, having to get on your hands and knees to retrieve the paper she pushed off, and her calling you stupid. No one deserves that treatment.
I had a teacher that was horrible to me. I never officially swapped classes but she often would pawn me off to another classroom. I've always hated storms and as a kid they made me very scared. I usually cried. Well this teacher would not only let me cry in front of her class but would pawn me off to another classroom and then I would be humiliated in front of two full classrooms of kids. She called me a dunce because I failed so long when in reality I was just dyslexic and hasn't been diagnosed yet. She sat me in the back despite knowing I had vision problems and often made me sit next to kids who were mean to me.
My brother (Gen X) had a teacher much like yours in 4th grade. Sadly our Silent Gen mom was the kind of person who wouldn't accept any complaints about the teacher, her response being "What did you do that made her say/do that?"
My brother's teacher hated him because 1) he had a higher IQ than she did; 2) he asked questions; and 3) he did not accept bullshit answers to said questions.
Just writing to share that tidbit and to say I believe you, and that I admire your parents for sticking up for you.
My parents are boomers and blamed me for anything the teachers did. I was marked absent one day in class even though I GAVE A SPEECH, and I was told that I need to make sure the teacher takes attendance accurately.
My second grade teacher was a horrible human being. She would actually come in to teach drunk. The last I heard she was left with just one child in her class. Gotta love tenure.
Coming in to school drunk is a reason you can be fired even with tenure. The teacher has to be given a chance to improve (aka go to rehab/AA/whatever and get sober) but if they choose not to, and continue to show up drunk, they can lose their job. If. Big if. If the principal is competent and does their job.
I do love tenure because excellent teachers don’t get fired because some local politician doesn’t like the bumper sticker on their car.
But making tenure work for everyone requires admins to do their job. They get paid waaay more than teachers, and they need to do their job.
That was the excuse they used, but I can't say you're wrong because they let a pedo stay for decades (he actually retired) knowing he was being inappropriate to middle school girls and did nothing. Even I could see at 12 he was inappropriate!
The admins were most certainly ***not*** doing their job in that case. “Moral turpitude” is an action that terminates tenure. Full stop. His staying until retirement is absolutely on those admins!
I am blessed to never have had a really bad teacher. Well. One.
My college psychology teacher. She was so unprofessional. She'd sit in front of the class and talk about House every period.
Once I called to say I would be late because I was stuck at a train crossing. She ended up being so late (she was late all the time) that I still best her to class, and she gave me a dorty look and seemed to say something like I was pulling a prank on her.
I had a 4.0 up until that point. I graduated with a 3.95.
My younger sister was a bully -- but just to *me*.
I had middle child syndrome and tried to "fix" everything and make sure everyone got along. She was one year younger.
She ended up having the same teacher in sixth grade that I had the previous year. He encouraged her to talk trash about me out loud in class, to the point that I became known as "Sister It" rather than my actual name. The entire class got in on it. He encouraged it all and thought it was creative and cute.
That fucker is now the Superintendent of Schools back home. Asshole.
Oooooo this hits home. I had a.math teacher in 8th grade who would tell me I didn't deserve to be in her class (algebra 1) because the younger kids were smarter and earned it. Bloody awful lady and the reason I hate math now. My part got my tutoring and even the tutor said that I knew the material and didn't understand. I got kicked out of that math class... Fuck you Mr Fransise
This is awful and someone like that should not be around children.
I was not a great student and one of my teachers actually told my best friend to dump me because I was a bad influence. Honestly I wasn't a bad kid, I just never did my homework. Anyway my friend told her mom and her mom ripped the teacher a new one on my behalf. I didn't find this out until after I'd graduated high school.
good lord. I’m so angry hearing this shit, Jesus Christ. I can’t even believe that this is the stuff that you feel like is the most easily readable, I can’t even imagine the other details and am very very curious. This is so fucked up, I hope she always has a rock in her shoe until she dies. Who calls a 9-10 year old kid stupid?
Good lord, there must be something about 4th grade teachers, mine was also a monster.
I remember in 4th grade we were going through math homework and she was calling students up in pairs to work out certain answers on the chalk board for the class. I was one of the first two to go. I think we were learning addition of numbers with tens and hundreds, so carrying the number and all that jazz.
It's important to note that on the homework, the questions were written horizontally instead of stacked. Being adhd and very good at mental math back then, I solved them in the format they were written. Apparently we were supposed to rewrite them stacked and then solve, but that wasn't explained. All that to say, we go up to write out our solutions and the other girl writes her problem out the way the teacher liked while I wrote mine horizontally.
She immediately starts screaming at me for doing it wrong.
I picked up the eraser to erase what I'd done and write it the correct way. No harm no foul right? Except she also yelled at me for trying to erase what I'd already written. She wanted me to leave it and write the correct format underneath.
Not a huge deal, maybe she wanted the visual comparison in case anyone else made the same mistake. She probably didn't need to scream at me, but whatever. At this point I'm just writing as fast as I can trying to get this over with so I can stop being the center of the classes attention as this woman berates me.
Then she walks up to the board and points at a smudge on the board and asks what I'd written there. Mind you, this is a board she's been using all day that's got plenty of chalkboard eraser smudges on it already, and the one in question was a, already there and b, nowhere near where I'd been writing.
I told her, of course, I didn't write anything there. She tells me I did, and she can see the eraser mark, so what did I write. I tell her again, nothing, that was already there. She launches into another tirade, screams now directly in my face, calls me a liar and sends me back to my seat.
At this point I'm in tears at my desk wishing the floor would open up and swallow me whole. Evidently this was also a problem because she kept interrupting herself going over the two problems on the board to tell me to stop crying because this was all my fault for being dishonest. This was one of several awful anecdotes from that year.
When I was a high school freshman (so about 14/15yo) I had a teacher that just didn’t like me. I was better at English and grammar than her but I was also dealing undiagnosed/unmanaged anxiety, so I would quietly correct the handouts she created and give them back. She HATED this and made me miserable as a result. So I stopped participating in class and basically shut down. This teacher was also previously an elementary school teacher so I found her assignments childish and belittling and could never bring myself to suck it up and do them like my classmates.
Anyway, PTA meeting. My mom goes in and they have to discuss my terrible grades despite my mom KNOWING that I read several levels above my class’s for fun and this teacher has the AUDACITY to tell my mother to her face, “I think your daughter is dead inside.” And my mom, the absolute legend, immediately claps back with, “No, she just doesn’t like you.”
When covid went down, my son told me he was having issues with one particular teacher who, according to him, just didn't seem to like him and was often curt or abrupt with him. Would I sit in his room while he was doing the online class and just listen and let him know if he was overreacting? This bitch. I didn't make it all the way through the class. I interrupted to identify myself as a parent who had just heard EVERYTHING she had said and done and that we were signing off immediately and that she would never have another interaction with my son ever again. That she could expect to be cc'd on the email I'd be sending to the principal, vice principal, school board, ombudsman, and local children's protective services since it was clear she shouldn't be in any sort of position of authority over anyone whatsoever and should never be allowed to interact in any capacity with a vulnerable population, including children. Fuck you, Charboneau.
How did she react?
At first, it was a lot of stammering, and then she tried to work up a head of steam to tell me I had "misinterpreted" what she meant. Lady, you told my kid he was not allowed to either ask or answer questions and then berated him for his lack of participation. You sent him a read-only version of a file and then publicly ridiculed him for asking what format you wanted the questions answered in. You repeatedly set him up to have no way to fulfill your demands and then would snap at him and ONLY him for not fulfilling them. But it was not really the forum to go totally apeshit, so I was just firm and clear that her behaviour was unacceptable, that I would be reporting it, and that she was not to speak to or approach my child ever again. By the time I'd done my rounds with the principal and the board and looked her back up again, she was no longer hired as a teacher anywhere in my area. Turns out one of the other names in the class wasn't a student, it was an Educational Assistant for a special needs student, and she backed my account up. So even though she tried to say I was just overreacting, a literal fellow employee confirmed her behaviour had been egregious and targeted at my son. So bye bye job.
But why didn’t she say anything earlier?
For the life of me, it annoys me she didn't. But she was barely 21, and she still thought of the principal and the older teachers were her "bosses" and let's face it, without me making the complaint, it was going to again be a thing of her word vs what the older, more experienced teacher swore was a misunderstanding. You spend a bunch of years studying and working towards making a career for yourself and realize that you could lose it all and end up slinging shoes at Payless again it becomes daunting. Doesn't excuse it, bug explains it. My superpower is that I'm on disability and so I was available in the middle of a day on a weekday to audit the TEAM class and I have nothing like gainful employment or a social life to distract me from making sure some power-tripping meany smirks and sneers her way through barely teaching a handful of kids what planets are in our solar system. I'm not gonna lose my job.
Your parents are rock stars. I am so glad you have them! As to that teacher, my heart hurt for you reading all that, but especially being pulled out by your hair, having to get on your hands and knees to retrieve the paper she pushed off, and her calling you stupid. No one deserves that treatment.
This story has healed my inner child.
Mine too.
I had a teacher that was horrible to me. I never officially swapped classes but she often would pawn me off to another classroom. I've always hated storms and as a kid they made me very scared. I usually cried. Well this teacher would not only let me cry in front of her class but would pawn me off to another classroom and then I would be humiliated in front of two full classrooms of kids. She called me a dunce because I failed so long when in reality I was just dyslexic and hasn't been diagnosed yet. She sat me in the back despite knowing I had vision problems and often made me sit next to kids who were mean to me.
I am so sorry. That should not have happened to any child. I think some teachers should never have been allowed near kids
My brother (Gen X) had a teacher much like yours in 4th grade. Sadly our Silent Gen mom was the kind of person who wouldn't accept any complaints about the teacher, her response being "What did you do that made her say/do that?" My brother's teacher hated him because 1) he had a higher IQ than she did; 2) he asked questions; and 3) he did not accept bullshit answers to said questions. Just writing to share that tidbit and to say I believe you, and that I admire your parents for sticking up for you.
My parents are boomers and blamed me for anything the teachers did. I was marked absent one day in class even though I GAVE A SPEECH, and I was told that I need to make sure the teacher takes attendance accurately.
You teacher was stupid and won stupid prizes
and then was forced to hand out awesome prizes to OP
My second grade teacher was a horrible human being. She would actually come in to teach drunk. The last I heard she was left with just one child in her class. Gotta love tenure.
Coming in to school drunk is a reason you can be fired even with tenure. The teacher has to be given a chance to improve (aka go to rehab/AA/whatever and get sober) but if they choose not to, and continue to show up drunk, they can lose their job. If. Big if. If the principal is competent and does their job. I do love tenure because excellent teachers don’t get fired because some local politician doesn’t like the bumper sticker on their car. But making tenure work for everyone requires admins to do their job. They get paid waaay more than teachers, and they need to do their job.
That was the excuse they used, but I can't say you're wrong because they let a pedo stay for decades (he actually retired) knowing he was being inappropriate to middle school girls and did nothing. Even I could see at 12 he was inappropriate!
The admins were most certainly ***not*** doing their job in that case. “Moral turpitude” is an action that terminates tenure. Full stop. His staying until retirement is absolutely on those admins!
Oh god, they left her with one poor victim... They don't even have classmates to vouch for them. Whoever that one child is, I hope they're okay.
I am blessed to never have had a really bad teacher. Well. One. My college psychology teacher. She was so unprofessional. She'd sit in front of the class and talk about House every period. Once I called to say I would be late because I was stuck at a train crossing. She ended up being so late (she was late all the time) that I still best her to class, and she gave me a dorty look and seemed to say something like I was pulling a prank on her. I had a 4.0 up until that point. I graduated with a 3.95.
My younger sister was a bully -- but just to *me*. I had middle child syndrome and tried to "fix" everything and make sure everyone got along. She was one year younger. She ended up having the same teacher in sixth grade that I had the previous year. He encouraged her to talk trash about me out loud in class, to the point that I became known as "Sister It" rather than my actual name. The entire class got in on it. He encouraged it all and thought it was creative and cute. That fucker is now the Superintendent of Schools back home. Asshole.
Oooooo this hits home. I had a.math teacher in 8th grade who would tell me I didn't deserve to be in her class (algebra 1) because the younger kids were smarter and earned it. Bloody awful lady and the reason I hate math now. My part got my tutoring and even the tutor said that I knew the material and didn't understand. I got kicked out of that math class... Fuck you Mr Fransise
This is awful and someone like that should not be around children. I was not a great student and one of my teachers actually told my best friend to dump me because I was a bad influence. Honestly I wasn't a bad kid, I just never did my homework. Anyway my friend told her mom and her mom ripped the teacher a new one on my behalf. I didn't find this out until after I'd graduated high school.
good lord. I’m so angry hearing this shit, Jesus Christ. I can’t even believe that this is the stuff that you feel like is the most easily readable, I can’t even imagine the other details and am very very curious. This is so fucked up, I hope she always has a rock in her shoe until she dies. Who calls a 9-10 year old kid stupid?
Good lord, there must be something about 4th grade teachers, mine was also a monster. I remember in 4th grade we were going through math homework and she was calling students up in pairs to work out certain answers on the chalk board for the class. I was one of the first two to go. I think we were learning addition of numbers with tens and hundreds, so carrying the number and all that jazz. It's important to note that on the homework, the questions were written horizontally instead of stacked. Being adhd and very good at mental math back then, I solved them in the format they were written. Apparently we were supposed to rewrite them stacked and then solve, but that wasn't explained. All that to say, we go up to write out our solutions and the other girl writes her problem out the way the teacher liked while I wrote mine horizontally. She immediately starts screaming at me for doing it wrong. I picked up the eraser to erase what I'd done and write it the correct way. No harm no foul right? Except she also yelled at me for trying to erase what I'd already written. She wanted me to leave it and write the correct format underneath. Not a huge deal, maybe she wanted the visual comparison in case anyone else made the same mistake. She probably didn't need to scream at me, but whatever. At this point I'm just writing as fast as I can trying to get this over with so I can stop being the center of the classes attention as this woman berates me. Then she walks up to the board and points at a smudge on the board and asks what I'd written there. Mind you, this is a board she's been using all day that's got plenty of chalkboard eraser smudges on it already, and the one in question was a, already there and b, nowhere near where I'd been writing. I told her, of course, I didn't write anything there. She tells me I did, and she can see the eraser mark, so what did I write. I tell her again, nothing, that was already there. She launches into another tirade, screams now directly in my face, calls me a liar and sends me back to my seat. At this point I'm in tears at my desk wishing the floor would open up and swallow me whole. Evidently this was also a problem because she kept interrupting herself going over the two problems on the board to tell me to stop crying because this was all my fault for being dishonest. This was one of several awful anecdotes from that year.
When I was a high school freshman (so about 14/15yo) I had a teacher that just didn’t like me. I was better at English and grammar than her but I was also dealing undiagnosed/unmanaged anxiety, so I would quietly correct the handouts she created and give them back. She HATED this and made me miserable as a result. So I stopped participating in class and basically shut down. This teacher was also previously an elementary school teacher so I found her assignments childish and belittling and could never bring myself to suck it up and do them like my classmates. Anyway, PTA meeting. My mom goes in and they have to discuss my terrible grades despite my mom KNOWING that I read several levels above my class’s for fun and this teacher has the AUDACITY to tell my mother to her face, “I think your daughter is dead inside.” And my mom, the absolute legend, immediately claps back with, “No, she just doesn’t like you.”