Why? Long

[Virgo10]

Why were they allowed to keep on teaching? Granted I'm older than many of you but these teacher threads reminded me of something that happened to me when I was in grade school. The last day of the 5th grade we got to go to our new classroom and see our 6th grade teacher and also see who else we would be sharing the year with.

I was so happy to find that one of my closest friends was in my class that I screamed with joy. The teacher, and I'll use her name because she's got to be long gone (she was in her last year of teaching when I had the misfortune of getting her), Miss Gibson walked over to me and threw me across one of the desks. I landed on the floor, too afraid to even cry. I never told anyone what happened, not even my parents. You see back then we were brought up to think it was always OUR fault.

Needless to say, the 6th grade was the year from hell. Our seats were in groups of 4. Where you sat each week was determined by the math test that was taken on Friday. Guess what my worst subject was? She spent 90% of the day directing the class toward the top 4 kids while the rest of us watched.

The only good thing is a few years later I made friends with a girl who had her the year before me. This girl was educated in Catholic schools until she came to the town I lived in and then she got this woman. This woman yelled at her for standing up one day when the principal walked in the room. She did this as a sign of respect.

I wonder how the administration could have been so blind to what was going on between this woman and all the students she hurt over the years.

I'm sure some of you older folks have some unpleasant memories of teachers in the 50's and 60's. BTW, I had at least one amazing teacher in high school that I've never forgotten. The rest have just faded into a blur.

 

[Disney Doll]

Actually, I guess I was foirtunate, because I went to school in the 60's and 70's and Catholic School to boot for most of it, and I can't say I remember a teacher that traumatized me.

Why did it happen? Because the world was a different place back then.

 

[Beauty]

Wow that is horrible!

Thinking back I can remember being paddled on my hand once but I deserved it because I was talking. It wasn't hard either, just enough to hurt 3 very talkative 2nd graders feelings.

I guess I was lucky. I went to a small Christian School, the same DS goes to today and although I had favorties none of my teachers ever did anything like that.

 

[ilovepcot]

Your story horrified me until I remembered that such episodes happened during my time in school. Teachers were rarely questioned over their actions and parents nearly always took the side of a teacher. If you were disciplined at school, you always knew it was going to be even worse when you got home. No, parents didn't intervene for "Little Johnny" back then and threaten the school board with legal action. You just had to take your licks and hope to come out shining. Isn't it amazing that we haven't all become degenerates? I mean, we have sooo much we could blame our bad behavior on!

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

My 6th grade teacher, Mr. Bell, was like that. I remember him picking boys up and slamming them against the wall & letting them drop. We were scared to death of him. He used to tell this one boy who was a little slow learning that no other teacher wanted him, and the boy was lucky he took him in his class. I was so scared of him, I made myself sick for a week until my mom made me go back to school ... and I was one of the well-liked kids in that class. I never told my parents about him. A couple of years later, one of my classmates' younger brother was in that class, and I remember her parents finally took him to task.

This was about '72 when I was in that class, and you just didn't talk back to teachers back then -- shoot, we still had a dress code back then, too.

 

[Disney Ella]

I had a teacher in the fourth grade who I think was bi-polar. You never knew what her mood was going to be or why. Once, one of the boys was playing with his pencil, throwing it up in the air and catching it. He threw it too high and it got stuck in the popcorn ceiling. This woman grabbed piece of wood an inch thick and began beating this boy with it. Because a pencil got stuck in the ceiling!

I was always quiet, always did my work, partly because I was just that way and partly because I was terrified of this woman. Once she told me to go stand in the hall. I was just sitting there quietly doing my work at the time. I stood in the hall for ten minutes trying to figure out what I did. When she told me to come back in, she asked the boy behind me if he knew what I did and he said no. She just smiled.

We never knew what was going to set this woman off. Once she came into the classroom, slammed the door, ripped her diploma off the wall, and threw it on to the floor, where it shattered.

The other teachers had to hear her yelling and screaming, but nothing was ever done about her. She really shouldn't have been teaching children, at least not unmedicated.

 

[chrissyk]

We had a bunch of nutcase "teachers" at my school, and this was in the '80's! Private school teachers can do pretty much whatever they want to with impunity. They don't even have to be certified in most states, so ANYONE can be teaching your kids in these schools. We had unstable "teachers," verbally abusive "teachers," one physically abusive "teacher"...I could go on and on.

I will add that my high-school English teacher is in prison now. The sad thing is that he was actually a good teacher! If only he hadn't also been into kiddie porn and attempted kidnapping (or whatever he was charged with), he'd still be teaching

 

[dg39]

I went to catholic school all the way through high school. We had teachers and nuns from hell. What they said was law and there was no way getting away from their path. Back then they were allowed to hit you and pull your hair. I remember sitting at my desk doing my work and just the sound of the nuns rosary beads (they wore habits then) clicking as she was walking up the aisles scared me to death. Me and my friends had our hair pulled many, many times in school and to top it off, if we went home and told our parents that we got in trouble in school, we then got in trouble at home for getting in trouble in school. We didn't respect them, we feared them. I can tell you stories that would make your hair stand up. Thankfully, times changed...for the better....

 

[Sandy V.]

Yep, Miss Westcamp. First grade, 1966. Mean as a snake with absolutely NO sense of humor or patience.

"Smart" kids sat in the back rows, "dumb" kids sat in the front. The whole front row flunked first grade. Fortunately, I wasn't one of them!!

Back in those days, the first grade teachers had wooden paddles that had the words "Board of Education" stamped on them and they USED them to keep order in the classroom! Again, fortunately not on me. I feel bad for the kids that were the victims of their warped corporal punishment. Heck, I remember when one of the teachers broke one of those paddles while using it on a kid. Yikes!

The administration HAD to know that this was going on - the kids getting the paddlings were LOUD. I do remember that, even though it's been almost 40 years (I can't be this old!).

My husband remembers his elementary school teachers rapping their hands and heads with rulers for wrong answers!!

 

[DISshopkeeper]

I was a pretty good kid, and was determined not to run afoul of the nuns, but I SAW some wicked punishments meted out.

But when I think about it now, I can imagine why some of them seemed so mean.

50-55 kids in a single classroom. No "teacher assistants" in sight. To maintain control, they HAD to be mean.

A head to toe outfit that was BLACK and WOOL. Winter and summer. I remember seeing them adjusting the headpieces, and there was always an angry red line where it cut across their forehead.

So imagine yourself in that room (NO air conditioning), all those kids, a vise on your head, and sauna conditions under that habit. I'd be pissed too!!! I know they chose that life, but it's just that at this point, I kinda see THEIR point of view!!!

JMHO, of course!