I had a gym teacher who was not really interested in being a gym teacher. He was the varsity football coach and that was where his main focus was. Gym/Health class was basically the bare minimum health information required by curriculum, and then the rest of the time was spent in the weight room. Not even doing like, fun games or anything like that, literally just ‘weight room’ so that his athletes could just use the hour for their workout time.

One day, after ‘weight room’ another student who was held back a bit (he had reached maybe 20 y.o. at this point, and hadn’t graduated) made a joke about wanting to shower with people. Nobody thought it was funny, we all ignored him. He takes offense to this, and decides to vent that frustration on me. He grabs me by the side of the head, and slams my head into the locker next to me. He does this within full view of the teacher, maybe ten feet away if that. I walk over to the teacher, holding my rapidly bruising face, and repeat to him what happened, literally what he just witnessed.

He looked me in the eyes and said “Yeah, and?” and refused to do anything about it.

I went to the Principal, who didn’t do anything. I went to the Vice Principal, who didn’t do anything, and then I went to the Dean of Students, who got that kid pulled from class for three days total. The next week I had a sit down with the Principal who apologized for what happened, but was oh so thankful that I was such an understanding kid, and could empathize with my assailant’s mental handicaps, and this didn’t need to go any further than it did, right?

Shoulda sued.

I was in class in high school, and I found a pen under the desk. Not an ordinary cheap plastic throwaway pen, it was one of those expensive metal pens that telescoped together to pop in and out, with gold trim and enamel cloisonne all along the barrel, the sort that you would give someone for an expensive birthday present. Eager to do the right thing, I put my hand up and told Mr Schulz, asked if I should take it to the lost-and-found at the front office. “No,” said Mr Schulz, “give it to me and I’ll keep it in my desk here”. It occurred to me that he uncharitably thought that I was going to get “lost” on the way there or back, instead of sitting in his lesson; I thought that he would hand it in to the front office on my behalf.

The policy at school was that if no-one collected an item from the lost-and-found, you could go and claim it. So a few weeks later, when I asked at the front office, I was surprised that the pen hadn’t been handed in. I asked Mr Schulz about it, and he took the pen out of his drawer, and used his Swiss Army Knife to etch my name into it, saying that I might as well keep it, because no-one had claimed it.

Of course, within a few days one of the other boys saw me using it, and decided that I had stolen it from him. Before I could find Mr Schulz to get him to verify my version of events, he and several of his friends caught me in the corridor between lessons and beat me black and blue. Two black eyes, and so many bruises that I couldn’t walk properly or stand up straight for weeks. My parents said “You must have done something to deserve it”, took no action against the school, and made me go back to school the next day anyway.

I was summoned to the deputy headmaster’s office. He told me that since I had stolen this pen from the other boy and put my name on it to make sure everyone thought it was mine, I was a disgrace to the school and would be put on detention (picking up litter before and after school, and at lunchtime, no canteen privileges, no excursions) for the rest of the year. I protested my innocence, so Mr Schulz was summoned, he promptly denied all knowledge and involvement, and straight up called me a liar.

Word had got around to all the teachers; by hearsay they also all decided that I was a thief and a liar, and gave me extra work to punish me, on top of my regular homework. I was now doing homework from the moment I got home until way past midnight, and in the mornings at 6am when my parents woke me up until 8:30 when I had to ride my bike to school.

I pretty much gave up on schoolwork, because if the teachers were going to lie, there was no way to know if what they were teaching was the truth, and if I asked questions about the problems I was having, especially in maths and physics, I was told to stop disrupting the class, because they had decided without evidence that I was a “juvenile delinquent” and not worth helping.

I had several serious bicycle accidents riding to and from school during this time, and I’m absolutely certain that it was because I fell asleep from pure exhaustion. I still have scars from those accidents, and I’ll always remember how I got them.

I left school at the earliest opportunity, left my parents and lived on the streets for a few years, and thanks to a charity helping street kids, got an apprenticeship and a place to live. A few years after that, I sort-of-almost reconciled with my parents, who still believed the teacher’s version of events, because “all teachers are good, honest, respectable people”.

Throughout my own children’s education, I always had anxiety attacks when I had to take them to school, or go to school for parent-teacher meetings etc, even though they attended a different school and we now live several states away.

That was over forty years ago, and I still feel like Mr Schulz both derailed my education, and ruined my plans for further education.

This wasn’t maliciousness to my mind so much as it was pure selfishness, but our school guidance counsellor fucked up in a vulnerable moment (particularly for me, but pretty much everyone who had to witness it as well), then doubled down on it and somehow made it worse.

One morning I came to school and my class was really somber. I found out that a girl’s mother had died yesterday- that girl was part of my friend’s group and I’d just met her mother a few weeks earlier at friend’s birthday party; she was lovely. A drunk driver had hit her on a roundabout at 12 midday, of all times, and she’d passed before they’d even gotten her to the hospital.

This was traumatic for my friend on every level, I’m sure, but it was my first experience with second hand grief, so you can imagine it was a bad time to go ahead with the scheduled guest that morning who was there to do a very graphic presentation about drunk driving involving sound effects and acting out a car collision.

I feel sorry for the guy, in hindsight, because he probably hadn’t heard a chorus of horrified screams and spontaneous sobbing in response to one of his shows quite like that, before, but that was on the school admin, anyway. What the fuck were they even thinking? “Yes, yes, we’re all sad about Jessie’s mum … So anyway, this is how she died, in real time!”

So, moments before this bloody show started up, another close friend of mine turned up late and was confused at our dismayed faces. No one had taken her aside to tell her (the bastards. Why would you not take the girl’s close friend group aside to tell them first? Jessie’s mum was like a second mum to some of us), so I found it was on me to convey it. That really sucked. A lot. I was clumsy, friend was distraught, you get the picture.

This bitch counsellor, though… When the completely inappropriate presentation got to the graphic bit, my friend took off crying down the hall 'cause fuck all that, and I made to as well. The counsellor stopped me (like she thought I was trying to go after her), and fucking made me sit down and watch the rest of that show, clinging to my other friends trying to sob as quietly as possible and not imagine poor Jessie’s mum at the moment her death. We were like, what, 15, 16 years old?

I don’t know how the hell my feelings about this bullshit got back to the counsellor, but I think my mum must’ve called the school after I came home in floods, because again, this fucking bitch called me aside right as the bell rang to go home to (figuratively speaking) pin me down and explain to me why she was totally right to do what she did and she hoped I understood that she did the right thing, blah blah blah.

I just nodded along desperately, getting more and more anxious because my one bus out of there had a very narrow window to get on, and eventually had to interrupt her to beg her to let me go home. I got to enjoy the sight of it driving off without me and had to call my mum to pick me up over an hour later (side of the road on a hot Aussie afternoon- no there was no bus shelter, no the school wasn’t open to let me hang around 'til my Mum got in).

Goddamn, I still think about that sometimes. It’s not even close to the worst I’ve heard of teachers, but it’s just so petty and unkind it somehow pisses me off more than overt cruelty. Like fuck off, you can’t gaslight me into believing you had my best interests at heart with bullying tactics.

Oh yeah that’s right, that same counsellor told me I had depression, too, when a) at that point in highschool I absolutely did not and it came out of left field completely, and b) when I did start to suffer from anxiety and depression she was as useful as a cat flap in an elephant house. Shocker.

Fuck you Mrs Whatever-your-face-was. I only remember you by the dumb nickname everyone gave you and that’s fair enough because you’re also dumb.

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My algebra teacher had anger issues. One day, my friend and I threw a bunch of sharpened pencils into the drop ceiling tiles. When he noticed it, he threw his planner at me. It was hard plastic and he narrowly missed hitting me in the face. The school did nothing about it.

One day when he was the lunch monitor, someone hit him in the face with a slice of pizza. He slammed his hand on one of the tables so hard while screaming at us, that he broke his wrist. So that was pretty funny

I passed out during a test and my teacher told everyone it’s okay, I’m faking it. I woke up all confused and asked to go to the nurse, and Teach said “you think I’ll let you make up the test you’re skipping?”

I went to the main building (weird school, I believe I was in 9th) and to the nurse. I dunno what happened from there. Suddenly I was in a doctor’s office and they took a drop of blood from my finger. That hurt and I don’t like needles.

Then they took SOOOO MUCH BLOOD. Like three vials. I was so confused.

I guess my hemoglobin count, or whatever, was like seven? Apparently that’s pretty bad. They took all that blood to test for leukemia. Negative, luckily. I had to take iron pills that turned my poop black.

The teacher let me re-take the test once I had more oxygen in my brain.

—

My college graphics design teacher called us all “butts” and wouldn’t let us use computers for the week.

…we were butts.

Accused me of setting fire to the school (I didn’t do it), and repeatedly ‘interviewed’ me trying to get me to admit to it. I was off-site at the time at a music exam (my mum had picked me up, it was all arranged formally in advance so the school were aware) but despite this they doubled down on trying to blame me and even got the police involved. All because I had a reputation of being a bit of a pyromaniac (I was/am interested in pyrotechnic chemistry/fireworks but have never committed arson!). I layer found out they discovered who actually started the fire but did nothing about it for reasons.

I was having a seizure (not grandmal)and the art teacher stepped over me, said “huh”, and went to his desk to watch it vids of the wrestling team. When people pointed out that I was having a seizure the teacher said to take me to the nurse. So a few kids half carried half dragged me to the nurse. We got most of the way there when the security officer found us and pulled a wheelchair from a closet, put me in it, and took me to the nurse. I was fine after a few mins, cried a bit, then went back to class. Now there’s mandatory seizure training for all staff and faculty at that school.

Docked my grades for literally no reason other than that he didn’t like me. I always got perfect scores in school, got a B in his class simply because he didn’t like me. Parents had to make a huge fuss about it which lead to the grade being corrected.

Some highlights as to why I hated school.

I’m Native American, first grade teacher continually harassed me about my long hair, saying it wasn’t appropriate for a boy to have long hair. She demanded I cut it. And when I came to class with it still long she attempted to cut it herself. Same thing happened in 4th grade, different teacher. But her T.A. intervened and defended me.

Middle school art teacher scolded me for completing an art project early. She proceeded to smash my art and demand I do it over. I had to pay for the supplies.

Middle school, I was frequently pulled out of my homeroom class for a “study group”. This group was literally all the Native Americans in the school (all grades). We’d sit in detention hall and do nothing for the duration of the class. When I tried to complain and draw attention to the situation. The school defended it to my parents by saying I was falling behind in homeroom (the class they kept taking me out of). After being assigned a tutor I mentioned what was happening to him. The group stopped meeting and my tutor was reassigned. I still don’t know if it was a malicious act, but it was very disturbing to be locked in a room in the back of the school with the only other Native Americans.

Highschool, a math teacher continually accused me of cheating on tests, because someone like me doesn’t magically do well on tests. School administration got involved and I had to redo some tests in front of them. Got the same grade. He insisted I was still somehow cheating. A different math teacher came to my defense saying he had been trying to get me to join the math team, since I had an untapped talent for math. I didnt bother with coursework and would focus on tests to pass. I really fucked the bell curve in that class. Never did join the math team.

This wasn’t malicious per se, but I had an English teacher/school counsellor who suspected I had some sort of learning disability and treated me like an idiot because of it, but like in that sort of “poor you let me help you” way that’s like really condescending that ended up really hurting my self confidence.

If I struggled with something for any reason, I was given something easier. If something I did conflicted with what she thought was correct, she would sit down and “help me correct it” because I think she seemed to think it was I guess an autism thing or something, which meant she spent a lot of time (usually taking me out of lunch break) trying to “correct” whatever she thought I was doing wrong. Which was exasperated by the fact I was an expat from the Commonwealth and she was an American so half the time they were just, cultural things. My dialect? Incorrect stop being non-rhotic and dropping your Ts. Handwriting? Oh dear this isn’t D’nealian you’re going to have to relearn this. Needed something repeated because I didn’t hear it? Let’s sit down and go through each step one by one in simple English so you can understand it. Social issues were the worst because she’d try to explain how to be friends with someone like I was five and try and push me into other people’s friend groups when I did not want to do that.

I know she wasn’t being malicious and like, she was right - I did have a neurological disorder, and she was the only person who noticed before it actually started affecting me negatively. But oh my god she was so condescending and made me feel like I was so stupid and absolutely fucked my handwriting. Also people noticed the attention she gave me and made fun of being for being “retarded” which was fun.

The sick kid sat out of gym class one day. While he did, he went in my locker and smashed my camera to bits (had it for yearbook club). Not only did the gym teacher not believe the one missing kid sitting out was responsible, HE WENT ON TO SUGGEST I DID IT FOR ATTENTION.

Fuck you Kurt, Fuck you Dean, and Fuck you Gym teacher. I never got a dime and the kid never got in trouble.

I reported harassment from other students to teachers. They ignored it and did nothing for 8 years. I stopped asking for help.

Back in high school I had one hell of a math teacher. He instills fear in students and uses it as a tool (ala Batman.) His class scars me to this day. Examples of the things he did:

1. Asked students to answer while “feeding” them bits of information that lead to the answer. Sometimes he could be feeding you the wrong one, or he could be telling you the right one. We used to be able to tell from the tone of his voice but soon enough he caught on and the strategy was useless.
2. In the first semester (we have 2), he was not afraid to go back and edit our grades if we couldn’t answer his questions. If we messed up multiple times we could kiss our grades goodbye. He later stopped this.
3. So much homework. I don’t want to sound entitled or anything but it was a ridiculous amount of homework. We used to have a Discord server with a voice chat that usually ran from 8PM-2AM most nights. Some nights it ran even later. Most of the time if we were studying, we would be discussing math problems.
4. He was not afraid to let loose if you messed up. He was the Gordon Ramsay of math teachers. His class featured insults like “Hey I heard you went out yesterday. What? You forgot your brain there?” Or “Don’t say sorry to me say sorry to your report card.”

That barely scratched the surface. I honestly can’t fully convey the suffering we went through in his class. You have to live it to fully comprehend it. It was suffocating. We did make a couple complaints but that only unleashed the beast even more. It got so bad some parents had to step in. I know my and my bff’s did. They asked him to lay off us. He got an earful from my friend’s dad. He treated us a little better after that but still, his class induces a fight or flight response like no other. Thank god we only had him for a year.

My 10th grade French teacher.

The very first day of class, she stood up and stated clearly that everyone already has their grade for the year. No matter what we did, if she had already put an “A” that was the grade we were going to get. If she wrote down an “F”, the same. Me being an ugly awkward boy that had the temerity to take her class, of course, received an “F”. I did all the work, studied hard for the tests, but she always found a way to fail my work. I forgot to put an accent aigu, or grave somewhere on the work… Fail and she would defend to her last breath to the administration, who ALWAYS caved to her. (EDIT: If I missed just ONE accent mark on the entire work, she would fail then entire thing. )

Of course who got the “A” grades in her class? The cheerleaders and pretty popular people.

Toward the end of the year, I inadvertently got massive revenge on her though. All throughout the school year she would talk about her dog. It was like her child. We got every detail of how that dog ate, pooped, and did any little stupid thing. She was OBSESSED with the thing.

What I didn’t know what that she lived near one of my friends. I had visited my friend and was driving out of the neighborhood. I was not speeding. I was driving my car in a very safe manner. When a small dog darted out in front of me and I slammed on the brakes and saw the dog run back into the yard. I never felt an impact, as I was driving a 1970 Impala that probably weighed in at 4500 pounds (2050kg for my more civilized friends). So I didn’t stop, didn’t feel an impact and the dog went yipping back up into the yard, so I thought it was OK.

Well, I was wrong.

The French teacher was out for the next two weeks. No one knew why, until she returned looking like a shadow of herself. Apparently a huge green car came screaming through the neighborhood at a very high rate of speed and veered up onto her lawn to hit her precious dog…

And killed it.

At first I didn’t connect the dog I thought I had almost hit to her dog, until I spoke to my friend. He said that she came out to find her dog dead in the middle of the yard, obviously hit by something very large. He said her screams could be heard all over the neighborhood. Which occurred about two minutes after I left his house and the only description of the car was a very large and old green car.

Yeah, my car was green and this was 1986, so my car was 16 years old at the time.

I feel terrible for the dog. Its death was a complete accident. I didn’t even know she lived in that neighborhood until she came back to school and told everyone what happened. It is not in my nature to hurt animals, so even if I had known it was her dog, I would have still done my best to avoid hitting it.

Definitely not the method of revenge I would ever use of my own volition. It happened and there is nothing I can do about it.

No, I never owned up to it and do not feel I need to. What I did do, was focus on my driving skills, awareness and make sure my car stayed in its absolute best mechanical shape to avoid a repeat. A habit that I continue to today and one I am teaching my oldest child who has just started driving instruction.