Strange things your teacher did? (MOD NOTE in op)

Strumms

We had an absolute riot of a teacher and downright nice fella and good teacher in about second year for Religion and History ... Camp as Christmas, he was like Charles Hawtrey’s Irish stunt double brother in looks, mannerisms and humor ...

I always remember the first day of religion class that we had with him...

He wrote D O G ( Derek O Gorman ) in huge capital letters and said... “ if any of you are dyslexic I’m to be known as G O D “

He was hilarious, any time we annoyed him he’d get serious but could never keep it up for long, a nice, funny auld divil all be it a chain smoker who would also nip out for a smoke as we were given a ten question test, which was obviously done so he could smoke... he used to take two full packets of chalk out in his pockets so if he encountered the principal ( a seriously strict dude ) he just was out of class to grab chalk and that’s it....

Towards the end of his teaching career at about 61/62 at a guess..he got lung cancer and died, a pity, he was kindness personified, an excellent and fair teacher as well as a pure comedian... equally liked it seemed by students and colleagues....

KevRossi

School trip to London, mid-80's. Started badly. Deal with the travel agent in town was always that for every 10 that booked, one went free, For years they used the 'free' ticket to reduce everybody's ticket price by 10%. Fair enough. Then one year they decided that the tickets would be given free to the teachers. Cheeky b'astards.

On the boat on the way over, one of the lads had a sleeping bag, he was told to give it one of the female teachers as she wasn't feeling well. She duly had a somewhat messy period in the sleeping bag that she didn't even bother to offer to wash.

4 days in London, plenty of the IRA bombings at the time, so being Irish wasn't the best. Three lads escorted back to the hotel for 'incitement' by the police. Next day 6 lads including the original 3 were caught plssed. They were told by an insufferably smug leader of the tour that they would be expelled on return to Ireland (he would have done it too).

Last morning in the hotel, everybody down for breakfast. Police arrive to question the same smug teacher about him sexually assaulting (groping) a woman in a club the night before. He was arrested and taken in for questioning, he got back to Ireland a day later. In the meantime the deal was that his misbehaviour would not be mentioned and a blind eye would be turned to all 'activities' by the students on the trip.... "What happens in London stays in London, lads. Right?".
"Yes Sir, what happens in London stays in London."

A few hours later in Euston station... 50 students standing there waiting for the mail train to Holyhead with 144 bottles of beer that they intended to drink all the way to Holyhead. :pac::pac::pac:

"What happens in London stays in London, Sir."

ShatterAlan

corner of hells wrote: »

You know when you're working at your desk and you right click the mouse , you kinda sense a noise and then sometimes your mouse runs of the pad and you curse , them noises.

Oh, you cad!

tnegun

1980s rural Wicklow primary school

Teacher would smoke in the classroom and you didn't dare complain! You couldn't leave the school yard during the day as the school was on a busy main road but if said teacher ran out of smokes there was no issue sending you half a mile along the same road to the shop!

Lastly and we loved this one was when you got to 6th you could be trusted to burn the rubbish!! Everyday at 2pm when the little ones went home you'd be sent around the school to gather rubbish then the master would start a fire in an old barrel and it was your job to feed it! If you did it properly you could make it last the hour till home time!

fryup

Mac_Lad71 wrote: »

Had a teacher in senior infants in the mid 70's who used to make whoever was sitting at the front of class unzip her boots while she sat on a desk at the top of the class and smoked a cigar.

sounds cool

freshpopcorn wrote: »

Once we had a teacher in for a week and he told us stories about being at house parties with Gardaí and having loads of Cocaine at them.

even cooler

munster87

freshpopcorn wrote: »

Once we had a teacher in for a week and he told us stories about being at house parties with Gardaí and having loads of Cocaine at them.

Junior infants?

ToxicPaddy

Had some fairly interesting teachers in our school. A mix of excellent teachers who really knew their stuff and how to really connect with students but at the other end of the scale some completely useless wastes of space.

One guy used to fire chalk and wooden handled dusters at you if you weren't paying attention. Feckin lethal with the chalk. How he never took someone's eye out I'll never know, excellent teacher though.

One Christian brother taught science from 1st to 3rd year, completely clueless, spilled mercury all over a desk one day, wiped it back into the bottle with his hand and never even washed it later.

Another French teacher was a spiteful little bitch, told a bunch of us on the morning of our JC French exam that we were wasting our time going in as we were all going to fail. Got a C1 which was pretty good considering I was sh*te at French

In fairness I couldn't complain too much about them as I really had some excellent teachers in school with some very fond memories of the place. I hated school for other reasons, but they definitely weren't one of them.

fryup

ToxicPaddy wrote: »

Another French teacher was a spiteful little bitch, told a bunch of us on the morning of our JC French exam that we were wasting our time going in as we were all going to fail. Got a C1 which was pretty good considering I was sh*te at French

maybe it was her way of motivating you?

The Royal Scam

My French teacher went off on maternity leave , when she came back she was telling us about her twins she had called John and Edward.guess who!. she passed away last year she was a great teacher.

blarney_boy

Ah brings me back . . . such fond memories . . .

Anyway I had the usual mix of teachers in my secondary school from the great to the average to truly awful (honours maths :mad:)

But I distinctly remember our chemistry teacher for the leaving cert, he'd just finished college so he was probably only in his mid twenties and he hadn't quiet figured out the whole 'work life balance' part of teaching.

We had double chemistry every Friday morning and he would invariably have been out on the tear in town the night before. He'd crawl in and immediately give us a previous years leaving cert paper to do in class with the explanation that he had make up some chemical compounds in the storeroom.

He'd disappear into the storeroom for the rest of the chemistry class. Everyone knew he had a sleeping bag and pillow stashed in there and he was just sleeping through his hangover. In sixth year one of our class discovered that Pfizer were holding a schools chemistry table quiz and asked our teacher if we could enter a team.

Needless to say our teacher had no intention of spending time outside school chaperoning us to a table quiz until of he discovered the day before the quiz that Pfizer would have a free bar at the event.

Suddenly he was in a mad panic trying to get students to go to the table quiz, I went with a few others on the minibus hired by the school and we rocked up to the quiz where our teacher immediately shagged off to avail of the free bar. Each team was supposed to bring a notepad, calculator and formula & tables book, we had none of these items.

Needless to say our team came dead last but our teacher was having a great time, on the bus ride home he suddenly announced that the bus driver would have to be paid and then proceeded to shake us down for any loose change we might have. Once he'd emptied our pockets he asked the bus driver to drop him off at a pub on the edge of town.

Funny thing is this guy is still a teacher at the school all these years later.

chrissb8

Had one teacher who used to come into the class and announce himself by absolutely overarm, smashing down his leather suitcase on the teacher's table and shout "WELL LADS". Scared the s***e out of us. He only lasted a year and called it quits.

Had one lovely, lovely teacher who was just tortured by students. He could not control a class to save his life and as you know, in a boys school they just caused chaos in his classes. Bottles getting thrown around the room, slaggings galore and even sure there was some squaring up between lads in 3rd and 6th year when I had this teacher.

Anyway, he invariably used to flip out and start kicking chairs and the legs of our tables. Pushing books etc. off desks and yes, even pushing over the desks himself. Then it would go all quiet and 5 minutes later the chaos ensued again.

One time in particular he went supernova, purple head and everything. Someone had thrown a Yop across the room and a classmate ducked and it hit off the desk and droplets of yop went all over the teacher's crotch. The mist descended and thus begun a rearrangement of class furniture like I've never seen before but what topped it off was one thing in particular. He grabbed a full unopened water bottle and absolutely lashed it at a wall with a student ducking and the bottle exploding on impact. If it had made contact the student would have probably had the mother of all black eyes such was the velocity.

He was absolutely sound though and no one held it against the teacher.

cj maxx

Seen teachers like that reach the end of their tether and lose the plot for a minute. Quite funny sometimes

JustAThought

I remember one teacher who would refuse to start teaching until every child in the class agreed to their name being the Irish version called out from the big green Rolla ledger. Some would invariably refuse to acknowledge the name or insist on their real name being used and a mexican standoff of anger and silence would ensure until some other poor sap would eventually say Anseo for them Nd the role calling would continue. Tedious and dangerous.

I also remember the cruelty of teachers in secondary school to some of the students - day after day - their belittling and snide comments. I’d say some of them were damaged for life.

One teacher in secondary who would come in paper white with a hangover ( we knew - she told us) and smoke cigarettes from the high stool out the bottom window while occasionally running out to puke on the corridor. Unbelievable really.

anheneti

BrokenArrows wrote: »

I think you are mistaking 20-30 years ago with 50+ years ago.
30 years ago hitting a kid in class was absolutely not allowed and wouldnt have been tolerated.

You are very wrong, their was a lunatic still teaching us in primary school. We had him in until the mid nineties, he thought nothing of belting lads on the shoulder, smoking in the class drinking at lunchtime. If I am allowed I’ll name the teacher and the school?

Wanderer78

anheneti wrote:

You are very wrong, their was a lunatic still teaching us in primary school. We had him in until the mid nineties, he thought nothing of belting lads on the shoulder, smoking in the class drinking at lunchtime. If I am allowed I’ll name the teacher and the school?

sounds like he was mentally unstable and actually needed help, does naming and shaming truly benefit this situation?

Musefan

I came from a house where loud noise often meant fighting etc and one day while in senior infants, the fire alarm went off. I got such a fright that I burst into tears, so naturally, the teacher thought it appropriate to put a chair for me at the top of the room and and make me sit there while she explained how silly I was for crying and how stupid it was to be upset!

enricoh

One teacher used to get one of the pupils to nip down to the bookies before the 3.15 in doncaster or whatever would start. Said pupil n him would discuss the docket and often changes were made first. He was always out sick for cheltenham!

Had a Lovely oul dear try to teach us german in 4th year, had no idea how to control a class. 10 or so of us would have the fags in our mouth n the lighter lit moving towards the fag - in despair she'd let the class go early n we could nip out for a smoke.

beggars_bush

Biology teacher in our school while teaching the LC syllabus would get to the chapter on human reproduction and would just say to the class - "No need to do that lads, ye know yourselves" wink wink

Same school, while in first year certain teachers would send you down to the local shop to get biscuits for the staffroom. Chocolate biscuits for the smoking staff room (teachers reeked of it) and fckin Marietta for the non smoking staff room. I even remember having to buy cigs for one teacher

I saw a first year get picked up by the ears by a particularly large teacher

Tech drawing teacher would turn around from the board and randomly fire a timber backed duster down at an area of the room if he heard nois. If you were in woodwork a block of timber could fly across the room

Musefan

I came from a house where loud noise often meant fighting etc and one day while in senior infants, the fire alarm went off. I got such a fright that I burst into tears, so naturally, the teacher thought it appropriate to put a chair for me at the top of the room and and make me sit there while she explained how silly I was for crying and how stupid it was to be upset!

KevRossi

ShatterAlan wrote: »

That's so sad. Respect to the next door teacher for being tender and human about the whole thing.

Yeah, he was a genuinely lovely bloke, never heard anyone say anything bad against him. Back in the 80's he was the one teacher along with a priest who constantly warned us about paedos.

He explained grooming (term was uncoined then) and told us to always tell others. Also warned us off very subtly about a teacher who was a known pervert.

The priest I mentioned above, we had him for Commerce up until Inter Cert. He'd regularly come in and tell us to read our books, then he'd stick on a tape recorder with a sex education lesson on it while he read his Missal.

Often warned us about never touching a girl whilst on her period, use a condom if we had to - told to ask our older brother to get them as they were illegal at the time. And he'd ramp up the sex education stuff as the summer break got nearer. Genuinely decent priest, passed away last year.

L1011

ToxicPaddy wrote: »

told a bunch of us on the morning of our JC French exam that we were wasting our time going in as we were all going to fail. Got a C1 which was pretty good considering I was sh*te at French

This has reminded me, my Geography teacher (who there were all sorts of sordid rumours about, albeit nothing has ever happened legally so probably just rumours) tried to re-register me for pass Geography in third year.

Got an A. In Honours.

In primary school, for some reason my teacher went child to child saying their name and annuncing if they were idiots or not and what qualified them for 'idiot' status. I was labelled an idiot that would never pass an Irish exam. I was about 8 at the time and my parents were both born abroad so didnt speak Irish either.

Needless to say myself and the Irish language are no friends but I did pass in the end, thanks to a trainee teacher who was fantastic at dragging me up and explaining the grammer, etc. I was in my 20s by the time someone explained what "aige" actually meant. B in Foundation but it still got me there.

beggars_bush

beggars_bush wrote: »

Tech drawing teacher would turn around from the board and randomly fire a timber backed duster down at an area of the room if he heard nois. If you were in woodwork a block of timber could fly across the room

A school in Raheny by any chance?

anheneti

Wanderer78 wrote: »

sounds like he was mentally unstable and actually needed help, does naming and shaming truly benefit this situation?

Looking back he needed a few clatters himself, he kicked a class mate one day because his brother gave him the middle finger. One guy in the class got a hammering everyday because he never had his homework finished (he wasn’t able). One of my friends Dad threatened him in the pub one night, he never even looked at him since.
Sympathy is the last thing I’d have for him.

anheneti

anheneti wrote: »

You are very wrong, their was a lunatic still teaching us in primary school. We had him in until the mid nineties, he thought nothing of belting lads on the shoulder, smoking in the class drinking at lunchtime. If I am allowed I’ll name the teacher and the school?

I concur. Got a wallop from more than one teacher after it was banned.

BrokenArrows

BrokenArrows wrote: »

I think you are mistaking 20-30 years ago with 50+ years ago.
30 years ago hitting a kid in class was absolutely not allowed and wouldnt have been tolerated.

I remember when I was in first class 6/7 and lads getting rulers broken over there hand/heads.
In second class one of the Christian brothers used to knock the **** out of 1/2 of the cheeky lads.
That was abound 1989/1990
Don't remember it happening in 3rd class.

tnegun

The last wallop I got was in the mid 90's in secondary school I'm glad thats all I got as the said teacher has since been prosecuted for sexual assault on some of my peers. They were fairly regular in primary in the 80's I'd say at least once a month you got the hand, duster or ruler from some twisted fcuk. I once had a pen stuck in the side of my head! The teacher denied it but she drew blood giving me a clip behind the ear with a pen in hand. It certainly was tolerated well into the late 80s.

Strumms

JustAThought wrote: »

I remember one teacher who would refuse to start teaching until every child in the class agreed to their name being the Irish version called out from the big green Rolla ledger. Some would invariably refuse to acknowledge the name or insist on their real name being used and a mexican standoff of anger and silence would ensure until some other poor sap would eventually say Anseo for them Nd the role calling would continue. Tedious and dangerous.

I also remember the cruelty of teachers in secondary school to some of the students - day after day - their belittling and snide comments. I’d say some of them were damaged for life.

One teacher in secondary who would come in paper white with a hangover ( we knew - she told us) and smoke cigarettes from the high stool out the bottom window while occasionally running out to puke on the corridor. Unbelievable really.

I think nowadays parents and indeed students don’t hold the teaching profession on the sort of pedestal that previous generations did. Teachers exist to educate, they are paid to educate, it’s a job and responsibility. They should be doing that while respecting their pupils.

If that carry on was going on with my child I’d simply write to the principal, inform them what is going on, it’s to stop immediately... my child is attending school to learn, to be educated, not to be indulging some gaeilgeoir egomaniac...

1. If the teacher continually after being instructed not to refers to my child by the name other then the one they were christened with, I’ll be preparing a complaint and seeking legal advice and contacting the department of education.

2. If the teacher refuses to teach the class the subject they have been assigned to and the subject my child is attending and attempting to learn, I’ll be preparing a complaint, and seeking legal advice and contacting the department of education.

It boils down to the fact that an educator is refusing to educate, refusing to do their job because children will not recognize being called names to which they were not christened with. We are paying them to educate.


Incidentally when I worked in France a manager constantly mispronounced by name which is Irish but not a very hard name to say , after about SIX occasions correcting him, I started mispronouncing his name on purpose... Emmanuel became Dammanuel... within a day or so and his and my colleagues thinking this was hilarious...he got around to learning to pronounce my very easily pronounceable name. He got the D removed, from his name and got his E back, the fûckin eejit.

E mac

In my national school their was a sub teacher who during lunch break she'd walk around the yard talking to herself and crying. Never mixed with the other staff. I didn't have her teaching me but those who did said she wasn't right...wonder what happened to her..

banie01

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

I concur. Got a wallop from more than one teacher after it was banned.

Very true. I was in primary school in the mid-late 80s.
There was very much a culture corporal punishment.
No outright beatings as in times previous, but clips around the ear, rulers on the knuckles or back of the legs and the ubiquitous thrown duster.

It persist into secondary school.
The "culture" of the vast majority of teachers in the system post '82 and up to the early 90's saw corporal punishment as part of the system.
If one has ever dealt with any type of organisational or cultural shift in any type organisation.
One would know behaviours don't change at the flick of the switch.
It is a long and rigourous process that requires constant monitoring to prevent a slip back to past behaviour.

That level of oversight isn't something that Ireland was ever capable of until the far more recent past.
Out record of transparency and accountability up to the late 90's wouldn't really support the argument of "the law change, it stopped"
It didn't, it diminished and lessened over a long period and now seems thankfully to be a thing of the past.