Who was the worst teacher you ever had?

Our wagon primary school principal used to have us reciting prayers seven times a day:

1. Before lessons
2. After first "sos"
3. The Angelus at midday
4. Grace before meals at lunchtime
5. Grace after meals
6. After second "sos"
7. At home time.

She was an absolutely vile woman, one who would go out of her way to belittle anyone that was brighter than her own kids (who were grand, actually, not little shíts at all!) A total bully who was supposedly "religious".

Prayers and endless tables of Irish verbs are all I remember about lessons in 5th and 6th class. Very little time was given to English or Maths (especially the latter) so many of us found ourselves way behind in Maths when starting secondary school.

Secondary school was great after two years of the above. The principal and teachers were brilliant and really did their best for everyone.

Too many to list from my old school in Raheny. They described themselves as a "college" for some reason I never thought to work out. But to say the teachers were pretty universally awful would be an understatement.

From a Religion and Irish teacher who got teary eyed every time she discussed god (in both subjects at great length, not much Irish was taught)......

to a German teacher who periodically collected a lot of money for tatty ripped books that already were in our library for decades.......... only to coincidentally show up the following week wearing new sweaters.............

to a year head (chemistry teacher, thankfully I never took chemistry) who gave detention to anyone he found actually studying..... on the sole assumption they must have been doing homework they were meant to do the night before........ and walked around like a self satisfied goon on a power trip because being a teacher was likely the only way in his life he would get authority over everyone.

to a french teacher who did nothing but play Monty Python films for us over and over.........

to an English teacher who did nothing but make us learn reams of texts off by heart while trying to recruit us all into the boxing club and selling us his own book on leaving cert English which he apparently self published because no one else would.............

to a slurring history teacher smelling of fresh whisky with a strangely German name who spent the entire class mumbling towards the black board while half the students screamed obscenities at him and threw enormous spit balls.........

I had assumed all schools were that bad, until I repeated the Leaving Cert in Whitehall and it was the EXACT opposite and I got straight As in all the subjects I repeated there.

I guess everyone had that teacher that they never got on with, I'm no exception, hated the guy, he hated me, but he knew his stuff in fairness, I was just too stubborn to fully appreciate at the time, so I'm not going to suggest him, though I would have at 17 for sure!

We had a guy who taught Geography and Higher Maths for the LC. Complete waste of time, whatever love he had for teaching was gone, long gone. For Higher Maths he'd use the answer derived by one of the lads who was able to do it and share it around with the rest of the class (I wasn't in that class, but the lads would come out and tell us all this, some lads didn't even bother doing Higher, knowing they wouldn't get the support through the 2 years from him).
For Geography he'd photocopy notes from a lad a year ahead of us, all fine when in 5th year, first day back in 6th Year I asked how did that fella get on in his Leaving the previous May;

"A C3" he says. He insisted on using the notes anyway for 6th year. He'd organise the Xmas Mass or "Aifrinn na Nollaig" every year too, so you could see they were trying to keep him busy.

-EDIT- I had stated he was a nice enough fella, after which I somehow remembered two incidents with him that made me question how I thought that and how I'd blocked them out until now:

- My parents were unable to attend the 6th Year Parent-Teacher meeting sessions, my Mam had a meeting with a consultant where she was given a prognosis on her recently diagnosed terminal cancer. The principal knew as my Dad had rang to inform, he was told not to talk to me about it until the prognosis was known but to send on the apologies to the other teachers, which he said he'd do. Anyway, this Geography teacher in his class the next day was going off on a rant, which he would tend to do if he felt we weren't paying attention for some reason he settled on me and said "and you sure, your parents couldn't even bother coming to the meeting yesterday, shows you all you need to know". I'm still not sure how I didn't react and I was hotheaded as a teen, I thank my friends sitting near by really. Told my Dad when I went home and there was a war of words in the office the next day. The guy never even apologised to me about it, just gave some patronising praise at the end of the school year, which coming from him meant nothing.

- 5 years later I met him one quiet Monday evening whilst working a part time job in a Dept store whilst finishing a Masters, he was in with his wife and I said hello in passing, he turned and said "ah so this is where you ended up, it's more than I expected to be honest", which I only had to laugh at given my results in school were always alright, teachers said I could do way more but I was one of those lads that just sails by until they get a kick up the ass (they were right). His wife was suitably shocked and even pulled him aside. I didn't even bother responding to him to explain the situation , Grad role sorted, moving abroad yadda yadda. He wasn't worth the time or effort clarifying.

My maths teacher was terrible. Literally spent 3 minutes at the start of class writing what we had to do on the board, then leaving us to do it while he pissed off to smoke fags.

I ended up having to take grinds for the leaving cert and the tutor was absolutely livid when we got talking about what would come up on the paper. We were told nothing about what to expect and the set of questions that could come up.

It's supposedly a much better school now (that grinds tutor teacher there now) but it was terrible back then.

No real terrible teachers but then again I wasn't a little sh!t with some undiagnosed learning/ behaviour disability

CruelCoin wrote: »

A teacher I was meant to have but rarely did.

Woman managed to perfectly time here pregnancies so that she was perpetually on maternity leave during term.

Think I had her for 6 months in 6 years.

I think I had the same teacher. Perfectly timed conceptions, over and over again.

My old maths teacher in secondary school, mad as a proverbial hatter but in a nice way. He used to tell us stories about his old Mercedes car that he owned many moons ago and even showed us pictures. He used to go off on weird rants about pronunciation like how the word prism has one syllable not two (pris-um) and roar out prrrsm!!!.
He was physically a bit of a shambles, one day one of the pupils (now a well known irish comedian on the telly) put a can of deodorant on his desk before he came into class. This was about 30 years ago and to this day I still remember how hard I laughed that day. Funny thing was his response, he looked at it said Mr R I believe this is yours and handed back to him, he was crazy but not stupid.

@ supercell

you got me intrigued....who was the comedian (intials will do) and whats with the deodorant?

Sister Mary - a detestable geebag of the highest order. Made me stand up and face the wall about a month into 1st year for genuinely asking "if everything needs a maker" as she point blank insisted it did "then who made god". She then instructed the class to mock me and tell me I'd burn in hell!

In hindsight she probably done me a favour, because I refused to ever partake in another religion class after that. She literally threw a tantrum in the principles office when I refused to go back, foaming at the mouth and making a holy show of herself, he was even shocked at the carry on of her and excused me from religion for the rest of my school time. She gave me a filthy look and occasionally a smart arse comment every single time our paths crossed for the following 5 years!

I hope the auld cúnt has cancer!

fryup wrote: »

@ supercell

you got me intrigued....who was the comedian (intials will do) and whats with the deodorant?

MR are the initials
Well, he was shoddily dressed, hair that was left was kind of wild and i'd say he wasn't to familiar with the workings of a shower if you get my drift..
That class was something I looked forward to every day, never knew what kind of craziness we were going to experience:)

Hitman3000 wrote: »

No bitterness there so. ; )

None at all.

If she does, i'll pray for her - that'll help I'm sure:D

Principal of my primary school, a huge man who loved hurling, religion and the Irish language. Used to either whack pupils with a stick or make us write out a chapter of our Irish (couldn't be any other subject) book. Ended up a big shot in the GAA and is dead about 10 years. He ruled that school with fear and any ex pupil that remembered him would be aged between 40-60 now and still shivers when his name is mentioned.