"At school I was told I would amount to nothing"

19-12-2019 02:59PM

My parents told in angry note at bottom of my 5th year Easter English exam paper "He is hardly able for pass level [English leaving certificate] ... scrawled signature of English teacher.

I got a D in honours leaving cert English 1990 and got a C in Trinity Metric English 1990.

2015 published my own paperback book in softback.

Steve F · 19-12-2019 03:03PM

OK not a teacher but along the same lines

A singer auditioned at the Grand Ol Oprey and was told he should go back to driving a truck

It was Elvis Presley.Millions of record sales followed and Billions of Dollars generated by his popularity,still to this day
Basically people know nothing......

radiotrickster · 19-12-2019 03:05PM

I’d a teacher in secondary who’d shout at us if we didn’t get good enough grades (I’m talking above a C) or concentrate well in class, telling us we’d go nowhere in life if we kept it up. I’m in my 20s.

IAMAMORON · 19-12-2019 03:06PM

BDI wrote: »

I was told by my poetry teachers in the boards creative writing section that my poems were terrible.

Can’t wait till I get on Jonathon Ross.

Why don't you write a poem about going on the Jonathon Ross show?

cherryghost · 19-12-2019 03:08PM

My guidance counciller told me never to bother doing computer jobs, and look at me now, bossing boards.ie like a pro.

NuttyMcNutty · 19-12-2019 03:13PM

pgj2015 wrote: »

it is a great thing to be told when you think about it, its a challenge to prove them wrong.

Yeah think that's why some do it though, I was a complete f in school cause had no interest, even got f's in my JC, went to LC and was basically left at the back of the class for 2 years, history teacher used to say the same and it became a challenge, got B in LC, was a bit pissed as I thought I should have got A.

Dakota Dan · 19-12-2019 03:45PM

Steve F wrote: »

OK not a teacher but along the same lines

A singer auditioned at the Grand Ol Oprey and was told he should go back to driving a truck

It was Elvis Presley.Millions of record sales followed and Billions of Dollars generated by his popularity,still to this day
Basically people know nothing......

It ended with him dead at 42 though, maybe he’d be still alive if he went back truck driving?

19-12-2019 03:46PM

cherryghost wrote: »

My guidance counciller told me never to bother doing computer jobs, and look at me now, bossing boards.ie like a pro.

Like a BOSS in GTA 5.

Steve F · 19-12-2019 03:49PM

Dakota Dan wrote: »

It ended with him dead at 42 though, maybe he’d be still alive if he went back truck driving?

Well yes there is that but you get my point about the other part to it?

Somedaythefire · 19-12-2019 03:50PM

I was told I'd fail my leaving cert Irish exam and wouldn't be able to go to college or get a job by my Irish teacher because I failed my mock exam.

Got a C in the end.

ILoveYourVibes · 19-12-2019 03:54PM

Teachers just ignored me. Or else they called me a day dreamer and unpredictable.

The other kids referred to me as 'the alien'.

Oh they could never figure out what i could or couldn't do. All they knew was that i was very very very different and that i saw through them.

I think they thought I would end up living in the woods alone ..or in an asylum ...or that the people from mars would come back for me. Who knows. They barely saw me as human sometimes.

I was just the stereotypical weird kid. She's not trouble ...she's not having a crisis ...ignore her she'll be fine.

And tbh they were right

saintsaltynuts · 19-12-2019 03:59PM

The only thing I was told in Sex Education by the teacher was.."You wont be getting any".

SEPT 23 1989 · 19-12-2019 04:00PM

saintsaltynuts wrote: »

The only thing I was told in Sex Education by the teacher was.."You wont be getting any".

Christian Brother?

ILoveYourVibes · 19-12-2019 04:02PM

saintsaltynuts wrote: »

The only thing I was told in Sex Education by the teacher was.."You wont be getting any".

And now are you like a stud? :P

partyguinness · 19-12-2019 04:24PM

"If you don't study hard enough you will end up nothing but a bitter BA graduate who had to fall back on teaching condemned to teach little ****s like you every day...forever."

sjb25 · 19-12-2019 04:26PM

Never really told it but arrived into my old secondary school recently for a careers night my old vice principle walked up and said Jesus Mary and Joseph how did you get that job

so obviously she had it in her head

Raconteuse · 19-12-2019 05:33PM

No - the opposite: told if I wasn't so lazy I could do well for myself. I was indeed very lazy all right. Biggest regret is not studying hard enough to get psychology or law.

Our science teacher was a **** though - she told my friend she would end up stacking shelves in Roches Stores... and she was right! My friend did fashion in college so had to do whatever could pay the bills for a few years. Nowt wrong with it as a means to an end.

Some horrible saddening stories here though. Like gabe's and the poster who was in tears when she saw some auld weapon who was cruel to her in school. Absolute twisted demons.

gabe1977 wrote: »

- Vicious insults (told one girl when i was in 6th class she'd need to lose weight or she'd bring the plane down when she answered a question on what she wanted to be when she grew up and she replied an air hostess)
- PE was sprinting around the school yard and the person who came last had to put the fatest girl in the school on his back piggy back style and do a lap around the yard - i **** you not!
- I believe after I left he would weigh the fat kids on a weekly basis

Some folk here would think he's great for that.

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

I've seen how After Hours usually speaks of Travellers.

Surely you're effectively doing the same thing to their kids.

Beating them?

seamus · 19-12-2019 06:35PM

Funny I was just talking about this with my kid last night. At the back of a Roald Dahl book was short part of his biography and some word-for-word reproductions of school reports. Many of them were insanely harsh, outright saying that the child was an idiot and would not be able for anything.

That's back in the 1930s though. When the nature/nurture argument was as basic as "spare the rod, spoil the child". People then genuinely believed that improvement was only brought about through harsh punishment and brutal consequences for failure. The idea that putting someone down for failure or telling them they were crap was demotivational, was completely foreign. If you didn't improve in order to not be treated horribly, then you must enjoy it, or you must be stupid.

I think unless you're over 50, you'll have missed most of this. The worst (and I use that word tenatively) was a Junior Cert Irish teacher who called people lazy when they didn't do their homework. It resulted in a class walk-out one day.

By comparison, 3 years later when I told a different Irish teacher that I was going to drop to pass-level Irish, he asked if I was sure and told me I'd be well able for a high C in honours if I put the work in. I wasn't prepared to put the work in

Raconteuse · 20-12-2019 12:48AM

I thought corporal punishment in schools was gone by the 80s but numerous people - usually from tough or country schools - have said they experienced it up to as late as the 90s.

partyguinness · 20-12-2019 11:06AM

I had 3 different female teachers and two different male teachers for the 8 years of primary.

The male teachers never raised a hand to us. It was the women but they were considerably older and old school- lots of verbal and physical punishment. In the 1980s they were both well into the their late 50s (and now since dead) and one of them had taught my father in the 60s.

weldoninhio · 20-12-2019 11:23AM

veryangryman wrote: »

I hear too many people saying this on tv

Can you, the reader assure me one way or the other whether this is a real thing? I mean we all had some bad teachers but really was this a normal thing. Never heard anyone knock me or anyone else in the school that way.

Maybe being recommended to do ordinary level but more in a realistic than discouraging way

100% happened. I remember my woodwork teacher refused to order me wood for my Leaving Cert project, because I hadn't done out a plan, elevation etc for it (i wasn't doing tech graphics and was crap at that part, so reckoned I'd make it, then work off the finished article). He told me I was going to fail woodwork, and that he had heard in the staffroom that I wasn't doing great in Irish and that I was going to fail the Leaving Cert.

He was a little pr1ck. I finished school in 2000, passed my Leaving Cert, and passed Woodwork just from the written test. Passed Irish too. If I was him again now I'd deck him and take the consequences.

cj maxx · 20-12-2019 11:27AM

Raconteuse wrote: »

I thought corporal punishment in schools was gone by the 80s but numerous people - usually from tough or country schools - have said they experienced it up to as late as the 90s.

It was still about in the 80s
I remember being sent to the principal (a priest)for being bold and he took out a strap to hit me on the hands. ( I think)
In a fluster I told him capital punishment was done away with. He laughed and gave me lines

Bob Harris · 20-12-2019 11:30AM

gabe1977 wrote: »

- PE was sprinting around the school yard and the person who came last had to put the fatest girl in the school on his back piggy back style and do a lap around the yard - i **** you not!

Well I fúcking laughed at that!

LirW · 20-12-2019 11:34AM

PE for me.
I had a number of pretty bad PE teachers and there were a few factors at play: I was an unpopular kid (bad start). I'm a lefty and a good number of lefties have messed up reflex coordination, for example if I'd have to jump lengths I was bad at it because I struggled a bit with figuring out which leg to use.
And I have a vision issue I didn't learn about until I was in my late teens, basically my 3D vision doesn't work properly and I'd have trouble catching balls and the like because my eyes need a bit longer to make out the distance.
This was a good mix for me to really suck at PE and I was the classic case of being picked last because I'm the weak link in all group sports

We had one teacher, she was a supreme b*tch and of course picked up on that and took a liking to humiliate me in front of the class. Constantly told me I'm a liar and lazy, so in return I'd try to come up with ways to avoid PE.
Teacher went on to tell me I should be more like my sister (who played competitive Handball for the school team) and I'll never make it in anything physical. Then she announced grades in front of everyone and me being last on the list, she gave me the worst grade by far and went on a lengthy explanation why: I don't try hard enough, I don't improve, she believes I'm just faking out of laziness.

No happy end to this story but to this day I have a real fear of exercising with others nearby.

nthclare · 20-12-2019 11:38AM

I remember my Maths teacher telling me that if I keep looking out at the window at the guys planting trees ill end up out there like them.

Do you want to end up like them? she said...

I just thought to myself, better than sitting in here doing sums and listening to your shoite.

Went to college and studied botany and horticulture, never looked back and regretted it either.

nthclare · 20-12-2019 11:48AM

We also had pervy art teacher who'd be poking the girls and saying they've a nice shade of color on their tops.

The funniest time I can remember was in metal work.

We had to cut perspex, now common sense would tell you that the perspex was a big square sheet of material.

So to cut a square you measure it at a corner so as not to waste any material.

A clever guy from Kilkishen drew the square in the middle of the big sheet of perspex and did a big wobbly cut through the perspex and cut out the square in the middle.

Well the metal work teacher blew gasket, he nearly had a meltdown.
Other teachers were brought in and all in front of the class to see this comical creativity and innovation.

Its one of those times you'd have to be there to see it.

We used to slag off Kilkishen guy in the pub about it.

One of the lads used to be making the noise of the jigsaw going through the perspex and mimicking the teacher's reaction..

Jeeeeeezzzzuzzzz chriiiiist, what the feck are you doing???

partyguinness · 20-12-2019 03:20PM

I felt great a few years ago blanking an old teacher of mine. Well, he was the PE teacher if that even counts. I left the school in 1994. He came up to me all smiles and he goes jokingly "I suppose you don't remember me at all".

I just looked at him stoney faced and said "No" and walked on. He was a complete waste of space.

He was a right **** to me after I missed a golden chance to score a goal in a 1992 county school semi final when in extra time. I wasn't even a corner forward FFS...I was a corner back and for some reason still unknown to me I was put in corner forward for the first and only time ever...ball came to me one on one and like a corner back I fcuked it up. We lost the replay.

Sleepy · 20-12-2019 04:38PM

Oddly the comment from a teacher that always comes back to me was an insightful remark to my mother during a parent teacher meeting "[Sleepy] needs a kick up the arse. He's coasting and has done since first year."

At the time, I was a bit peeved because I'd consistently had A's in his class (Business Studies) and continued to all the way through Leaving Cert where I got A's in Accounting, Economics and Bus Org. I had a natural talent for his subjects and, to his credit, he'd taught us accountancy brilliantly at Junior Cert level by teaching us from first principles rather than going by the book: those of us from his class who did Commerce in university literally didn't need to study the subject until the second semester of second year.

He was absolutely right though. I was coasting. I didn't "need" to do much (if any) study to do "well" in school, once a subject was covered in class, I tended to remember it, doubly so if it was taught from first principles or the teacher could answer me when I'd ask the "why" in order to get my head around the "how" (Maths was my Achilles heel as a result of this because the "why" of the numbers in the log books was never adequately explained to us).

I've often wondered how I'd have fared in life if I'd paid attention to Mr Feeney. I did a "good" leaving cert (just shy of 500 points), got into a good degree course and continued to coast through that too. Had I actually listened to him and learned how to put in some work, could I have done more with my life? Could that
"just shy of 500" have been a "just shy of 600"? Could I have done something more challenging in college than Commerce? Could that have lead to a more fulfilling career? A wealthier / happier life? I'll never know.

I've always been grateful for the education that man gave me, but I do wish I'd listened to him more. I am proud to say I got to say both of those things to him and to buy him a few pints before he passed away.

mikemac2 · 20-12-2019 04:45PM

Back in the day there was some public service term but I forget what it was called. It was done away with in the 1990s

If the gardai got a rise, then the teachers argued for this also. Same for other grades. So like if you earned 10% more than a nurse and the nurses got a bump your job that had nothing to do with nursing had to get a bump

Our business teacher would spit flames that no longer existed

What was it called?

IAMAMORON · 20-12-2019 04:49PM

The best thing a teacher could say to anybody when you think about it.

"At school I was told I would amount to nothing"

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