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

One teacher put sellotape on somebodies lips.

We also had the teacher who used watch the previous days Home and Away, Soaps, programs, etc and if anybody asked we were doing a review on it.

One day a girl who was in our year but in the Convent died and the next day the same teacher taught us how to write an obituary.

Another teacher used talk about how important it was for lads to shower down after sport and not just use deodorant. He used talk about how important it was to use a bar of soap and really lather it up.

Our sixth class teacher refused to use the blackboards.

She instead had reams and reams of paper that she'd stick to the blackboard and write on with really squeaky black markers. Such an absolute waste of paper. There'd be piles of it on the floor for the bin by the end of the day.

I'd an Irish teacher in secondary school who, at the start of each class, would walk around and hand everyone a tiny slip of paper about two inches high and five inches long -

I don't know how, but that tiny bit of paper would contain a colossal amount of work we'd have to go through while he sat at the top of the class doing **** all.

Roscommon country secondary school back in the 1980's:

School starts at 9.00. Teacher rolls in at 9.15, gets one of the lads to go down to the shop and pick up 20 Carroll's and the Irish Press. Every single day.

Playing pool in the lounge of a pub at lunch, teacher in the bar. Shouts out "Do I have ye at 2.00?" "Yes, you do sir!" Then throws out 10p for another game of pool and he orders another pint.

School tour: Got the bus driver to leave before two female teachers could come out and join them. Just himself and another male teacher, nobody else to spoil it. Got to Bundoran, the two of them spent the day drinking in several pubs, students ran riot around town on a plssing wet mid-week day in October, place was a ghost town, so they stuck out. Stopped twice for pints on the way home, eventually got home around 10 p.m., was supposed to be home at 7.30 pm.

Loads more, was considered just slightly outside of normal back then.

A secondary school maths teacher in my school, always taught fractions for Cheltenham week. We had an inspection one day during it, the inspector asked for tips, winning tip, thumbs up for the lesson.

Surprised he didn't show ye how.

We had a religion teacher who was always trying to convince us that the moving statue of Ballinspittle was real (this was a few years after the moving statues thing, so circa 1990). I dont think anyone was convinced.

Getting away from the abuse to just simple bad teaching for a minute: We’d a Physics/Chemistry teacher for the Leaving who wouldn’t let us do any experiments. But he made us copy them from the text book into a lab book as if we had done them, in case an inspector ever checked. He was very blatant about this being entirely for his benefit, at the expense of ours.

Had a science teacher who used to make his own poitin in the lab. He'd be completely bucked ar 4 o'clock !

There's a definite pre and post 2000 difference in school experiences here and rightly so. For many, myself included, school was an horrific time, with little of the light relief described here. I'm genuinely happy for those who had a good time at school.

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

There's a definite pre and post 2000 difference in school experiences here and rightly so. For many, myself included, school was an horrific time, with little of the light relief described here. I'm genuinely happy for those who had a good time at school.

That's very true.
We were terrorised through primary and secondary school.
Female teacher would trash you with a metre stick for not knowing the answer to a question (primary school!)
Then onwards to the wonderful Christian brothers (too stupid to be priests) one of whom would kick you on the shins and try and bite you instead of slapping you.
All of this has made me a very introverted person (protection mechanism) for which I am very resentful towards the education system I was put through.

We had a teacher in secondary school, young enough lad, friendly, good looking.

Came into class one Monday morning and put John Waite's 'Missing You' on the stereo (a proper ghetto blaster). Kept playing it louder on repeat with his feet on the desk looking up at the ceiling. We were in fits of giggles until one of the lads noticed the teacher was crying. Teacher next door (who was dead sound) and who was a mate of his came in to see what the noise was and took him outside.

He (teacher next door) came back with about 5 minutes left in the class. Just told us to pack our books up quietly, and then said something that has honestly stayed with me the past 35 years;

"Lads, we've no idea what kind of pain and issues some people are going through, but if ye can, go and speak to a friend about it, it really is the best thing to talk about stuff and get it off ye're chest. Also lads, I don't mean to be condescending, but ye have no idea what adult life is like, it's a lot harder than ye can ever imagine.

But remember lads; 'It's good to talk'* "

*It's good to talk was an advertising slogan for British Telecom at the time.

This is the song the teacher was playing, he was obviously going through some sort of a break up with a woman at the time. And yes, every time I hear this song I think of those two teachers and that morning.

I think most teachers fit into one of four categories...

-Good teachers
-Bad teachers that tried to teach
-Bad teachers that didn't care and would spend all class telling you stories/watching videos etc...
-Off the wall teachers

The last two were the best fun. We had a maths teacher, real old school strict guy. But we realised after a few months that he had a couple of topics of conversation that he loved... so all you had to do was get him going on one of them and he'd spend the whole class telling us some random story. Somehow I scraped through honors maths..

On the hygiene thing, we were doing swimming for pe, and after we got changed, we were lined up separated into boys and girls. Think we were 2nd year. The teacher singled out the boys, told us we all smelled terrible and that teenagers needed to wash more. She then told us we were going to go back to the changing rooms to shower before the class started.

So she sends the first 10 or so lads back first. They come back, she announces the smell has now gone, and we continue on with the class.