I admire stories about teachers who inspire their students. Between my K–12 education, undergraduate, boot camps, and MBA, I have had at least two good teachers. Sadly, only one name comes to mind: Mr. Marone.

Yet I vividly remember my worst teachers.

Bad teachers seem to shape our personalities more than the good ones do. An evolutionary biologist might say our brains remember painful experiences more strongly than joyful ones to help prevent future harm. I do not subscribe to that explanation. I prefer to think we are born a little spiteful and need to learn forgiveness.

Even with all the kind and generous people in this beautiful world, a rotten minority spoil it. The lesson, of course, is to ignore the rotten ones and focus on the good. I must have missed that lesson.

So with that in mind, I will retell a few stories about bad teachers. I hope you can laugh at them. Or laugh at me.

USA, you know the rest of the world lets you retake tests, right?

Bad Math

Throughout K-12, I excelled in math. I’m not going to overstate it like I’m some prodigy. It’s just that at a young age, my dad pushed me to recite the multiplication table. So I did. And from then on, math classes were easy.

A good teacher would have convinced me to take Calculus in 8th grade, alongside the one or two students with involved parents. Thanks to fate, this story is how teachers convinced me to stop taking math classes altogether!

In 5th grade, I was in the “gifted” classes of a public school. My teacher was a seven foot, no-nonsense, German man, with a thick German accent. I knew he hated me from Day 1. I do not recall acting out or giving him reasons to hate me. It was just a feeling that I was sure of, and a Jewish best friend confirmed.

Mid-semester, Mr. German Teacher introduces weekly speed competitions, where us students would answer basic algebra problems. I won every time. Boy, did this frustrate Mr. German Teacher. He looked increasingly irate upon each of my wins. Again, I can not tell you why. [Really, this isn’t some antisemitism story. That comes later.]

After securing my fifth win, German Teacher decided to add a prize to the competition: a 1-L bottle of Coca Cola. Maybe he thought this would inspire someone to beat me. It didn’t.

So Mr. German Teacher begrudgingly handed me the soda after my win, but he demanded that I quickly finish it. Something along the lines of, ‘Don’t make the other kids jealous. Drink it now!’ You know, because young kids always flaunt winning algebra and spelling competitions [/s]. I chugged the soda, uncontrollably burped, loudly, and received a week of after-school detention. So I never competed in any sort of math competition again.

Life continued.

By freshman year of high school, I was in math classes behind my level. I learned to do my Trig. homework on the bus rides to school, rather than taking up precious TV Time. I learned to hate teachers who insisted on taking off points for a “skipped step” within a proof, refusing to consider that step 4 of 9 could be done in your head. Bad teachers insist their way is the only way. Their answer keys aren’t flawed, the gifted and neurodivergent students are. [/s]

During my sophomore year, I had a geriatric math teacher, well past retirement age. He actually taught my school principal, which begged the question if he had also taught her more famous, pornstar sister. I never asked. I did once leave his class early, and then was attacked by a SWAT Team. That could not have helped my negative attitude towards math classes. I can describe that year as my best math class: apathy all around.

Junior year of high school, I took AP Calculus, my last math class.

Math was just starting to get interesting, still not too challenging. My teacher was a male, maybe 26 years old, deeply passionate about math, taking some sort of graduate math program at FAU. He was also a cranky, witless brute, who openly sexualized 16-18 year old girls without anyone daring to publicly call him out. It was creepy.

During that year, I developed a notorious reputation for leading the Speech & Debate Team, err, for having parties with alcohol where I mostly invited the Debate Team. I proudly grew my little club eight times by using flyers and house parties. I was always a nerd, but suddenly I’m ‘The debate nerd… who likes to party.’

I think Creepy Math Prof. resented me for popularizing a nerdy activity. And for being Jewish. I couldn’t prove either.

In an attempt to get more attention towards the Speech & Debate Club, I made an elaborate Facebook Note. For those who didn’t use Facebook in 2008, back when text and journals mattered, notes were like an extended posts. Not so long ago, LiveJournal was still used. People actually read their friends emo rants without being asked to “like and subscribe.” They didn’t just dump images on Instagram with hashtags.

My note compared each of the school’s extracurriculars to a country. Debate had an inside joke of chanting “USA! USA! We’re #1! We’re #1!” to rile ourselves up. Naturally Speech & Debate was USA. After that, I genuinely wanted to speak well of all the other clubs, but I’ll admit the comparisons fell flat. Art Club was France for their fine art works. Good enough. GSA (Gay Straight Alliance (pre-LGBT+)) was Germany for their counter culture and proud liberalism. Sure. Running Club was Kenya, because Kenya was famous for track and field medals. Not great, but nobody in the Track & Field Club seemed to mind.

By the time I remembered Math Club, I can’t say I put much thought into my comparison. I thought of China, a country famous for recitation and highly-developed Math skills. It was basically the same thing as Track —> Kenya. The Note was intended to be funny, and I don’t know if I considered that Creepy Math Prof was the Math Club’s Supreme Leader. Anyways, based on the few students who crossed from Math Club to the Dark Side (Debate), I had heard many stories that Crepy Math Prof ruled Math Club like a tyrant, forcing students to do work they preferred to skip, insisting they’re not working hard enough... for whatever. Debate had an always-nonsense policy, while Math Club was all work.

Again, maybe a good elementary school teacher would have taught me people do not take jokes well.

One of the brightest girls in our school told Creepy Math Prof about my note, describing it as slanderous and offensive. She also happened to be one of the girls with a super questionable relationship with Creepy Math Prof, often sitting on his desk, sharing food with him, doing things that others found strange. At no point did she address the Facebook Note with me, or even say why she was offended to me. She went straight to the teacher.

That same day, I was warned before class, “Watch out. {Creepy Math Prof} is out to get you.” “Why?” “I don’t know, but he said, ‘I’m gonna get Guy’ in class.” HEARD!

I was especially quiet through a tense class, filled with unwarranted stares. When someone threatens me, I believe them. In the middle of class, unprompted, Creepy Math Prof went on a tirade about me and the Debate Club. Thanks to the heads up, I kept calm, as a confused classroom attentively watched, glued to their desks.

Eventually he stopped screaming. So I asked, “Do you think you’re acting mature right now cursing at me in front of your class?” He was stunned. He demanded I leave class and speak with the counselor.

I went to the guidance counselor, who asked me to apologize to Creepy Math Prof. I refused. I don’t remember the counselor asking if I even intended to hurt Creepy Math Prof or the Math Club. Truly, my intent was to drum up excitement for ALL of the school’s activities, even the one and only club I poked fun at. It was supposed to be a playful rivalry. My intent was irrelevant to both Creepy Math Prof and that garbage counselor, unaccustomed to a student standing their ground, even if it was Florida, where we have loads of Florida Guys.

I was asked to meet once more, this time with both Creepy Math Prof and the school counselor. We both refused to apologize, like the stubborn men we were. Ultimately, I got to skip the remaining six weeks of class, and got the highest grade on the class final exam. I was one of four students to get a 5 (top score) on the AP exam.

And, yes, I never took a math class again.

Good ol’ “Train hits school bus” memes. Bad ol ifunny.co logo on something they stole.

Bad Student-Teacher Relationships

Continuing on the topic of bad teachers, I’m going to switch from personal stories to friends’ stories. To be clear, I never had a taboo relationship with a teacher. That would have required being liked by a teacher. As I demonstrated, my teachers were not fond of me, except philosophy profs.

This story comes from a friend, but will be told from my perspective of him telling me the story. AKA unreliable narration, all over the place with tangents, and requiring a lot more set up than punch line.

South Florida was never short on inappropriate faculty-student relationships. Those who have heard of #FloridaMan wont have doubts about what follows. But, as a fitting anecdote, the primary reason I went to a magnet school, 45 min from my home, was that my closest (zoned) school had multiple principals in a row disgraced after being caught selling drugs to students. Yes. Multiple. In. A. Row.

I went to high school from 2006-2010. Among my slightly older friends, taboo teacher-student relationships were near normalized. I had a neighborhood friend who dated her teacher shortly after turning 17. Her parents knew. At her liberal school, other students and faculty knew. Nobody made a big deal of it. They broke up around when she turned 18, and she’s doing great a decade later, in some poli marriage. Likewise, Creepy Math Prof wasn’t the only teacher who had questionable relationships with students. Our band teacher inappropriately touched one of my best friends, prompting her to cut class and nearly drop out of school. The boys loved a Spanish teacher, a grandma over 60, but always wearing heels, resembling Sofia Vergara, who even one day joined some teachers drinking with recent grads.

I could make a really long list of bad teacher incidents. There are stories of substitute teachers putting on VHS tapes with pornography, gym teachers allegedly spying on girls in the locker room, and other horrors were passed around by students. They were not addressed in a “That’s gross! Let’s put an end to this.” sorta way. It was more like, “Florida!”

It was only years later that whenever a teacher was caught it was sensationalized by local news. And I get it. Really. But the one story I’m telling hopefully gives you a sense that things can be complicated. It was the weirdest of times.

From a movie I didn’t watch called “Bad Teacher.” (Jason Segal is a gym teacher holding a gym bag with balls in it)

For a little more perspective, this incident took place in 2007-08. Again, consequences for female teachers sleeping with male students was disgrace, not jail. And a lot of men, all ages, leaned towards pride, not disgrace. If you don’t believe me, watch Adam Sandler’s “That’s My Boy” (2012), which endless jokes about such relationships.

Max (fake name) was a nice Christian boy, who sang in his church’s choir on Sundays. By all accounts, he was a kind kid. Soft spoken. But he slept with a very attractive “Yearbook Class” Teacher. [Some schools have a Yearbook Class where students work for half the year to design and publish their yearbook. This class seems to necessitate awkward relationships, as the teacher needs to learn the ins and outs of teenage drama. It’s a disasteroous idea for a class.]

My school’s Class of 2008 Yearbook was filled with offensive things, sometimes written vertically in tiny letters between pages, or imposed on an image. It had double entendres and easter eggs that really made people wonder, “What happened? How did this get in here?” The last page of this yearbook was a heartfelt letter from Attractive Yearbook Teacher, hinting at her inappropriate relationship. One day I’ll find a friend who owns this thing to share this messsage. For now, I’ll paraphrase the incriminating last lines, “Thank you, {Max}, for coming over to my home on long rainy nights to help me finish this Yearbook. I could not have done it without you.”

Really, how the f did this thing get published? There must have been 0 oversight.

Since the year was over, and the school wanted to keep the story under wraps, Attractive Yearbook Teacher was not fired. Instead, she was asked to quit, disowned by her family and, allegedly, moved to Alaska. I can’t say what really happened to her, but can say that she was replaced by the most flamboyant man I have ever met, in a failed attempt to squash these taboo relationships, instead just leading to awkward gay student-teacher relationships.

I remember sitting with Max at a Starbucks just weeks prior to the school wide reveal. I knew what was happening and was team “fist bump.” I had to know how this ever happened. And I just love the story, to this day.

Again, I’m paraphrasing, but some conversations really stick inside your brain.

Max, ‘I was in her class and I would make lots of jokes. She always laughed, so I felt maybe I could get closer with her. On Valentine’s Day, I told her to leave her car door unlocked. During lunch, I snuck into the parking lot and left her a bouquet of roses, box of chocolate, and a gram of weed.’

Me, ‘What?! You left weed in her car!’

Max, ‘Yeah.’

Me, ‘How did you know she liked weed?’

Max, ‘Everyone likes weed.’

Max went on about how she invited him over after that Valentine’s Day, and things got heated quick. To him, they were both consenting adults. A decade and a half later, maybe he’s re-thought about the consenting part. Then again… #FloridaMan .

To be continued? Maybe, if someone who grew up with me reminds me stories worth sharing.