I admire stories of teacher who inspire their students. Between my K-12, undergraduate, boot camps and MBA Education, I’ve had at least two. Sadly, only one name (Mr. Marone) comes to mind. And yet, I vividly remember my worst teachers. Our bad teachers contribute more to our personalities than our good. Maybe an evolutionary biologist would say that our brains remember painful experience more than joyous ones to prevent injury. But I don’t believe in evolutionary biology. I prefer to think that we’re born spiteful and can be taught forgiveness.

Even with all the kind and great people in this beautiful world, a rotten minority can ruin it. The lesson is to ignore the rotten people and focus on the kind. I must have missed this lesson.

With that, I’ll retell some stories of 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 a prodigy. At a young age, my dad pushed me to recite the multiplication table. I did. 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 attentive and 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.

Mid-semester, German Teacher introduces weekly speed competitions, where students would answer basic algebra problems. I won every time. Boy, did this frustrate German Teacher. He looked increasingly irate upon each of my wins. Again, I can not tell you why.

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

German Teacher begrudgingly handed me the soda and demanded that I quickly finish it. Something along the lines of, ‘Don’t make the other kids jealous. Drink it now.’ As if I was going to flaunt winning an algebra competition. I chugged the soda, burped loudly, and received a week of after school detention. I never competed in any sort of math competition again.

Life continued. By freshman year of high school, I was in classes behind my skill 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 had 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.

Junior year of high school, I took AP Calculus. Math was just starting to get interesting. My teacher was a male, maybe 26 years old, deeply passionate about math, taking some sort of graduate math program. He was also a cranky, witless brute, who openly sexualized 16-18 year old girls without anyone daring to publicly call him out.

During that year, I developed a notorious reputation leading the Speech & Debate Team. I proudly grew my little club eight times bigger by using flyers and house parties, which may or may not have had some underage drinking. I was always a nerd, but suddenly I’m ‘The Debate Nerd who likes to party.’ Maybe Creepy Math Prof resented me for popularizing a nerdy activity.

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 Notes mattered, it was like an extended post. Back then, not so long ago, LiveJournal was still used. People read their friends emo rants without being asked to “like and subscribe.”

The note compared each of the school’s extracurriculars to a country. The Debate Team had an inside joke about chanting things like “USA! We’re #1!” to rile ourselves up. Naturally Speech & Debate was my USA. I genuinely wanted to speak well of all the other clubs, but I’ll admit some comparisons were odd or on the nose. Like, the Art Club was France for their fine works. Makes sense? GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) was Germany for their counter culture and proud liberalism. A little less sensical. Running Club was Kenya… because Kenya was famous for track and field medals. Not great, but nobody in the Running Club seemed to mind.

By the time I had remembered Math Club, I can’t say I put much thought into my comparison. I immediately thought of China, a country famous for recitation and highly-developed Math skills. The Note was intended to be funny, and I did not consider that Creepy Math Prof was their leader. Based on the few students who crossed from Math Club to the Dark Side (Debate), I had heard stories that their “leader” ruled Math Club like a tyrant, forcing students to do work they preferred to skip. Debate had an always-nonsense policy, while Math Club was strict.

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 happened to be one of the girls with a creepy relationship with Creepy Math Prof, often sitting on his lap or his desk, sharing food with him. At no point did she address the Facebook Note with me, or even say why she was offended to me.

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.”

I was especially quiet through a tense class. When someone threatens you, 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 during this tirade, as a confused classroom attentively watched. Eventually 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 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 club I poked fun of. My intent was irrelevant to Creepy Math Prof and the counselor, who were not accustomed to a student standing their ground, even if it was Florida.

I was asked to meet once more, this time with both Creepy Math Prof and the school counselor. We refused to apologize, like the stubborn men we are. Ultimately, I got to skip the remaining six or so weeks of class, got the highest grade on the class final exam, and was one of four students to get a 5 (top score) on the AP exam. 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. This story comes from a friend, but will be told from my perspective.

South Florida was never short on inappropriate faculty-student relationships. Those who have heard of #FloridaMan wont have doubts about what follows. I will try to find some non-doxing evidence to add, or you can take the rest with a grain of salt.

One of the primary reasons 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 too. Nobody made a big deal of it. They broke up around when she turned 18, and she’s doing great. Likewise, Creepy Math Prof wasn’t my school’s only rotten apple. Our band teacher inappropriately touched one of my best friends, prompting her to cut class and nearly drop out. And the story I’ll eventually tell happened in my school.

I could make a really long list of these incidents. Stories of substitute teachers putting on VHS tapes with pornography, gym teachers 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. Years later, whenever a teacher was caught, it was sensationalized by local news. But this is such a long post already, I’ll stick to one story, less about trauma, more focused on how weird these times were.

For a little more perspective, this incident took place in 2007-08. The criminal consequences of female teachers sleeping with male students had not been realized. If you don’t believe me, watch Adam Sandler’s “That’s My Boy” (2012), which jokes about such relationships.

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

Max (fake name) was a nice Christian boy, who sang in his church’s choir most Sundays. By all accounts, he was a kind kid. He slept with a very attractive “Yearbook Class” Teacher. For those unaware, 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.

I’m jumping to the end: My school’s Class of 2008 Yearbook was filled with offensive disses, 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?” 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 it. For now, I’ll paraphrase the incriminating line as, “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.”

Since the year was over, and the school wanted to keep the story under wraps, Attractive Yearbook Teacher was not fired. Max told me she was asked to quit, disowned by her family and moved to Alaska. I don’t know what happened to her, but know that she was replaced by the most flamboyant man I have ever met, in a failed attempt to squash these taboo relationships.

I remember sitting with Max at a Starbucks just weeks prior to the school wide reveal. Those who were there had already heard stories. Again, I’m paraphrasing, but some conversations really stick in your brain.

Max, ‘I was in {Attractive Teachers} class and 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 quickly developed. To him, they were both kind and consenting adults. I don’t doubt that they both are kind people. A decade and a half later, maybe he’s rethought about the consenting part. Then again… Florida.

To be continued