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

Yet I vividly remember my worst teachers.

Bad teachers shape our personalities more than the good. An evolutionary biologist might say our brains remember painful experiences more than joyful ones to prevent harm. I do not subscribe to that explanation. I think we are born a bit spiteful and can learn forgiveness with time.

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. Focus on the good. But 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 Asian students with more 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 friends confirmed.

Mid-semester, Mr. German Teacher introduces weekly speed math 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 win. 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. He demanded that I quickly drink 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. Yes, detention, for winning a math competition / burping.

I never competed in any sort of math competition again.

Life continued.

In freshman year of high school, I continued with math classes that felt too easy. 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 3 or step 5 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, though 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 year old girls without anyone daring to publicly call him out. He 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 grew my little club eight times by using flyers and house parties. I was always a nerd, but suddenly I’m ‘The debate pres. 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. But anyone who’s dealt with bigotry will tell you about the feelings they had prior to the incident.

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 long text mattered, notes were like extended posts. This was like a LiveJournal replacement. Yes, people actually read their friends emo rants without being asked to “like and subscribe.” They didn’t just dump selfies 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. 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. Remember, this Note was funny, not serious.

Debate had an always-nonsense policy, while Math Club was all work.

Maybe 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 Club), I had heard many stories that Crepy Math Prof ruled Math Club like a tyrant, forcing students to do recitations they preferred to skip, insisting they’re not working hard enough.

Maybe a good teacher would have taught me people do not take jokes well. Maybe some life lessons could have prevented this whole thing. Maybe middle children seek attention.

One of the girls in our school told Creepy Math Prof about my note, describing it as slanderous and deeply 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 observers 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.

So 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 this teacher rant on, glued to their desks.

Eventually he stopped screaming about how horrible I am and the debate team is. He said something like, “What do you have to say for yourself?” So I calmed asked back, “Do you think you’re acting mature right now cursing at me in front of your class?”

He was stunned. I played it cool. He demanded I leave class and speak with the counselor.

So I went to the guidance counselor, who asked me to apologize to Creepy Math Prof. I refused. I explained that my intent was to drum up excitement for ALL of the school’s activities and had a strong case. Math vs Debate was supposed to be a playful rivalry. But my intent was irrelevant to both Creepy Math Prof and that garbage counselor, unaccustomed to a student standing their ground, even iin Florida.

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. Despite that, I 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, out of spite or trauma, 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 two philosophy profs who really loved me.

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 high-ranking staff 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 arts school, other students and faculty knew. Nobody made a big deal of it. They just broke up around when she turned 18, and she’s doing great a decade later, in some poli marriage.

Our band teacher inappropriately touched one of my best friends, prompting her to cut class and nearly drop out of school. The councelors never cared. The boys in my classes loved a Spanish teacher, a grandma over 60 who always wore heels. She resembled an aged Sofia Vergara. When she (and several other teachers) agreed to have a drink with my class, upon graduating, she admitted she knew she was the ‘hot older teacher.'

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, a girl named Diana putting a weed brownie on her desk to bate a teacher (who ate it, regretted it, and quit the next day) and other stories passed around. These stories were typically addressed in a “That’s gross! Let’s put an end to this.” sorta way. It was more like, “Oh, Florida!” or “Boys will be boys!”

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. And you can find dated news articles about it, but they don’t tell the real story.

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

This incident took place in 2007-08. Back then, 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, “WTF 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. By then it was in the news that she had ‘kissed a student, but swore they didn’t have sex.’ They did.

One day I’ll find a friend who owns this damn yearbook to share the exact messsage. For now, I’ll paraphrase the incriminating last lines of a yearbook included, “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 was clearly 0 oversight.

Since the year was over, and the school wanted to keep the story under wraps, Attractive Yearbook Teacher was not fired. She was asked to quit, disowned by her family and, allegedly, moved to Alaska. The news even told it this way. 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 between yearbook teacher and student. It instead just led to gay student-teacher relationships.

I remember sitting with Max at a Starbucks just weeks prior to the school wide reveal.I had to know how this ever happened. Every boy had this fantasy, but he lived it. It went like so:

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. Things escalated quickly. To him, they were both consenting adults. I can just say the timing worked for both of them, because maybe a year later every teacher scandal would make international headlines, from ‘teacher caught with bikini pics’ to the more problematic.

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