Recently Reddit user u/Ara-Rat asked, "What did your teacher do that made you call them the 'worst teacher ever?'" This sparked a thread of toxic and horrific stories, proving that some people definitely shouldn't be teachers.
Here are some of the eye-opening stories from users:
Warning: Some submissions include topics of physical abuse, suicide, and pedophilia.
1. "My high school band director had severe anger issues and was easily set off. He once threw a loudspeaker at us during marching band practice and would yell at us after a competition if he didn't think we performed well."
2. "I had a teacher who was standing up while talking to our class — everyone was quiet and either listening or at least wasn't actively disrupting things. He stopped mid-sentence, threw his coffee mug against the chalkboard, angrily said, 'Fuck it — learn it yourselves!' and stormed out. Everyone just looked around and was like, 'Who was talking? Was it you? No?' None of us could figure out what the hell set him off, and we could see him outside the room pacing back and forth, muttering something. Five minutes later, he came back into the class and started talking, acting like nothing happened."
3. "My third-grade teacher got frustrated with a kid's stutter and started pounding the kid's desk with a closed fist while mocking his stutter."
4. "I was 5 years old and hyperactive, and she tied me to my chair. She also held my hand during formation in the mornings and squeezed it so hard, my tiny knuckles would crack. When I’d instinctively try to pull my hand away, she’d hold onto it, smile at me, and ask me if it hurt."
5. "My teacher tried to get me suspended for a dress code violation when I was 15. I was in the only dress I owned at the time because I was going to my best friend's funeral (she’d committed suicide two days before). I was crying and begging my teacher to just let me stay in my dress until my mom picked me up. My teacher then took me to the front office where I had to sit under a tarp until my mom picked me up."
6. "In high school gym class, we were doing some kind of push-up test. My teacher decided he was going to watch me the whole time and not lay an eye on anyone else. I did a couple of push-ups and he told me my form was wrong. He repeated this over and over again until I completed at least 30 'wrong' push-ups. At that point I was too exhausted to even do a single 'correct' one so he failed me."
7. "During my sixth-grade history class, my teacher had us read out loud from our textbooks. While I was reading, she yelled at me (in front of the whole class) to 'STOP!' what I was doing. I just stared at my book like the rest of the class and she continued to yell 'STOP!' After I asked her, 'What am I doing?' she said, 'I don't know, but you need to STOP.' She gave me detention during lunch/recess and I sat in the hallway where she checked on me every couple of minutes."
"Toward the end of lunch/recess, she said that I, in fact, did nothing in class and she took her anger out on me. But, she wanted to make an example of me and felt embarrassed in front of the other students for scolding me over doing nothing. Then, she made me promise not to tell anyone — I am bewildered by her behavior to this day."
8. "A girl in my math class complained about doing a certain math equation. Our teacher turned around from her spot in front of the whiteboard and shouted, 'Well, it's not like I'm asking you to slit your wrists.' The girl complaining had a family member commit suicide a year earlier and our whole class went off on this teacher. The teacher just laughed and said we were overreacting, while the girl sat and cried in the corner."
9. "In high school, a teacher once told a classmate that she looked like a 'slut' because she was wearing a skirt that was just barely shorter than her fingertips when her arms were at her side. This teacher did not get into any kind of trouble for insulting my classmate, even after her parents complained to the school district about it."
10. "My teacher stole stuff out of her students' desks and blamed the other kids in the class."
11. "I had a teacher who gave me failing grades but never returned my assignments. We'd take a test and then the following day, she'd read our scores out loud in front of the class: 'Molly: 98%. Nick: 90%. [my name]: 27%.' I was so frustrated because I was studying my butt off and I didn't know what I was doing wrong. After fighting with the teacher and eventually having to involve the school board, it came out that the teacher didn't even look at the tests. She randomly gave scores based on how smart she thought the students were and how much she liked them."
12. "My teacher in third grade had the class make clay animals for Christmas presents for our parents as an art lesson. It was such a small amount of clay and she specifically said it was for both of our parents — well, I happened to be the only student who had divorced parents in the class. I asked her what I should do because they didn’t live together and couldn’t share the gift and she literally said, 'Well, you’ll just have to pick your favorite parent, then.' She did other horrid things but this was the first time I went home crying."
13. "The first time I ever wore shorts above my knees, my Spanish teacher said I was disgusting for wearing shorts to school and slapped both of my thighs."
14. "I had a teacher who decided that since I was a messy kid (my desk was always a mess), he would, quite simply, empty my desk on the ground and have me pick up my stuff every single morning. That same teacher also slammed a student's head against the wall and threw another student across the corridor. He was universally hated but didn't face any consequences for his actions. That jerk."
15. And "In primary school, one of the kids had smeared poop on a cubicle toilet. So my teacher asked us one by one to take a look at it. Then we had to bend over, bare-assed in front of her, so that she could look at all the boys' butts. I remember her smacking my 6-year-old butt, saying, 'Nice bottom.' I tend to get flashbacks of some really bad parts of my childhood and [this is one of them]."
You can read the full thread of responses on Reddit here.
Note: Some stories have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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