Secondary School
Whilst the majority of them were intolerant arseholes, I respected a few of my teachers, and even liked one or two, but the first one that always springs to mind whenever I think about my time in secondary school is Mrs Liptrot.

She used to teach me maths, with varying degrees of success, from third year onwards. Every now and again she would just stop the lesson (which we were always grateful for), tell us to put our stuff away and spend the rest of the time talking to us. Subject matter varied, from her then teenage son and his world to social etiquette to the joys of academic achievement.

To be honest, I was generally too busy daydreaming to pay much attention but her intentions were not lost on me, or at least aren’t now. School is meant to be a preparation for life, and she was attempting to prepare us in a way that didn’t fall within the remit of maths tuition. She made an extra effort when frankly most of us were woefully undeserving of it. For that, I respect her most of all.

I’ve always wanted to track her down and say ‘nice one’. Actually, I saw her in Safeway a couple of years ago, before I moved. Didn’t have the bottle to approach her though. Maybe next time.
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 11:24, Reply)

A terrible maths teacher
Had no idea how to teach. He would tell us which page of the text book to do questions from then read the answers out at the end. If we asked for help he'd just tell us to read the textbook.

Eventually it turned out the reason for this was he had made up all his qualifications, and was promptly sacked.

He then got a job at the school down the road from us on the virtue of his 4 years teaching experience......
(shouldwork, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 11:20, Reply)

Mr Obee, CDT
Popped out of the acrylic store cupboard one lesson, and sang "Animal crackers in my soup."

That was it, he did nothing else abnormal. Never worked out what the song/theme he mentioned was...
(BourbonBiscuits, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 11:09, Reply)

Common And Proud
Our run down comprehensive school had a slight staff shortage so one day we turned up for a french lesson to be greeted by a very young looking substitute teacher. She was very well spoken to the point where, to us common northerners, she sounded pretty much like the queen. She was obviously slumming it, moonlighting from her day job teaching little princes and princesses at some upper class boarding school. She also had a comedy Jonathan Woss style speech impediment.

Inevitably the class got more and more out of hand. It began by replying to everything she said with "spiffing!" and then people started calling her Miss. Farqhaur Poncenby Smythe. It quickly denigrated to the point where several people just kept shouting things out at her. After asking "Could Daddy buy us all ponies as well?" we hit upon the obvious and asked her is she wouldn't mind awfully "Weleasing Woger".

This turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back. She slammed her books down on the desk and, in the momentary silence, screamed in an accent suitable for royal visits "If you lot don't settle down I'm going to give you extwa pwep!"

The shocked silence lasted for roughly two seconds before everyone burst out laughing. The catcalls continued as before but now with the occasional "What the fuck is extwa pwep?" and the one noticeable incident where someone screamed "Look out! It's an extwa pwep!" and dived under their desk to avoid this mythical beast.

Don't get ideas above your station love, its called homework. Or, at the very least, homewowk.
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Fri 11 Nov 2005, 11:09, Reply)

german porn star
Being the witty 13 year olds we were, we had nicknamed Mr. Armstrong, our german teacher, Noddy. Owing to the fact he had enormous ears and cheeks that looked like he'd pinned tomatoes on them.

During one of the lessons, we were all working away quietly, when some kid from the back pipes up: 'Oi, Noddy! I saw you yesterday...you were in a german bondage film weren't you!'.

Noddy turned very red, murmured something quietly, and left the room. Muppet.
(something clever about willies and sex wee, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 10:56, Reply)

One of my PE Teacher's
used to run his hand down your back as you came out of the showers "to make sure you'd washed"... he must have thought we all had very long backs
( ashurek, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 10:34, Reply)

My old resistant materials teacher Mr Davies
He was about in his late fifties and sometimes he would just stop the lesson and get everyone to sit down at a table. Next he would bring out something to show us. Sometimes it was his new laptop and sometimes it was his guitar and he would calmly sit on the edge of a table and say 'Name that tune' and whoever correctly named the song (usually stairway to heaven) would get to leave early. Then he would walk around saying things like 'and Bob's your auntie and shelia's your brother.' and me being the only girl in the class, well he'd come over to me like he had something important to say and then go '..Danger. MEN at work!'

We also had this other teacher. Mr Osama or something and he taught RE. We thought he was a bit odd because he would just dissapear for days on end. Then on the last day of term he says to us 'You won't be seeing me again. Not here anyway. Just make sure you stay away from birmingham next saturday? STAY AWAY' ..and that was the last we heard from him.
(Sparkypinkguitar, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 10:30, Reply)

I was 15, the school was 3 months old, built for 800 students but only had 220 and as it was a government "progressive" school, everything was brand new (we even had video cameras - remember, this was 1973)
My favourite teachers were all a bit weird.

1. English, Mr. Potts - Long hair and beard, generally placid but did have "incidents" every 2 months or so, where he would scream a lot and move away from the set curriculum - I remember several in depth studies of Hunter S Thompson articles and the Door"s albums "The Doors" and "Waiting for the sun". After these, he would have a week off.

2. Geography and Drama, Mr. Snowdon - long hair and beard, very intense but usually happy.
Was great to be around because he would always back his students in any situation and the other teachers were scared of him. Don't actually remember learning much but he was fun. We made several movies.

3. Mr. Naylor, Chemistry - Very long hair and beard, was only ever seen wearing army trousers and t-shirts, rode an old ex-army BMW which he would disappear on for up to 3 days at a time. Very philosophical and not at all interested in chemistry. Alleged to have threatened the Deputy Headmaster with a wakizashi (hari-kari sword). Died in Afghanistan during the Russian invasion in 1980 while riding his BMW around the world.

All 3 were Vietnam veterans and had a very realistic, although somewhat bizarre attitude towards education and the world in general. They all were great guys and taught us plenty about life.
(peewee13, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 10:29, Reply)

Papa Brunton
We used to have a maths teacher, "Papa" who was married to our English teacher "Mama". She was an evil hell bitch, and he was very quiet and quite shy.

And he looked like Penfold.

Anyway, Papa had a metal plate in his head, for christ knows what reason, and he was a bit strange. When he got wound up, he used to stand at the front of the class and headbut the blackboard, which all of his classes used to fully encourage, by all humming quietly until he'd had enough, and started nutting away.

That is all. Oh no, it isn't..

Our Biology teacher and our plastic knee'd English teacher had a food fight in the canteen after Biology teacher mocked english teacher for being a vegetarian.
( wefbhweiufhweiu party, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 10:12, Reply)

Our headmaster
at upper school was a weird kind of mix between Larry Grayson, Mr Humphries (Are You Being Served) and a lizard. He wore orange nylon shirts, slacks, blazers with overly polished brass buttons and usually rounded his outfit off with a macrame spectacle chain to hold his half lense, nose perchers close to his heart. His nick name was Vassy, as rumour had it, he was once caught in his office applying vaseline to his sphincter. Oh how cruel kids can be.

He was hideously out of touch with the pupils, the running of the school and I guess the other teachers too. But not with his sphincter.

The incident that springs to mind had quite a build up. It involved a whole weekend, me, magic mushrooms, a party, a school governors daughter, angry parents, the police, my arrest and a night in casualty. The upshot was that I had to stay off school to see if the incident made the local papers, and if so I would have to be expelled as an example. Fortunately it didn't happen so I could go back to school.

On my first day back at school everyone who was at the party was called to a classroom during afternoon assembly. We were all sat there with an idea of what was going to happen when in walked Vassy and the pastoral head (who was a decent guy, doing it for the kids... yeah!). Vassy stood in front of the assembled youths and produced some speech flashcards. As you can guess the atomsphere was quite tense, one of "We're going to get such a bollocking...." I think his speech went something like this:

"Some of you have been very irresponsible. Some of you have been quite stupid, and some of you have been just plain naughty..."

The classroom of youths collapsed into peals of laughter, which took a very long time to die down. He left the room before it did and never got to finish his carefully planned speech. He left the school fairly shortly after that.

We also had a religious education teacher that used to fill in for missing PE teachers. He still lived with his mum and was always on some kind of power trip. He loved cricket and would torture us in PE by throwing proper cricket balls as high as he could, waiting for them to start descending then calling your name to catch them. The worst was when you were bowling. He'd stand in the umpires position, put his hand down the back of his jogging bottoms and feel his own arse. The position of wicket keeper was highly fought over.
(ralphseviltwin, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 10:07, Reply)

Mr Hungate
Also known as "fat cunt bag of chips" due to the sheer volume of food he could eat at lunchtime. The poor bastard was late turning up for his lesson and was still in the staff canteen below his classroom - the class (geography) got bored after a few minutes (seconds) and started throwing things out of the window - it started off as the rocks from the display cabinets around the side of the classroom, but rapidly progressed to books, folders and chairs. Just as me, Rob and someone else I cant remember was maneouvering a desk in order to see it plummet to the ground he came running into the room. Punishment? We had to go and pick all the stuff up again.

Shortly afterwards during an exam which my brother was in he had a heart attack - the class all stood up and crowded round him chanting "die die die die die".

EDIT: oh yeah, we also used to throw money at him. Anything up to a value of 20p.

Actually he wasnt weird, but we were definitely a bunch of cunts. Sorry Mr Hungate.
(wayner, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 10:06, Reply)

Bunch of Mentalists!!
Aah, the benefits of a Grammar School education!

1) The Latin Teacher 'PopEye', on the first day of secondary school, in the first Latin lesson, screamed at a girl for talking while he was. She wet herself, literally.....before we had even sat down. Then he totally ignored the fact she was sopping wet and snivelling, and conducted the lesson with all 30 of us fearing for our lives.

2) The Geography teacher who would sit on her desk in front of us providing us with constant 'Basic Instinct' leg crossing-uncrossing action, even down to not having underwear on. Would have been better if her front bottom hadn't looked like she had half a bear hanging out of it.

3) Metalwork / Woodwork teacher. 'Now don't mix the blue powder with the white powder, it will ruin them, and they are expensive.............RIGHT!!!! WHICH ONE OF YOU LITTLE W**KERS MIXED THE F***KING POWDERS???? YOU USELESS, BRAINLESS, C**TS!!!!'
This man also oversaw my Maths 'O' Level. It is his fault I failed. I couldn't concentrate through laughing, having had him scream from the front of the hall 'IF I HEAR ONE MORE F**CKING FART, I WILL FAIL YOU ALL!!!' five minutes into the exam. Well, we didn't all fail, probably half.

4) Ahhh, the PE teacher. Ex Irish National Rugby player. Slightly tapped, phenomenally sadistic, but then, aren't they all? 'You don't wash it like that...give it here....'
Also taught Biology. Asked which is the only part of the human body that has no pain receptors....a small lad volunteered the answer of 'Earlobes'. This was proved incorrect by him walking up to the small lad and gouging his earlobe with his thumbnail until he drew blood.

Apologies for the state of our education system.....
(EvilBugger, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 10:03, Reply)

computer administrator
the old computer technician at my high school (mr bentson) was a complete dick. if you needed to have your password reset because you forgot it you would have to call him 'sir', grovel at his feet and not step over a white line he had drawn on the ground. (this was so you couldnt keep the kiddy porn on his monitor, well that was our reasoning)

he would always yell at students for having mp3s on their personal drive and other stupid things (like calling homework documents "bentson is a fag")

he has a weakness though. if he yelled you at. you just yell back. he cowers like a scared dog. only thing keeping me happy is he will die a lot sooner than i will
( faultykyle, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 9:48, Reply)

Mr. B
We had a right bastard at our school. He was there for ages. Ginger nazi who would put you on detention for absolutely anything, made life hell for my mate Zammo. He left shortly after we discovered he wore a wig. Lucky escape too, turns out he used to work for Darth Vader.

Phew!
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Fri 11 Nov 2005, 9:42, Reply)

Chemistry teacher
A lab assistant told us that Mr N, the Chemistry Teacher, recieved a tent as a Christmas present and proceeded to use it for the rest of the aforementioed holiday.

Mr N was an enormous man, with a barrel chest and looked like Atlas, and whenever he bent over desks to explain something his shirt rode up his back and exposed his grubby off-white underpants, whose waist band was ripped and torn. He bent over desks a lot, particularly those occupied by girls, and when he did most of the class would stop what they were doing to giggle and stare at his undies.
(supermeerkat, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 9:12, Reply)

Scarred maths teachers
Mrs B, a maths teacher, had a massive scar across her forehead which resulted from a drunken game of rugby on a school trip to Belgium. In that game she attempted to tackle a 6th former she obviously fancied, missed and hit a goal post face first.

She wasn't exactly the best of teachers before the accident, but afterwards she exhibited signs of what we took to be brain damage. She also spoke like Martin Brown from Radioactive.
(supermeerkat, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 8:59, Reply)

Cropperopoulos
I remember Spitfire Sparrow too - the man is a legend. Only he could call his son Robin with a surname like that...

I was in your year at school too... Were you taught by the famous Barnett at any point too? www.b3ta.com/questions/weirdteachers/post42980

We also had another German teacher, also going by the name of Mr S, who was sacked after hitting on female pupils one too many times. He's also married to one of his ex-pupils too. Scary, and he was my form teacher at one point.
( rubberduck should only be used after consulting with your GP, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 8:41, Reply)

Ahhh, Alcoholism
Had a bunch of classic drunks at my Junior High School:
Mrs. W., the cooking teacher was an absolute riot. She kept a bottle of 'cooking wine' read: cheap vodka in her desk drawer at all times. She would quietly add it to her coffee throughout class. The best part of it was that due to her need, she was back in the staff room filling up her coffee at least three times in class. Thus we sstudents would supplement our own beverages with the 'cooking wine'. Her defining moment came when one of our 'special needs' students managed to stick a fork in the wiring of one of the stoves, mildly electrocuting himself. She didn't notice anything (despite the screaming) until one of the student came up to her and tapped her on the shoulder. Following this, the stove would short out and spit sparks anytime someone fired up the left rear element. Was the stove removed? the element disabled or repaired? was there a sign put up or at least a verbal warning? Nope. On a side note, I was in the same grade as her daughter and when Mommy went to a clinic to dry out, I was there to move in on her daughter's low self esteem. Score.
(Savitar, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 7:24, Reply)

I was taught by Christian Brothers.
enough said.
(Gordon Shumway, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 5:35, Reply)

There's been a few other nutcases at my school...
- The maths teacher (who was absolutely awesome) who got fired this year for getting drunk at the school ball.
- The drama teacher, who, if the lighting crew had been working in his room, would inspect the floor for any food crumbs afterwards.
- My science teacher from year 9, who had one leg and looked (and sounded) just like a pirate. Not only that, but he was the most awesome teacher ever - he told us how he once destroyed his annoying room-mate's stereo with a home-made EMP generator.
- The dance teacher, who is male and about as gay as they come. After a dance production once, he addressed us teches with "Excellent job boys. Be sure to come down to my office sometime to get your rewards"... uurrrgh. He's actually a nice guy though, and we're not nasty enough to make too much fun of him
- Mr. Bourdot, the freaky graphics teacher. Tall, thin, pale, emaciated (rather like gman from Half-Life) and with the worst temper I have ever seen. Once he gave us a full on lecture at the top of his lungs for looking out of the windows while lining up for a different class. He insists that people take their shoes off entering his class, and makes people wash their hands before they enter the graphics computer lab. Funny thing is, if you stay on the right side of him, he's a great bloke. Still a bit scary, but with an excellent sense of humor (rather b3tan, actually) and great to have on your side.

My chem teacher when I was living in Southhampton was pretty cool as well - on the first day, he demonstrated saftety with bunsens by turning a gas tap on and lighting it. The flames went for about a metre.
( Halkyardo isn't quite sure, on, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 4:21, Reply)

Oh, I've had a few..
The most recent was a substitute teacher when one of mine was out for two days, this was a couple of weeks ago. The day after he left (a day early), all of the teachers had been sent an email, stating that he was a sexual predator and was not supposed to be anywhere near a school campus or bus stop, and that it had all been some sort of mistake.. It was a bit late, since we'd already had class with him for two days and he'd done nothing but hit on girls.

I once had an English Lit teacher that failed everyone. Everyone. And not because they'd failed, but because she lost all of our work. She was let go for various reasons, and when she was gone they found it hidden away in cabinets.

My Spanish teacher last year, Mrs. Urdegar, was insane. And she didn't speak Spanish. Her clothes were scary and covered in sequins of assorted colors, her glasses were crooked, and she looked like a reject from a mental hospital. At one point her pants fell down in class and she continued to "teach", which basically consisted of rambling about when she worked for Nabisco.

I have on teacher at the moment who will go from rambling on about literature in a normal tone of voice to screaming, eating chalk, standing on desks, throwing chairs at things and talking to these two statues of cows she has on a desk. And then either go back to teaching as though nothing has happened or talk to herself. But we learn. Amazingly.
(Fodqou, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 3:45, Reply)

Well... here's a better try.
Again. Another one.

Hopefully funnier. I have less than 50 percent of the required social skills for this site, and a sense of humor that has been surgically removed.

At my latest and current school, we all get to wear, once again, schoolgirl outfits with a rather depressing 2 inches below the knee. No, I won't post pictures. And, on a similar note, we had a teacher, Ms. A, who had a rather mysterious reputation. Someone told us that at various times she was a Mormon, a poledancer, a druggie and/or lived in someone's basement. We didn't care. She was amazing, old and always quite late, so we had a good half hour out of an hour old testament class to discuss whatever we wanted, often said teacher's history, or the mysterious... boy's lockers. *dundundun* There were strict rules against note passing, but we had ways of getting around that, but the one thing that made Ms. A finally snap was a particular school tradition of the ancient and hallowed art of Shoepassing. It was obviously quite simple and not very distracting at all. We passed. Around. A SHOE. Duh.

She threw a chair out of a glass, 2nd story window, very nearly complete with student, and jumped out. Stole my ex's car. And drove off, never to be seen again.


So, if you see a Latin-speaking, wrinkly, psychopathic poledancer- give us a call, she still hasn't replaced the chair.
(ZooLurker is an angry chick with a mullet!, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 3:18, Reply)

I have a few...
In year 8, my science teacher was obsessed with my hair. She would make up excuses to pet, yes, pet my hair. Like a cat. I swear. If I had dyed it (which I did several times over the course of that year) and used a particularly pungent smelling dye (most of the time, it was a citrus smell that lingered for days), she would be over there smelling my hair, or telling me how soft it was. She always was obsessing over my hair. Scared the crap out of me, for good reason. She adored me for some reason, and to be honest, I didn't like her and she was really mean to everyone else. But hey, it was an easy a.

Also in year 7 and 8, both years we had a lesbian gym teacher. Year 7 was particularly scary, as she constantly watched us getting undressed, and was rumored to be in a relationship with one of the girls in her class, which is very believable due to the findings of a diary of said girl and what was said, and just the fact that this lady was scary as hell.
She (the gym teacher) lives down the street from me, actually.

In years 4, 5, and 6(!) I also had a scary teacher lady that also adored me for no real reason. By year six, I got tired of it (and the school as a whole) and transferred to the 'strict' school in the city. I got the lesbian teacher. It was quite an interesting year for me. That year is a whole different story.

And, finally, in year one... This lady was the scariest. She wrote in cursive and always gave me A+'s for no reason. She smelled of sharpie and always followed me home. Oh yeah, that was my mum. That was the weirdest teacher ever. Thanks mum, you ruined my chance at ever having a social life very early on...
(to the lighthouse, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 2:25, Reply)

I scare teachers....
Beginning in elementary school my teachers have been leaving/retiring/dying after my classmates and I have been taught by them.

1st, 2nd and 3rd grade two of the three teachers moved away.

Then in 4th grade, one moved, one retired and the other suddenly died... I felt quite bad about that because as a 11 year old I thought it might have been my fault.

5th grade was as usual, 2 out of 3 teachers leaving,

6th grade I had a very scary teacher... he would leave class in the middle of his lectures and go smoke and one day he got locked out so he just stayed out there and smoked. Other days he would bring 2 or 3 bottles of cough syrup to school and get drunk off of them. He fell asleep regularly in class. Another day in that class my friend and I thought it would be fun to make something explode. so we filled this hard plastic container with citric acid powder and baking soda and added watter and then shook it up, but it exploded with such force that it made us both deaf for the day and all the other teachers came running to see who shot a gun. Our teacher though just said "whoa that was cool" and made some other kids clean it up... he then got fired.

in 7th-10th grade a total of about 17 teachers left and one had a stroke while at school and 4 teachers never came back atfer their fisrt year because of nervous breakdowns.

I don't think we were that mean to our teachers...

another strange theme that i've seen with my past teachers is the high rate of pregnancy... every year one of my teachers have gotten pregnant...
(celestie d'etoile, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 2:03, Reply)

RE: tickles, and dr bailey
i had a science teacher called dr bailey too. she was a completely fucking useless bint. a majority of the girls in my class delighted in insulting her red boots, which she wore every day. for 3 years.

she wasnt particularly good (read: at all), and i vividly remember going to her class one day, and discovering that we had a 'temporary stand in' teacher, as dr bailey was off ill
as he said that, we saw her being escorted off site by the local filth, having turned up paraletic that morning. apparently theres more of an entertaining backstory to it, but its far too late to remember it fully

turns out temporary teacher bloke was to be permanant teacher bloke, and was possibly the best science teacher ever, due to his blatant disregard of safety rules ("dont wear the goggles if you dont want to, the ones at this schoo are shit, and are probably more dangerous than the watery acid") and wanton pyromania ("morning class, today we'll be playing with hydrogen and bunsen burners")

and as for dr bailey, i heard she topped herself few years back. dunno if its the same teacher though, she taught at st johns in epping until 1997/8
( lo, the Greebo Warrior - Est. 2002, Fri 11 Nov 2005, 1:50, Reply)

Cum Hither
Please allow me this minor detour from the topic.
Two members of second stream maths (me= misunderstood genius) were arguing over who was wearing the slimmest "slim jim" tie style.
Andrew angrily shot up his arm, asking to be excused to visit the lavatory.
He returned 10 minutes later with a strange smile on his face.
Hayden Hibbert, realising he was about to suffer a serious indignity had a worried "don't fuck me with me" expression.
Andrew, undeterred, sat back down next to Hayden, opened his palm and smeared a good couple of tablespoons of semen over Hayden's maths book. He then said, a la Robocop, "Your move, creep".
Hayden screamed "miss, miss, Andrew has done something awful to my maths book, it's not fair and it's stinky".
There was nothing strange about the teacher's behaviour, she just left the room and took a 3 month sabbatical. Please open another QOTW about "comprehensive school stories which nobody from proper schools will ever believe but give a reasonable explanation for your lack of success in life", and I will reward you with some tales to make your stomach turn.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Thu 10 Nov 2005, 23:56, Reply)

In a certain school, in a smallish town a ways north of London...
I went to an all boys school. Oh dear.

So, we had:

The History teacher. Taught me from year 7 to year 9 or so; then, I cleverly decided not to 'do' history anymore. The guy was shitting unstable. One minute he'd be nice as anything, the next he'd scream, throw books, and generally act like a cunt.

We studied the Vietnam war. For a week. By watching Apocalypse Now. Don't show Apocalypse Now to a group of 11 year olds.

Our school used to have non-uniform days, where you paid an extortionate amount for the privilege of not wearing normal clothes. On these days... He'd come in, dressed in full Star Trek regalia.

He even had the badge.

Last I heard, he'd moved to another school, and subsequently got in shit for the few thousand kiddie porn images they found on his computer.

-

The Drama teacher.

Oh fucking dear. Big hair. Seriously big hair. Gayer than a sash window. Married to a grossly overweight woman, who also dealt with the 'special needs' children. More blatant a marriage of convenience, I've never seen.

Her dealing with the 'special needs' people extended to him. She once came in to the class and gave us a full on bollocking after we'd made him run out crying. The reason being? Someone had eaten a sheet of paper, rather than show him what was on it.

The fact that the paper had an obscene drawing of his wife on it is beside the point.

This man once gave me a detention for smiling. A three hour detention.

After sufficiently aggravating him, he once decided to point out that I was only on the course because I'd complained about him being a favouritist cunt. He was entirely true; there's no way I was going to hang around doing English Literature for two years, when the pisstake option of English Drama was available.

He marked me down deliberately after that little explosion, although he did apologise. Yeah, after I'd finished the course.

-

The music teacher, who used to regularly buy underage pupils drinks at the local shithole nightclub, and sit in her car smoking with them. I liked her.

-

The art teacher, who we took to the pub and got steaming drunk towards the end of the sixth form. I saw her down the pub, not too long ago, where she gave me a big hug. She was nice, too.

-

The PE teacher, who... Oh, yes, everyone knows about the showers. He committed suicide after accusations got him fired from another school. Nice bloke.

-

The chemistry teachers. One of whom had taught my father, the other who was a certifiable pyromaniac. They used to plan large explosions on a weekly basic. The older one could never get them to work, and would always drag the other out of whatever class he was in to 'make it blow up'. The younger used to let myself and a friend amuse ourselves by making explosives in the back of his lesson rather than doing the actual work we were supposed to be.

I was always the one to hold the explosive and/or corrosive things in the fume cupboard to demonstrate.

I swear my hands are still slightly wrongly coloured.

-

The biology teacher. He was actually a good mate, although I've lost contact with him. A crowd of us often met him down the pub. The pub atmosphere was usually carried over to his lessons.

-

The ginger chemistry teacher, tried to steal a tenner off me. Bastard.

Turned a completely blind eye to the condom I inflated and hit around the classroom like a giant, lubricated balloon.

-

The physics teacher (1). Legend. Utter fucking legend.

He used to come out with incredible phrases, such as:

"I've seen your type on the radio."
"Put your stools up on the table and sit down."
"You, boy, no, not you, you, boy, yes, boy. Boy," to nobody in particular.
"Copy this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this...," whilst turning the same sheet of paper over, repeatedly.

Famed for muttering "Bunch of fucking little bastards," under his breath. Utterly unable to remember anyone's name.

He died a few years ago.

-

The physics teacher (2). The standard one you'd wind up. Bald, perverted, smelly. Had a nervous breakdown as a result of our abuse. Never reappeared.

-

The physics teacher (3). Insane. We used to keep a record of every insult he threw at us; some of them were incredibly creative.

Used to regularly ignore us as we built harpoon guns, electrocuted each other, and made 'art' from chewed chalk and paper, stuck to the walls.

Once pointed out that a particular student was a waste of a good abortion.

-

The music teacher; refused to let me in his class for a month after I put my book down on the table too hard.

Yes.

-

The RE teacher; great bloke. I didn't learn anything about religion, but a great deal about his encounters with aliens/the government/serial killers.

-

The maths teacher; likewise.

His favourite anecdote involved a friend who cut his own penis off with a high pressure hose, by accident.

Or, the one about being stuck in a pipe at a the same gasworks whilst a toxic cloud slowly spread towards him.

Claimed to have invented the spin pass, in rugby.

Had the ability to determine who was going to go bald, and when.

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The english teacher who'd sit with her skirt rucked around her knees, spread legged, on her desk.

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The electronics teacher, who'd trade insults with the pupils. Until one of them called him gay, at which point said pupil was locked in the store cupboard for two hours.

He had no neck.

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The technology teacher, who was arrested for fraud.

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The technology teacher, who'd fall asleep in his own lessons.

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The latin teacher, who could throw board rubbers with pinpoint accuracy to land on someone's desk and choke them with chalk dust.

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The psychology teacher. My personal favourite.

When I hit the sixth form, we started sharing teachers and classes with the Girls' school in the same town. So, we'd have mixed classes for the first time in years.

This psychology teacher was relatively normal, until he had an accident playing football. He got kicked in the head, and went a little bit... odd.

He held a competition to see who could guess the name of his recently born daughter. Nobody won; her name was Delilah. He kept the money everyone had bet. The swine.

I used to sit with a female friend right by the doorway. Whenever we got tired of his lessons, which was often, we'd simply ask to leave. The first time he looked startled.

The second time, he just gave me a knowing look, and a sly wink.

Unfortunately, it was nothing like that. The pair of us just couldn't be arsed to hang around and listen to him droning on. She was actually one of my then girlfriend's best friends. But anyway.

It got to the point where he'd slyly sidle over to me when everyone else had their heads down, nudge me, and ask, "Do you two want to go off, then?"

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth...

Sitting at the front had its downsides, however. He used to engage us in conversation, fairly often. Now, he was a nice enough bloke, but since the accident, as mentioned, he'd gone a little odd.

I'll spare you the conversations we had, as this bollocks is long enough already, and I can't be arsed to bloat it out more. However.

The most memorable thing he ever said to us.

"You know what?"
"What's that, sir?"
"I... I saw a spider, once..."

...He looked very confused, then, and wandered off again rubbing the back of his head.

We took that as our cue to fuck off.
( gone, Thu 10 Nov 2005, 23:40, Reply)

They're all weird.
I'm sure everyone has a teacher with a twitch. But one of ours, Mr. W, does it in absolute style. He'll be merrily waffling on about why macbeth.. fuck I can't even remember, and I got an A* at GCSE. Anyway, he'll be talking about something, usually to do with sex, and then his neck will twitch and he disguises it by jerking his head to look at someone. He also once drew a step by step guide of a penis becoming erect for some reason.
One of his traits is that when someone falls asleep in his class (guilty) he stands up on the table in front of you and starts shouting whatever he was saying. Once a year he has a nervous breakdown and unleashes all his built up rage upon the class, he called us a bunch of failures once. I got rather pissed off because the reason I hadn't done the homework was because I was off being sick.

He's also in a folk band.
( Flowers the little boy that santa claus forgot, Thu 10 Nov 2005, 23:34, Reply)

Dr. Bailey
we shall call her. She attempted one day to show us the joys of a pig's lung - you know, poking it, prodding it, etc. And then attempted to inflate said lung with a glass tube. She huffed. And she puffed. But she couldn't inflate that little lung (not made of bricks, before you ask). Why not, I hear you cry? She asked the same question several times of God in the 15 minute period that she took before having a look down the aforementioned tube. Which was no longer a tube, but a solid glass rod. That's why, you silly bint.
(tickles, Thu 10 Nov 2005, 23:31, Reply)