Weird Teacher Awards
/delurk + first postness
^ because there's finally a QOTW that applies to me =D

Anyway.

I'm 16 and have had my share of weird-ass teachers throughout my ever-continuing educational career; being American in the bilingual stream of a Dutch school helps (as Dutchie schools tend to be a hell of a lot more liberal and open and generally cool about a lot of things than most American schools).

Some of my favorites (any current students of the Lorentz Lyceum will most likely immediately snap to attention):

The Award for Most Utterly and Paedophilically Freaky Teacher goes to Mr. Meijer (pronounced Meyer). We only had him for one year, which was a good job, as it's only a matter of time before he's sacked for doing something unspeakable to a girl in the storeroom.
Anyway- he teaches Woodshop and rumor has it that he was sacked from his old job as Biology teacher at another school because he had a wank in the john, came back and stuck his thousands of little mini Meijers under the microscopes for the kids to look at (and anyone who's had class from him wouldn't put it past him).
Something with a bit more evidence to support it was his behavior towards this utterly hot, rather large-breasted girl called Maria (who was 12 at the time...). It was the middle of winter and Mr. Meijer had a thick sweater on when he said to poor Maria "It's hot in here, Maria, why don't you take off your jumper?"
*shudders*

The Award for Teacher With The Biggest Cojones goes to none other than Mr. Houben (pronounced Frenchly). He admitted to a class full of rowdy 15- and 16-year-olds that he likes guys. I mean, here's me, the only one with the balls to actually ask him "Look, sir, here's the thing: Everyone kinda wants to know and I'm the only one out of all these kids with the balls to ask you, so yeah: what's your sexual preference?" and he utters the legendary phrase:
"Yeah, I'm gay."
How cool is that?? He's a really nice guy, by the way, not dirty and paedo like some other gay teachers I've been reading about; used to give us French lessons on a voluntary attendance policy and is also really young, which gives him an nicely unobstructed perspective when it comes to dealing with kids. Oh, and since he's a sensitive guy, all I had to do was have a slight breakdown in order to get out of doing an assignment (the breakdown was genuine and I only found out I had gotten out of doing actual work at the end of the year, so there).

The Award for Red-Blooded, A+ 100% Nutter goes to Mr. Verbeek (pronounce the 'ee' like the 'ey' in 'hey'). He regularly makes goodhearted derogatory remarks towards women in a class with at least four raging feminist 16-year-olds (most of which are really hot and think they're better than everyone else... pity really), is quoted as saying "I like all kinds of music, from rock to hip-hop to classical- all except K3." K3 is a Dutch trio of young women who sing kids' songs. "What, K3? Bend over!!" He then proceeded to mime things concerning a whip and spanking.
Yeah, he rocks. Nuts, but cool. He used to give regular 45-minute-long lessons on how to properly clean a blackboard, and once in the middle of a lesson screamed "FIRE DRILL!!", flung a window open, jumped out (his regular classroom is on the ground floor) and ran all the way around the building before coming back in and panting "You... all... got burned alive."

The Award for Coolest Older Dude Teacher ('cause I can't think of anything better) goes to Mr. Evertse, yet another French teacher. He also teaches Philosophy, is a really, really nice, intelligent and likable guy in general, and is the only teacher who consistently gives me dap (which is a slightly hip-hop-culture-oriented greeting involving a low five and smacking the knuckles of the same hands you used to give the low five together). He's so cool.

The Award for Whackest Math Teacher goes to poor Mr. Mafakheri. He was small, Iranian and couldn't speak Dutch very well, had the occasional fit of rage at some of the more dickheaded students, and once kicked a bin (a whole bin, pity it was only plastic though) at this dude with an overly large forehead who was being disruptive. He would tell you your test scores (and pretty much anything else) with a thick, thick accent (my name is Cameron and Dutchies grade you from 1 to 10 instead of F to A): "Cameroon, yoo haff a siex comma half" (but then in Dutch. You get the idea). We kind of teased him into quitting and I sort of feel bad for him now... Ah well, chances are he's in a better place ^.^

Finally, the Award for Coolest English Teacher ('cause I've had a lot of them) goes to Mrs. Kalkman. She's one of the few teachers that is able to be authoritative and treat her students as equals at the same time; she also let us watch 8 Mile in class and had us write raps as a curriculum assignment. Me and several then enemies (my taller opponent then is one of my best friends now) even got to have a battle ^.^

So yeah. Other mentionables are Mr. van der Kuil, an Economics/Management & Organization teacher who described his own fits of anger as being occasionally satanic; Mr. Strijker, a Biology teacher who thinks he's the shit and simply isn't; Mr. Grobbe, another Biology teacher who really is the shit, and really funny to boot; and Mrs. Healing, our now-retired first year English teacher who was your stereotype English lady. You could almost imagine her sitting at home sipping tea with twenty cats. Nice lady, though.

Also, we've had a number of memorable Latin teachers. I quit Latin last year because it was simply *that* boring, but in the three years I followed the course I was taught by:
Mr. Arts, the man with unspeakable breath who kept blowing off tests by forgetting to bring the papers into class and cancelling lessons to go the dentist; Mrs. Rault, the crazy lady who would give us a pop quiz every Thursday and was generally harsh; and Mr. Cloosterman, the man with no social skill whatsoever who liked carrot cake and would terribly mangle students' names: Fokelien became Kokelien and Sietske became Fietske. That last one could never decide if he liked or hated me, but on the assignment I did to round off my prematurely ending Latin course I got a big, fat 10 ^.^

ps. No apologies whatsoever for length, girth or volume. It's my first time and I've been told it's exceptional for my age ^.^
(CK is rocking out near you (cosmologically speaking), Wed 9 Nov 2005, 18:34, Reply)