You know how you tend to remember certain teachers.etc because they were really eccentric, or really liked/hated them (usually the latter)? Just wondering, what were some peculiar or eccentric habits of your teachers. I can remember a few. My history teacher, a rather - shall we say, well-fed fellow, dressed like a bus-driver and cursed like a sailor. But he was actually a much better teacher than the more 'conventional' or 'nice' teacher. Then there was this really old bloke who was terminally out of the class-room, and forgot the names of people in his class even though he had been teaching us for a whole year.

You know how you tend to remember certain teachers.etc because they were really eccentric, or really liked/hated them (usually the latter)? Just wondering, what were some peculiar or eccentric habits of your teachers. I can remember a few. My history teacher, a rather - shall we say, well-fed fellow, dressed like a bus-driver and cursed like a sailor. But he was actually a much better teacher than the more 'conventional' or 'nice' teacher. Then there was this really old bloke who was terminally out of the class-room, and forgot the names of people in his class even though he had been teaching us for a whole year.


I has this class back in '78 where the professor was teaching us a concept known as "Duality Theory".  He was acting a bit odd.  In the middle of his lecture he grabbed one of those wooden pointer thingies, tucked his one hand behind his back, and asked if anybody would like to "duel" with him.  Walked up and down the aisles like some sort of Errol Flynn.

He fenced his way out the door... and that was the last we ever saw of him.  Rest of the semester was taught by a sub professor.  :-\\

My chemistry teacher has the same static expression on her face all the time and randomly breaks into musical bars in the middle of class.

I had a math teacher for two years who got a jerry curl, used the student bathrooms, called everybody his "puppies", demanded money for small tasks and favors, screamed loudly, smoked in the parking lot and drove a motorcycle, had a giant cage in the back of his car, swept the floor, and tickled everybody. He got fired for making racist comments.

My 8th grade history teacher read gossip magazines in class and put lotion on her feet in the middle of class.

My art teacher from 4th-6th grade often ran out of the room crying.

You can read about one of my old teachers in Paul Zindel books..
Ms. Sklair was elderly and crazy...she wore a giant wig and all ther clothes were too small.
she yelled at everyone all the time. I don't know how we ever got anything done!  she wore tons of make up and
her lipstick was never in the lines.

I could go on and on, but you all know one of those people.

One teacher I had 0instead that we wrote using pencil instead of pencil, and even broke someone's pencil in half.  And also instead that he wrote on the blackboard, that we would write too, instead of printing.

My high school gym teacher who everyone called "Coach". The guy wore plaid high waters and was a real trip. He would call people "Blue chippers" if they were participating or whatever and would always say, "Bad attitude! 5 points off!" So both of those became catchphrases in my high school. Like I said, he was a trip but I liked him. Unfortunately, I later heard that he died of a brain tumor.  :\'( :\'( :\'(




Cat

My Grade 5 teacher nobody really liked, cause everyday, he'd make us gather around while he pulled out his guitar and sang folk songs.  He wasn't really all that good of a singer ... let's just say he's probably the reason why that Horse has no name ;D

I had a psychology professor in college that swore like a drunken sailor and she liked to talk about sexual stuff (especially in my abnormal pyschology class)...BUT, she was one of my favorite professors and I learned SO much from her experiences, etc.

I had a psychology professor in college that swore like a drunken sailor and she liked to talk about sexual stuff (especially in my abnormal pyschology class)...BUT, she was one of my favorite professors and I learned SO much from her experiences, etc.


Uni professors tend to be a little bit odd by profession  :), followed by high school teachers and primary school teachers. But apart from the 'bus-driver', most of my teachers were sooo boring. Indeed, sometimes I wished I had one of those 'nasty' teachers to break up the monotony.

in secondary school for one of the years we had two part-time Physics teachers sharing the teaching.  They were both a bit weird.  One was a farmer when he wasn't teaching and once we got to go to the local cattle market as a class trip (never saw the connection to Physics)  He also seemed to hate females which was odd because he was teaching in an all-girls school.  The other teacher was a vicar at a nearby church.  He used to wear glasses that nearly always had one hinge taped up with insulation tape.  I can remember in one class he sent a student out to borrow a strong needle and thread from the needlework class and then he sat on a bench and repaired his open-toed sandals.

Later on we had a maths teacher who was a member of the Communist party.  Every Saturday he was down town sellling the Morning Star.

I also know some eccentric lecturers but since I work with them I'll keep my thoughts to myself!!

One of my college profs was such a character-if you looked in the dictionary under "Eccentric" it would say, "See Dr. P." I proctored a class for him and the students kept coming to me and I was just as lost as they were.  ??? But, he loved me-called me one of his favorites. One day, I told him that my nickname was "Catwoman" and he asked me if I scratched or bite. Without thinking (and without realize who I was talking to), I said, "Both". And then I realize who I was talking to.  :-[  Carlos stayed with him for a time when his first marriage was breaking up-which he called "Dr. Bob's home for wayward professors" because there was another guy staying there, too. He could tell you more stories than I could. But, Dr. P. is no longer with us.  :\'( :\'( :\'(  He passed away about 2 years ago.




Cat

I had a French professor (a priest) at my first college who was older than God and always had a glob of white stuff in the corner of his mouth. 

Also at the same school, my Econ professor reminded me of Sam Kinison.  He'd get all up in arms and start screaming.  One girl even ran out of the class crying because he was berating her on how much she spent on her purse.  She never came back.  He also thought he was God's gift to Economics and would tell us all these BS stories about how he would talk store managers into giving him discounts on all kinds of stuff....clothes, alcohol, food, dinners, etc.  I made the grave mistake of disagreeing with him on something.  He didn't yell at me, but I did end up with a "C" in his class because he ripped my final paper to shreds >:(

I also had a Calc teacher who was the biggest "b".  She would mark off 1 point if we didn't show EVERY single step in solving a problem.  For example, when doing a problem that involved long division, I forgot to write the "-" on the paper when working it out and, although I got the correct answer, I got 0 points on the problem because she marked off for stupid crap like that.....or not crossing off when borrowing, when we had (for example:) 24 we had to write 2x2=4 4x2=8 8x2=16, etc.  The most annoying thing is that we were required to have calculators for the class, but STILL had to show each and every step on paper.  Well, if I need a calculator to figure out 7x8=56, I shouldn't be in calculus. ::)  I think the highest grade in our class that semester was a B-/C+. :o




Your Calc teacher sounds a lot like another collegue of Carlos. European History. I could teach the class better than she could-she just taught the book-well, I could READ the book and learn what the author had to teach-why do I need her? What really p!ssed me off was that we needed 3 books for the course. (I was lucky because I didn't have to pay for them myself but everyone else did). The first book we only used for about a week or two. The second book we used for most of the semester-and we basically had to rewrite each chapter.  ::)  Then, as the semester was ending and we STILL didn't get to the third book, she had us come in for the final session (a two hour period), to talk about the 3rd book. All of us joked about having a bonfire when the semester was over and we would burn that one book that we had to rewrite. That was the worse class I took in college.



Cat

In college, my major was "Office Administration"

One of my college professors always used to tell me to spit out my gum.  She always said "One does not chew gum in an office, therefore one does not chew gum in my classroom"  ::)

The fact that it was an Office Administration course, I was the only guy out of like 40 students  8)  Often at times, the teacher would forget I was the only guy, and she would address the class "Ladies" ... then she would look at me, and say "oh sorry .. and gentleman"  :-[

The worst was the day before we were to go out on our job placements ... apparently the hairstyling course also worked as a barbershop, so our teacher suggested that we should all go there and get nice hairdoos done for our first day of our placement.  Then after a few seconds, she looks at me (realizing that yes, I am a guy) and says "well jason, they give nice haircuts also", so I said "Naw, it's ok, I'll get a hairdoo.  I need something that'll accentuate my high cheek bones" ;D

In jr. high my spanish teacher, Amadeus DePonte (I kid you not!)
called me Schwartz for the longest time.
I will never know why.

Most of the teachers I have been taught by since year 7 have hated me, for some reason. I've had my fair share of wierdos through the years also.
We got taught by this weird substitute who spoke very properly and had some sort of wierd personality disorder (one minute she was laughing along with you, the next sending you out of the classroom and being a bitch).
My year 10 and 11 english teacher pulled stupid faces a lot and had this silver ball on a chain hanging round her neck. She tended to use a lot of long words unnecessarily.
The art teacher I have at the moment is the wierdest though. He wears the same hideous shirts day in, day out. He doesn't like it if you get too near him incase you "hurt his back", he locks his cupboard CONSTANTLY (on Friday, he locked the cupboard because he was going into the next classroom along for 2 minutes), he complains about you not having equipment, but won't let you use the equipment he has, and he always threatens to send you to the head of art to explain yourself, even if it's something petty.


Oh... and he takes photographs of peoples front doors

My 4th grade teacher was probably the worst one I ever had. She was often rude to me. One incident that seems to stick in my mind was when we were making special kites from plastic straws and I made a mistake that couldn't have been corrected; I threw 'em in the trash because I had screwed up. The next day she kept me in at recess and wanted me to go get my straws. I firmly refused, for two reasons: 1) I figured that they wouldn't be there, since the trash was most likely emptied, and 2) why would I wanna dig for something in the trash in the first place? EEEUUUWW! :P :P I don't remember exactly what happened after that, but I am sure it was NOT pleasant. I think she made me write a note. For the record, her surname was two letters long (Ho spelt backwards).

Some teachers just love the power... :-\\

I had this one teacher called, 'Ms. Khaw' from Malaysia. She was a bit of a ....dragon lady, if you know what I mean. She always yelled and scolded us, and we'd (well not me, some of the more immature members of the class) always used to go 'caw caw' like the sound a crow makes. Apparently, she was quite hurt by this, so one day drew a big sad face on the blackboard and sad something like, 'that's how I feel.' It was quite strange.

Ohhhhh. I forgot my sociology instructor from college that thought alll men were misogynistic and went on rants everytime you mentioned a significant other.
Militant les? maybe.
Social experimenter? for sure.
Crazy? definately.

I love those.  You reminded me of my first Communications teacher.  It took me exactly 2 classes to drop.  He was a VERY angry African American man who basically told us that the "honkies" (yes, he used that word) would have to work twice as hard to get a good grade.  I got a "D" on it because he told me my "moment" was superficial and self-serving and I wasn't going to get through his class by looking pretty and wearing a short skirt :o 
Oh, and a guy in there was also in my psych class.  He got an "A" for telling about the time he got suspended for hitting someone who had called him the "N" word. ::)


Your professor and mine should date.

Some teachers just love the power... :-\\

I had this one teacher called, 'Ms. Khaw' from Malaysia. She was a bit of a ....dragon lady, if you know what I mean. She always yelled and scolded us, and we'd (well not me, some of the more immature members of the class) always used to go 'caw caw' like the sound a crow makes. Apparently, she was quite hurt by this, so one day drew a big sad face on the blackboard and sad something like, 'that's how I feel.' It was quite strange.





I had a "Dragon Lady" too-in college. Strieght off the boat from China. She taught Political Science-a manditory course and she was the only one who taught it.  ::)  She ALWAYS came in at least 15 minutes late and kept us late which was a problem for me because right after, I had to get to one of the local schools and I didn't have too much time to get there. One time, we all showed up and the secratary came in and said that she was running late but WILL be there and to wait for her. We waited and waited and waited. When there was only about 10-15 minutes left in the class, most of us decided that it just wasn't worth the wait-even if she did show up, what would it accomplish. She would be able to say one or two things and then it was time to go (which we were sure she wouldn't let us go on time) so we left. (I think there was one guy who stayed-I'm sure he was a "brown noser".  ::) ) The next class, she was p!ssed because we didn't wait for her. We didn't tell her how p!ssed we were at her for wasting our time-which is just as valuable as hers.

Oh, BTW, she is also the significant other to the same teacher who taught European History-typical, they were/are both terrible teachers. The "Dragon Lady" retired but the other is teaching.  ::)




Cat