Miseries of School: An Ongoing Anthology of Accounts, True and Fictitious

[Extollager]

These latest postings are worth this whole thread.

 

[Extollager]

I'm reading Sprightly Running, an autobiography (1962) of John Wain (1925-1994). There's much here about the miseries of being a boy at school in the 1930s and a child's capacity for a sense of loss as well as of fear. His schooldays helped Wain understand totalitarianism.

 

[BigBadBob141]

This is not that big a thing but it still annoys me to this day, it just shows how stupid and vindictive some teachers can be.
It was announced that we were to have a school trip to Cadbury's chocolate factory in Bournville on the out skirts of Bimingham!
Everyone signed up for it, my sister had gone the year before and said it was great, you even got free chocolates at the end, which I was really looking forward to!
Then the woman teacher who took our class said there would be a flower arranging competition, and that it would be nice if the boys would take part in it as well as the girls, this was just a suggestion not an order.
Needless to say when the contest came around not one boy had entered, this was in the 60s, what respecting boy would go in for that, I mean what the hell did she expect!!
She was so annoyed that not one single boy had took up her suggestion that she cancelled the trip for the whole class, which I thought at the time and still do to be outrageously mean, and very short sighted!!
I don't know if any of the parents protested, but if they did nothing came of it and the trip stayed cancelled.

 

[Extollager]

Yeowchh.

 

[Boneman]

Arriving at this thread late.... where to start?

I unfortunately won a scholarship to this school in 1961: Christ's Hospital School Every one said what a marvellous school it was, how lucky I was... The level of bullying was appalling, and the level of indifference to it by the masters was incredible. But you didn't 'sneak' so the bullies got away with it, year after year. There are some 17 year-olds that you should never give power to, they can be absolute sadists. Look at the school uniform, then imagine you are dressed in rugby shirt, shorts and blue socks. For an imagined infraction ( I was accused of talking during a'stay-silent' period imposed by one of the prefects, when in fact it had been boys passing our house) I was given a 'double mile': change from the sports gear into the hideous uniform, present yourself to the prefect, change back into sports gear, run a mile, and then repeat the changing process, run another mile. 24 minutes to do this. If you didn't manage it, you did it again. And again. And again. If you never managed it the prefect might give up trying and find another punishment for you. Or you'd keep trying on a regular basis.

Playing rugby, I got cramp in my calf. The junior housemaster refereeing told me to remove the elastic garters and roll my socks down. Senior housemaster called me into his study later and gave me four hard hits of the cane on my backside for not wearing garters during the game. Didn't listen to what I had to say, he got a sadistic delight in beating small boys. Six of the cane for swearing: "Blinking heck, that's good!" my friend said, as he looked at photos of the house play...

Result for me? An abhorrent hatred for the boarding school system, and an easily-kept vow, that I would never send my children to such an institution.

 

[Extollager]

Thanks, Boneman, for those reminiscences, a real contribution to this thread.

 

[Cathbad]

My GPA in high school finished at 3.13 - with the main causes of the lowness being:

1) Sophomore year, I took Journalism I, and was thus on the school paper. Day One, the teacher (Mrs. Davis) said to us chosen as writers, "Don't worry about getting a by-line, no first year student has ever gotten a by-line". My first assignment was to cover a basketball game - that had already been played. Not deterred, I said, "All righty!", grabbed the photographer, and took off for the gym, to interview the coach and some players.

My story lead the sports section, half a page - by-line included.

Mrs. Davis immediately took me off writing and immediately put me on proofreading. A few months later, our Editor told me I was the best proofreader she had.

Then report cards came out. Mrs. Davis had given me a 'D'. With the Editor standing up for me, we went to the Dean, who said he couldn't change the grade, but changed me over to a Creative Writing class.

2) Senior Year. I took Humanities, which should have been my favorite class! It soon proved otherwise.

The teacher assigned us Moll Flaunders to read. I loved it! Read it in one evening.

Next day, she gave us a pop quiz on it. I aced it! So I thought... when the paper was returned, it had me marked 7 of 10 wrong. I waited until after class, then approached her about it. "Mrs. (Johnson?), you know these answers are right... why did you -" At which point she throws down her pen and shouts at me, "They were right for the end of the book, not the pages I assigned!" I was flabberghasted, and didn't know how to respond!

Other incidents occurred, minor to the final episode.

We entered class, and the teacher, obviously excited, told us, "Today, we are going to put the Ten Commandments in the order we feel they are important! I love seeing how ideals change over time!"

I raised my hand. "Ma'am, Moses refused to do that, and Jesus put only two in order. I'm not better than them; I can't do this." Her response: "You do it, or you'll get an 'F' for the day!" "Check."

She reads the first commandment, asks who thinks its most important. I raise my hand. She reads and asks about the second. I raise my hand. She throws down her chalk, sits at her desk and announces, "You get an F!" I picked up my books, left the front row seat I always sat in, and took a back row seat. I never participated in class again.

Only class I ever failed.

 

[WarriorMouse]

Its nice to know I was not the only one to have teachers that quite honestly should have been banned from the profession. Quite how we as a society got to the point of allowing people with out an ounce of ability in teaching to teach "our "children is mind boggling.

 

[Hugh]

Arriving at this thread late.... where to start?

I unfortunately won a scholarship to this school in 1961: Christ's Hospital School Every one said what a marvellous school it was, how lucky I was... The level of bullying was appalling, and the level of indifference to it by the masters was incredible. But you didn't 'sneak' so the bullies got away with it, year after year. There are some 17 year-olds that you should never give power to, they can be absolute sadists. Look at the school uniform, then imagine you are dressed in rugby shirt, shorts and blue socks. For an imagined infraction ( I was accused of talking during a'stay-silent' period imposed by one of the prefects, when in fact it had been boys passing our house) I was given a 'double mile': change from the sports gear into the hideous uniform, present yourself to the prefect, change back into sports gear, run a mile, and then repeat the changing process, run another mile. 24 minutes to do this. If you didn't manage it, you did it again. And again. And again. If you never managed it the prefect might give up trying and find another punishment for you. Or you'd keep trying on a regular basis.

Playing rugby, I got cramp in my calf. The junior housemaster refereeing told me to remove the elastic garters and roll my socks down. Senior housemaster called me into his study later and gave me four hard hits of the cane on my backside for not wearing garters during the game. Didn't listen to what I had to say, he got a sadistic delight in beating small boys. Six of the cane for swearing: "Blinking heck, that's good!" my friend said, as he looked at photos of the house play...

Result for me? An abhorrent hatred for the boarding school system, and an easily-kept vow, that I would never send my children to such an institution.

Appalling.

 

[Parson]

My GPA in high school finished at 3.13 - with the main causes of the lowness being:

1) Sophomore year, I took Journalism I, and was thus on the school paper. Day One, the teacher (Mrs. Davis) said to us chosen as writers, "Don't worry about getting a by-line, no first year student has ever gotten a by-line". My first assignment was to cover a basketball game - that had already been played. Not deterred, I said, "All righty!", grabbed the photographer, and took off for the gym, to interview the coach and some players.

My story lead the sports section, half a page - by-line included.

Mrs. Davis immediately took me off writing and immediately put me on proofreading. A few months later, our Editor told me I was the best proofreader she had.

Then report cards came out. Mrs. Davis had given me a 'D'. With the Editor standing up for me, we went to the Dean, who said he couldn't change the grade, but changed me over to a Creative Writing class.

2) Senior Year. I took Humanities, which should have been my favorite class! It soon proved otherwise.

The teacher assigned us Moll Flaunders to read. I loved it! Read it in one evening.

Next day, she gave us a pop quiz on it. I aced it! So I thought... when the paper was returned, it had me marked 7 of 10 wrong. I waited until after class, then approached her about it. "Mrs. (Johnson?), you know these answers are right... why did you -" At which point she throws down her pen and shouts at me, "They were right for the end of the book, not the pages I assigned!" I was flabberghasted, and didn't know how to respond!

Other incidents occurred, minor to the final episode.

We entered class, and the teacher, obviously excited, told us, "Today, we are going to put the Ten Commandments in the order we feel they are important! I love seeing how ideals change over time!"

I raised my hand. "Ma'am, Moses refused to do that, and Jesus put only two in order. I'm not better than them; I can't do this." Her response: "You do it, or you'll get an 'F' for the day!" "Check."

She reads the first commandment, asks who thinks its most important. I raise my hand. She reads and asks about the second. I raise my hand. She throws down her chalk, sits at her desk and announces, "You get an F!" I picked up my books, left the front row seat I always sat in, and took a back row seat. I never participated in class again.

Only class I ever failed.

Sigh. this kind of teacher probably gave rise to this:

Those who do, do. (Corrected line: Those who can, do.)
Those who can't, teach.
Those who can't teach, teach teachers.

 

[Danny McG]

I commented earlier about the canings etc in infants school because I was left handed, luckily that passed and I moved on at another school and did fairly well.

However when I turned 11 it was the 'secondary modern' school and corporal punishment for the slightest rule break.
The school leaving age had by then been raised so you had 16 year old kids still being caned in front of their peers.

Then, after two years at this school, a change... Suddenly we were given a choice, the cane or detention, awesome!
This instantly became the 'wimp measure', scorn and derision at anybody who opted for detention, myself and contemporaries always chose to tough it out and be caned (peer pressure can be terrible)

After a year or so of this the policy changed yet again, the girls got automatic detention (not one had ever opted for the cane during the trial run) but the boys retained the option.

In my final year the cane was finally banned and detention was imposed instead. This caused trouble at home because the parents then realised you'd been in bother at school, however that's another story

 

[svalbard]

On the subject of canings we had one particular teacher, who shall remain nameless(although he should be named and shamed the alcoholic, sadistic so and so), who would pick up a rubber eraser, position it at a students forehead and proceed push with all his considerable might until the rubber was indented into your forehead. Normally this was followed by a few, quick smacks across the face. We were 7 year olds going on 8 and to our shame would sometimes laugh as this so called teacher ridiculed his next unfortunate victim.

And this guy wasn't even a Christian Brother so he had no excuse for his barbarity.

 

[BigBadBob141]

REF: Boneman, dannymcg, svalbard ect.
I've always thought it a bit odd that some teachers could be so trigger happy with the use of the cane, definitely something very, very odd going on there!
In Infants School I had a 24 Caret, dyed in the wool, solid gold b***h of a teacher, each year she would single out one vulnerable child ( I was a little bit slow and shy ) in her class to bully, humiliate and mock in front of everyone else, needless to say that year it was me!
I even got into trouble because she saw me when my dad took me for a drive in his new car, which ended up a little past my usual bed time!
Some years later I talked to a friend about her, he was two years younger than me, and he said he had had the same treatment as well.
That stupid, ugly, moronic, sadistic c*w should never been allowed closer then a mile near any child, as you can probable tell I still hate her guts to this day!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BigBadBob141]

You don't have to be really stupid and have a sadistic streak a mile wide to be a P.E. Teacher!
But it sure as hell helps!!!
P.S. As you can no doubt tell I really hated P.E. and Games!!!
Would rather have done maths or history instead.

 

[Cathbad]

I never had much problem with gym teachers. However, there was one who took me aside after soccer one day and told me, "I need you to tone it down a bit: Most of these boys aren't jocks, or even good at sports. Can you try not to be so rough?

HAH!

 

[Extollager]

When I started this thread, I did not expect there would be so many firsthand accounts of mistreatment.

 

[Graymalkin]

Apparently my education required I be struck by hand, belt, plastic and wooden ruler, cane and rolled up magazine. I narrowly avoided a heavy wooden blackboard eraser thrown at my face, the use of a length of heavy rubber hose (?) and a potential heart attack through being harangued into PE while experiencing an asthma attack.

Last year at junior school I was accused of cheating in exams because I 'didn't pay attention throughout term' and therefore shouldn't have achieved the marks I was getting, so was placed into lower classes first year of secondary.

I was threatened with the police when another pupil pushed my girlfriend and myself (while embracing) down a flight of stairs. She was knocked out. She came round and said I was innocent. But the teacher (a retired wing commander I'd slightly electrocuted during a science class) knew better.

Uniforms got chalked, ripped and stolen. Everyone was somewhere along the bully food-chain. Mass fights, vandalism, organised go-slows, assaults on staff, a FuQ attitude: many kids were a pain in the arse. Not an excuse for outright sadism but surely must have added to teacher stress levels.

Other than a B in Art, my grades were unclassifiable.

I was a rubbish pupil but would be a far worse teacher. I'm glad someone's willing to have a go.

Could try harder couldn't we?