Reply #56: I've had some really awful teachers

[XemaSab]

From elementary school through middle school, high school, and college, but the absolute worst was Mrs Rickmond in 5th grade.

She was mixed-race, about 400 pounds, and warty. Whenever I read the description of Umbridge in Harry Potter she comes to mind.... she looked like a giant toad.

She was totally crazy and totally terrifying. This was at a private school in Oakland, and up until that year our teachers had been pretty good and pretty mellow. She decided our class was BAD and needed to be PUNISHED.

She was totally insane. She would give the whole class detention for minor infractions, and not let kids up to use the bathroom. In one incident this girl was crying she had to pee so bad. She liked to grab us HARD and one time she broke this kid's wrist. She decided I had a learning disability (all my teachers before and since have thought, for the most part, that I was one of the brightest kids they had ever taught), and she called me "Poor Pitiful Pearl." BTW, my name's not Pearl.

The school didn't want to fire her because she was some big pooh-bah on the Oakland Public School board, making 2/2 school board members I have met who are complete assholes.

I thankfully have very few memories of the time I spent in her classroom, and I transferred to a public school at Thanksgiving break. Which was in some ways a bad idea 'cause that spawned a wave of shitty teachers, but what can ya do? :shrug: