Have you ever had a teacher do something unacceptable?

amother

Lemon

Wed, Dec 11 2019, 9:25 pm

My 9 y.o. son had a summer rebbe who barely knew the kids and a small misdemeanor on my son's part turned into a full-on power struggle. The rebbe wanted him to apologize, my son claimed he didn't know that what he was doing was wrong but the rebbe didn't want to listen to his excuse. He sent him to stand in the corner, he didn't go. You get the picture. Eventually it escalated and the rebbe told my soon in front of the class: "I'm a rebbe for 10 years already and I never had such a chutzpah'dige kid." My son shot back: "I already had 10 rebbes in my life and I never had such a rebbe like you."

sarahmalka

Wed, Dec 11 2019, 9:35 pm

This is a whole different category of 'unacceptable' - DD has a teacher who shares personal information, such as who she was going to vote for.

Notsobusy

Wed, Dec 11 2019, 9:45 pm

My dd showed me yesterday that she got a 5/10 on her Chumash quiz, because her teacher takes off 5 points if you didn't review the night before and she didn't review. She told me that she usually only gets 2 points taken off, because she usually does review the work, but not for long enough to make this teacher happy. (They have to write on each quiz how long they reviewed it for)

I'm a little confused, I thought I'm sending her to school to learn, not to have homework at night. Teachers always make it sound like they only give homework to help the kids retain the material. B"H she can retain the material without extra review time, why is this a problem?

We have teacher conferences next week so I'm going to discuss this with her then. Some of these teachers baffle me.

amother

Babyblue

Wed, Dec 11 2019, 9:55 pm

I went to a (not NY, not hard core) BY for high school. I was struggling a lot- academically, socially, religiously, emotionally. I don’t remember what the discussion was, or what I said, but I had a teacher in 10th grade tell me “you shouldn’t be in BY if you are asking/saying such a thing.” I walked out of class and didn’t look back.

amother

Yellow

Wed, Dec 11 2019, 10:07 pm

sarahmalka wrote:

This is a whole different category of 'unacceptable' - DD has a teacher who shares personal information, such as who she was going to vote for.

I once had a teacher share her experience of being raped. I thought it was highly inappropriate, even though I was in college.

amother

Beige

Wed, Dec 11 2019, 10:13 pm

amother [ Papaya ] wrote:

My husband still can't get this story off his chest and it didn't even happen to him! The menhal got up and said that a basket full of delicious apples will unfortunately get rotten if there's even one rotten Apple in there. The same applies to this situation. And called up one kid in front of the entire 1000+ kids and started yelling that this is the rotten apple! I can get the shivers just from thinking how this boy felt!

amother

Ecru

Wed, Dec 11 2019, 11:42 pm

amother [ Papaya ] wrote:

This happened to me. My principal came into our classroom and said that she has to pull out a few rotten apples before the whole basket gets damaged. Then she went about calling up a few of us, humiliating us and pulling us out of class.

In 11th grade there was a kid behind me that was laughing during class. The teacher thought it was me and she made me walk around with her to all the other classes she taught her subject that day (3 additional classes.) And if no one knew the answers she called upon me since I had heard it several times. I couldn’t forgive her. I was a very popular girl and this was so beneath me, especially for a crime I didn’t commit. All the other teachers from the rest of the periods that day were privy to it too. I purposely flunked her subject and ignored her all thru the yr.
She eventually became principal in our girls elementary school and every time I visit I have an urge to go over to her and let her know how hard it was for me to forgive her.

amother

Seashell

Wed, Dec 11 2019, 11:59 pm

Maybe not as dramatic as some of the trauma I'm reading here, but this still makes my blood boil even today. The director of a camp I was in was also a principal of the affiliated school. She had someone pack my bags and dismissed me from camp in front of everyone. I wasn't an easy camper but I never forgave her. DD had her daughter as a 4th grade teacher and spoke to the girls scathingly. She once called to tell me something about DD that wasn't true. I had already heard from others that it wasn't my DD and that she was going to pursue it anyway. I'm not proud of it but I gave her a piece of my mind and told her to stay away from DD or I'm coming down there and making it as ugly as what her mother did to me. My next DD hasn't stopped complaining about the way a certain teacher keeps "shtuching" girls (demeaning them) in her class and it makes her cringe. I've called the principal and spoken to the teacher. Nothing. I'm horrified at some of the things she says to humiliate these 13-year-olds. I just found out she's a granddaughter of that lovely machaneches and niece of that 4th grade teacher. I have a meeting with her tomorrow afternoon. She tried to duck out of it a couple of times but there's NO WAY this family is EVER teaching a child of mine again.

No one should try to convince me it's not a generational thing. Ugliness seeps into a family and the comments and interactions with the students are only getting more caustic and sarcastic with every generation.

amother

Magenta

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 1:42 am

Anon because this triggered a very raw nerve within me and I'm just gonna spill it all and get personal.
When I was in high school, we had a "machaneches" that literally went from being a sahm to a machaneches. For some reason, I was her korban. It started with an ipod I unintentionally bought to school when it went off in class. My the chumash teacher (who is btw a popular kallah teacher, can't fathom how) called my mother that there had inappropriate material on my ipod. What was the inappropriate material? Country yossi and lipa shmeltzer, circa 2007. That's when the trouble with the machaneches began. A few weeks after the ipod incident, one of my teachers asked if anybody can bring in a camera for something. 9th grade, eager to please, my teacher told me that I have a great camera and she would love if I can offer. I did. She ended up taking my camera to the office officially to transfer the picture. Instead, she went through my camera and looked at all my pictures. That day my parents got a phone call that they MUST come down to school. My mother was totally shaken and my father was sure that I had been using drugs or contacting boys for the way they made this "emergency" sound. Parents get there. The crime? They found pictures of me in Florida, with my grandmother mind you. After this incident, I lost my trust in school authority. I don't think it's coincidental that the teacher that looked through my camera for no good reason needed up suffering from a terrible miscarriage the next year. After these two incidents, I was screwed. I landed up in the machaneches office for the most minor reasons. Every thing I did, said, breathed, was a problem. She said that because I was smart and "of such high caliber, I expect more" She drove me crazy for the next 2 years. There was never a 3 week interval that passed without me being called to her office. She once framed me for something I didn't do. Being the sensitive person I am, I could not sleep knowing that there was somebody that I hurt. After three weeks of no sleep, I figured out what had happened. There was a gurk that was bullying the student she accused me of bullying, a 12th grade student, not me. When I presented her with the evidence I gathered she admitted I must be right. She did not apologize once for the pain she caused me over the 3 weeks. When I asked her why a 10th grade student had to lose sleep over this she just said she doesn't know how this happened, but her "sources are always reliable". From being in her office so many times, I was branded a "problem kid" by both staff and my peers. In the large chassidish high school I attended, her bullying and harrasment basically 'created' my identity. What she did accomplish was rocking my faith so hard it is a miracle that I am observant today. I have since gone to therapy and had mentioned her to my non jewish therapist that winced at the mention of her name and said "Yes, I've heard of her". Presumably, I was not the first one in that couch to talk about her. After two years of hell, my parents threatend to pull me out of the school. And that was finally when the abuse stopped. Her actions ruined nearly my entire high school experience. Recovering from such abuse is not easy. There is a portion of my spirit that "died" in those many sessions. To this day, I can't bring myself to fully trust anybody in a position of authority within the school. What this woman put me through was so despicable, that to this day my own mother does not forgive her. No mother should ever have to watch her fun spirited daughter be sucked into such a maelstrom of confusion and negativity.
Mothers, be there for your kids and don't trust everything school authority tells you about your kid.

Sorry for the uber long rant, but boy was this cathartic.

graphic613

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 1:53 am

I have been the victim of verbal and emotional abuse from teachers all throughout my schooling and all I can say is that the BY system does nothing for a girl's self esteem and confidence and something needs to be done about that.

amother

Magenta

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 1:55 am

graphic613 wrote:

Unfortunately it doesn't look much brighter in many chassidish schools, based on my own experiences and the experiences of many I know.

amother

Babypink

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 4:31 am

My teacher said I should wait up in the classroom until she comes back, because I said a word when we went to put on our coats. While she took the whole class down to the gate to go home. I waited and waited and she never showed up. I went to the window and I saw her going home. I was scared I decided to go home. Everything was dark. Hallways, stairways. The building was empty. I had mazel that they had safety doors that always opened from the inside because I would have been locked in school till police would come searching for me
Oh by the way I was barely 10 at the time

amother

Babypink

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 4:50 am

The same teacher made me suffer a lot in various ways.
I used to get a lot of migraines and as my teacher she knew that. I got really bad ones where half my body would go numb and I couldn't see well. I would throw up and get fever.
So once I got a migraine inmiddel of class and she was fed up with always having to send me down to call my mom and all. So she decided to ignore me. I sat there until lunch time, with my face on my desk crying. I used to cry really hard when I had migraines and nothing could calm me until I would fall asleep (at home obviously). At some point she started screaming at me that I'm making so much noise and I'm disturbing the lesson and I should stop looking for attention all the time. I will never forget that pain and how she treated me so bad. Remember I was a 10 yo.

Ruchel

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 5:23 am

BY is hundreds of schools.....

Ruchel

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 5:26 am

southernbubby wrote:

Malky Klein a"h, never recovered from being humiliated by a teacher in 2nd grade. Homeschooling is a whole lot safer. Public school sounds like a better choice than some of the monsters that you ladies are describing. Any kid who goes OTD because of these abusers should send the former school and teacher a letter that every aveira is in his honor.

Have you taught ps recently? Huuuuuuu
I don't think a crazy or nasty teacher in second grade one can never recover

Ema of 5

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 7:05 am

Ruchel wrote:

Have you taught ps recently? Huuuuuuu
I don't think a crazy or nasty teacher in second grade one can never recover

I’m with ruchel on this one. PS is not always better. There is no overall system that is good. My friends daughter is currently in PS, and she is being bullied by students AND teachers!! When the teachers aren’t bothering her, they are standing by while others bully her. She’s all of 10!!!! Her crime? Being the only Jewish white girl in the school.

amother

Khaki

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 7:25 am

My son's rebbe made the boys sit with their tefillin during their entire lunch break or rest hour in camp so they will not be able to utter a word if they spoke a word in class. How's that on teaching them chashivus of tefillin when they were just bar mitzvah? or about value of not talking, when one has their tefillin, on their head? using tefillin as a punishment? Then they wonder why they go OTD?
He also didn't allow the boys to attend the bar mitzvah of one that didn't behave in class.

amother

Khaki

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 7:33 am

I will never forget what my nursery teacher did. One day I came with a paci to class.
She humiliated me in front of entire class. She told all the girls to yell Shame Shame baby at me. She told me to look around, that apparently I am the only baby, because nobody else had paci. Pulled it out of my mouth & threw it in the garbage..& said we are going to burn it with the chometz.

Later I was a teacher for young kids and was very careful the way I acted when a kid came with a paci to school.

amother

Khaki

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 7:40 am

My first grade teacher wanted to encourage the girls to use bathroom during break. She hung a huge calendar on the wall & every time someone used the bathroom during class time, her name got sprawled on that day. End of month whoever didn't have her name on, for that month got a prize.
I remember trying for the prize, but every time that I had my name on once already during the month, I figured I lost my chance for the month already & every time I didn't, should I ask to go, make an accident or ruin my chances for the month?

amother

Lawngreen

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 7:50 am

Had a teacher tell me during a private conversation (that still hurt nonetheless) that I would never get married because of the attitude I had. I was being s-xually abused. she didn’t know but she realized I was acting differently and didn’t even try to get to the bottom of it. There was never a “hi [insert name], I’ve noticed you’ve been acting out lately. Is there anything you wanna talk about?” It was just “your attitude is disgusting, you will never get married.”

She was right tho. I didn’t get married until 27, which is older in my circle. Then got divorced 2 years later.