Students Reveal How A Teacher Made Them Cry In Class
Dear Ms Jackson,
You made third grade terrible. You picked on me endlessly, called me "slower than Christmas" about a dozen times a day, told me I would never be anything, and made fun of me when I cried while I was being interviewed for the school news show. I was a scared shy little kid being interviewed about her dad suddenly being shipped off to war. Obviously I cried. You suck.
Love Always,
Me.
WHEW! That was therapeutic. So many kids have that "one" teacher, Ms. Jackson was one. One reddit user asked:
Has a Teacher ever made you cry in class? How/Why?
So of course we got a bunch of stories about terrible teachers, but there were also a few gems in the trash! Woo!
Stolen Homework
When I was in 3rd grade, a boy stole my homework out of the turn in bin, erased my name and wrote his name on it.
The teacher gave me a zero and said I should have written my name on my paper if I wanted the grade.
You could still see my name under his :(
Professor
My professor for Materials Science in college was notorious for being extremely hard on people that used cell phones and left early. One day a kid gets a call, answers it, gets really silent and then starts to leave. Our professor was livid, demanding that he come to the front of the class to apologize, and when the kid protests he practically started screaming. The kid is in tears at this point walking to the front and apologized to the silent classroom.
Yeah it turns out his grandma died and that's what the phone call was about....
A Dollar For Paper
In 9th grade, I had this World History teacher, Mr. Wyatt, who had a big issue with spiral bound paper. All I had was spiral bound paper, my parents didn't have money for loose-leaf paper because we were dirt poor. He made this huge deal about "everyone has a DOLLAR for paper" in front of my class and pretty much called me a liar and I cried. He actually sent me to the in-house detention because I was lying and not following his rule about the stupid paper-every day for about a week. A nice office lady asked why I kept going to the office because I seemed like a "nice girl" so I told her and they gave me a stack of paper, a 3 ring binder and some pencils.
The Domino Effect
My first grade teacher got a note from the office saying she was needed home. She was one of the first people who had a cell phone that I knew so she got it out during class and called home. An EMT answered, her husband had killed himself and her little boy had seen it. She started sobbing. When little kids see an adult crying, the domino effect kicks in. Most of our class started crying because we knew something really bad happened.
She ran out and our principal came in about a minute later and finished the day out for Mrs. S. She didn't come back for a few weeks. Our substitute teacher had all of us make cards for Mrs. S and I remember I tried to draw a rose and tell her how sorry I was.
Who Told You To Move
5th grade PE teacher had a rule that we cannot play tag during lunch time because she did not like disheveled-looking prepubescent girls. Being the annoying kids that we were, we completely ignored the rule and played until the bell rang. When she called us to line up, she exploded. She shouted at us to tuck our shirts and wipe our faces. So, I did. She threw a chair at me, screaming who the hell told me to move. Metal part of the chair hit my legs and I wailed
I didn't want to tell my mom because I was afraid she'll blame it on me, but I could hardly walk because my left leg was swollen. Mom angrily talked to school admin the next day. Teacher got fired but I think my parents did not press charges.
Openly Mocking
I had a teacher that would openly mock me in class regularly and then when I tried to hide behind my hair because I was crying would make me stand up and tie my hair back so everyone could see that I was crying.
Yep, f* that guy.
Senior Skip Day
Yes, it happened to me in my senior year of highschool during english.
I've struggled with depression for a better part of my life, and my senior year it got extremely bad. I skipped school at least once a week, usually more. My grades all went to hell, despite always being relatively well off academically. I was going through a lot of different things, but didn't really feel like I was "worthy" of help. My English teacher that year was also my English teacher my sophomore year, so we were already on good terms. He noticed my poor attendance, bad grades, I'm sure the lack of effort in my appearance as well. Some days when I missed school he'd call me and ask where I was, he left a few voice mails, he was clearly disappointed in me and worried.
The day he made me cry was actually senior skip day. I wasn't having an awful day so I actually went to school, it was going to be an easy day so I might as well not have the absence on my record. When I got to English, I was the only student there, absolutely none of my classmates showed up. At first my English teacher started laughing, understandably. "Class" started, and I was studying for our final exam coming up, I would fail the class if I didn't do well, and it was an AP course. He came up to me and started talking to me, he said he noticed I haven't been myself lately and was concerned, and he knew I was a better student than that. We kept taking, about my depression, a recent split from a three year relationship, my home life, my struggle with drug abuse. He told me I was worth something, that he believed in me, at one point he said he wishes he could've adopted me and done more to help. I couldn't stop crying, I was so overwhelmed. Nobody had ever said things like this to me before, I'd never heard anyone tell me they were proud of me. When I went to walk across the stage at graduation, he was in the front row. He looked at me and gave me a thumbs up, and said something to the effect of "You got this, I'm proud of you." and I think about that everyday. He had more faith in me than anyone ever has and its something I'll never forget.
100 People Burst Into Applause
I had a professor at law school on the verge of retirement. There was one class at the law school that was an introductory one that kind of stood in for orientation - it was pass/fail and it allowed the doe-eyed 1Ls to get the hang of reading casebooks without having to worry about real grades. It was nice.
My professor had written the textbook for this class and was largely responsible for the school assimilating this program. Everyone loved having this class, by the way. It was an awesome way to ease into the scariness of law school. The thing is, he was this scary, booming, large old man. VERY intimidating. At the time, he seemed to epitomize the type of professor you'd see in The Paper Chase. If he didn't hear you, he'd shout "USE YOUR DIAPHRAGM." There were moments he'd interrupt a student in the middle of talking and say "No, you're not understanding the question. I'm going to move on." We were generally really scared of him and most people were kind of resentful that he put so much pressure on us for a class that was intended to be chill.
On the last day of this class, though, he talked about how he was going to retire. Then he spoke about how this class was his baby, he cares about it so much, he's been so impressed with our performance, etc. At the very end, he choked up and said, "If only the school would let me, I would continue teaching this class until I die."
After speaking, he walked down the aisle of the lecture hall out the doors. There was a moment of silence, and the entire class of 100 people burst into applause.
I started sobbing. Idk, there's just something about a stately old intimidating man being that affectionate and vulnerable that just makes me feel this visceral sense of compassion. Damn.
Familial Hate
My 10th grade teacher erased my name off of my midterm paper and wrote another students name on it. Then he called home to tell my parents I skipped and didn't hand in my mid term.
We went in, he handed me the pile of tests and told me to find it. 3 papers in I saw the name of a student who I knew wasn't in class (we were decent friends) looked closely and you could see the marks in the paper from my name. I have a heavy hand, you can't erase the chasms I dig into papers when I write. The teacher back-pedals and says he found that paper on the floor at the end of class and thought it was another students so that's why he wrote their name on it.
Thankfully, I didn't have to rewrite it. I was removed from his class and put into a different teachers class where I did decently better. But the teacher never got any trouble for the situation, and 2 years later was huge d!ck to my younger sister. We share a mutual last name and I guess we look alike. He took out his dislike of me on her until she requested to be removed from his class.
He still never saw any reprimand.
Graphing Calculators Change Lives
She wouldn't let me go back to my locker to get my graphing calculator before a test. She had two on her desk and I couldn't use those either because I should have brought my own. She told me I had to take the test without it, but the problems on the test were impossible to do without a graphing calculator. The girl I sat next to saw me crying at my desk as the teacher passed out the test.
She went around to every kid in the class personally asking if they had an extra calculator I could use. She ended up getting one for me. She was one of the nicest, most popular people in school, and I was so shy that thinking about it later I wasn't sure I would have done that for another student. That one girl kind of inspired me, I have always tried to be nicer to people after that.
That teacher was always horrible though.
New Rule
I'm the teacher. Student had missed the previous class when I handed back papers. It was a three-hour class: she asked me for her paper at the break. I gave it to her, and then had to watch her cry for an hour in class over her B+. New rule for myself: never ever give papers back until the end of class, so students can go cry over their B+ grades in private.
Brad
I once watched a teacher lead a chant making fun of a kid in 6th grade. The kid had been surprised by a spider crawling on him and let out a high-pitched scream. The teacher made fun of him and then started chanting:
"Brad's A Girl! Brad's A Girl!"
He encouraged the class to join. Brad eventually started crying and sat in his seat.
The teacher was a real jerk.
Nasty Divorce
In 1st Grade, I had a teacher, we'll call her Mrs. R, that became a royal b* halfway through the year. I can remember one time she refused to let me go use the restroom. I obeyed like a good boy and waited until I couldn't handle it anymore. I asked once more and she refused, resulting in me pissing myself in front of the whole class. When she found out what happened, she yelled at me, called me a baby and sent me to the principle. My parents became suspicious and complained to the school board (they had friends on the board). Turns out, Mrs. R was going through a nasty divorce at the time and was taking her anger out on us.
I was moved to a different class shortly after and never saw her again.
Violent Men
My papers in my binders got disorganized so I was trying to organize them again. He got mad, picked up my binder, and threw it across the classroom. I was 7. My dad was violent with me too sometimes so my male teacher doing this to me at school overwhelmed me.
Do You Wanna Build A Snowman?
Funny story, we had to decorate these paper snowmen in first grade and I wanted mine to be realistic so I unscrewed the cap of the glue bottle and poured it all over the snowman.
When the teacher saw what I had done, she ran over and this conversation ensued:
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
"I wanted to make snow..."
"NOOO!!!" accompanied by stare
I started crying. That moment is vividly burned into my memory.
Math Homework
I was in my 6th grade math class, and the teacher had it out for me for whatever reason.
I was a really good kid, and I was quiet and pretty good at math, but I didn't like it. I did, however, love to draw.
So one day, my math teacher finishes the lesson and tells us all to work on homework. For context, in my language arts class we had been given an assignment to illustrate a chapter of the book we were reading.
I was sitting quietly and working on my drawing for my other class, and the teacher comes up behind me and asks me why I'm not working on homework. I tell her about the assignment from my other class, and she starts yelling at me in front of my whole class that she meant MATH HOMEWORK and how could a DRAWING POSSIBLY be HOMEWORK ANYWAYS?
Then she tore my drawing in half and I cried.
I went to the bathroom to continue crying. For context, I didn't have a ton of friends in the 6th grade but all the other kids thought that what the teacher did was so horrible that the other girls followed me into the bathroom to comfort me, which was really nice.
Then my dad went to a parent/teacher conference with her, and told her that every kid has "that teacher" and that she would forever be mine. And whaddaya know, he was right.
First Grade
I was in first grade. My PE coach really did not like me, she was always putting me in time out for breaking the rules. Rules I didn't even know were rules, like sliding or swinging on your belly or picking up rocks off of the playground.
One day we were playing a game of Telephone in the cafeteria on a rainy day. The girl who whispered in my ear...well. I couldn't understand her. It just sounded like wet spitting in my ear. I asked her to repeat herself and she did. Wet spitting. At that point I was scrambling to make something up to pass along, and the coach was loudly pressing me to hurry up and think of something. I guess I thought about it too long, because she snapped at me that I'd ruined the game, and then she put my nose in the corner for the rest of PE time while everyone else played. I just sat there quietly crying, and I wasn't even allowed to look out the window at the rain because she'd tell me to turn my head back to the wall.
Valentine
In first grade we were making Valentines out of folded construction paper. We were supposed to write a message on one section of the folded heart or whatever it was. I got confused somehow and wrote the message on the wrong section. When the teacher got to my desk she noticed my mistake. She lifted my hand from the desk and slammed it down hard on top of the Valentine. It hurt and I was so shocked I just sat there in stunned silence with tears rolling down my cheeks. Can you imagine doing that to a 6-y/o over something so insignificant as a paper heart? I still think about this 53 years later.
Early Injustice
In 3rd grade, I got blamed for talking in line when it was the two kids in front and behind me. We all had to write a letter home to our parents (kinda overblown), and I just cried, partially cause I didn't know what to say. I remember thinking this was clearly an obvious mix up especially since I never so much as got called out by an adult for misbehaving, but I just collapsed underneath the towering figures that reprimanded me and couldn't vocalize my defense.
I did write a letter trying my best to explain this to my parents, but the teacher grabbed it, read it aloud ( ostensibly under her breath but knowingly loud enough for the entire class to hear) and said "NO! Try again". So like a torture victim I didn't protest, sobbed and just wrote a false confession about how I was misbehaving and goofing off. Surprisingly my parents believed me, when i broke down again at home which i guess made it better.
I'm nearly thirty and still sometimes think about my hot, teary, embarrassed face seated on the carpet as the teacher loudly mumbled my original letter to my parents in front of a class when I try to fall asleep...life's first injustice stings.
H/T: Reddit
