Best teacher meltdowns

[MONKMAN]

My Registration and geography teacher tanned a bottle of whisky, and walked head on down track into an oncoming train.  I'd say that's fairly severe on the meltdown scale.

On a slightly less morbid note one of my French teachers, Mrs McGivern, once walked out the class 10 minutes into a double period and just didn't come back.  S2 language classes at my school were just a mix, so you always had a couple of belters in the class along with the more academically able pupils.  One morning a few of the less disciplined in the room were in full flow, making animal noises, thrown jotters etc, when the teacher turned around from the blackboard and launched a duster clean across the room just missing one boys head.  She then let out a scream,  picked up her handbag and fucked off crying.  The classroom was like the O.K. Corral for the next hour before one of the depute heads came storming in, before going ballistic.  Turns out the teachers dad had just died and she'd come to work to try and take her mind off things.

[Cardinal Richelieu]

26 minutes ago, Nkomo-A-Gogo said:

What year was that? I had a teacher in bannockburn primary 83 or 84 called miss Fair. 

This would have been about 1990 but in Newtownards. Hopefully it was the same woman, the cow. 

[Miguel Sanchez]

13 minutes ago, Adam said:

Not a mental story but in Biology one day some guys came in to fit blinds in the classroom. We were working away when I heard a scream from one of the workies, then a thud on the worktop where we would do practical work. He had managed to cut his finger off. Blood everywhere, weans screaming hysterically, was quite the sight to see. We all got sent home for the day.

We had a pigeon fly in through a window in biology once. Teacher went hysterical.

[D.A.F.C]

Mr Coffee, bampot Geography teacher at Queen Anne. The school bus would overtake him on his bike some mornings and he'd always be ready to flick the Vs and hurl obscenities. Saw him break a metre stick over someone's head. 

Do you remember mr Lowrie? Looked like jim from friday night dinner and would karate kick his cabinet all the time or chop the table for nothing.
Latin teacher.

[Shandon Par]

10 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

Do you remember mr Lowrie? Looked like jim from friday night dinner and would karate kick his cabinet all the time or chop the table for nothing.
Latin teacher.
 

Remember him but never had him as a teaxher. We had Mr “You boy” Bonnar for classics.

[DA Baracus]

Lowrie taught Kung Fu for a while after school as well.

Bonnar left when I was in 2nd or 3rd year, and all the 6th years at the time did a big crawling farewell type thing for him that him in tears. I thought he was a total arsehole so was delighted to see him go. His replacement was Mr Meek, an aptly named sop. 

[D.A.F.C]

4 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Lowrie taught Kung Fu for a while after school as well.

Bonnar left when I was in 2nd or 3rd year, and all the 6th years at the time did a big crawling farewell type thing for him that him in tears. I thought he was a total arsehole so was delighted to see him go. His replacement was Mr Meek, an aptly named sop. 

He used to stand at break time on the glass bridge with binoculars. Someone spray painted BONNAR IS A BOLD BASTERD near it.

At a parents evening once was playing headers and volleys at the bike sheds and he came out trying to intimidate us, we had left school so told him to f**k off and he went away and sent the janny out to us. Didn’t like him, what was his problem?

Remember the maths teacher, think he was called mr eadie, used to stand in the corridor and had a total hardon for anyone running. He would sometimes have a meter stick as well as if it was a cosh or something, I didn’t mind because I didn’t get a bus but all the kids were running because they had to and maths was miles away from the bus park. I guess it’s just a power thing.

Only other unhinged teacher was mr Stuart or Stewart the English teacher who reminds me of falling down film. Would go from calm to psycho at nothing. Slammed his door in a teachers face once because she was chatting to another teacher.

 

[ICTChris]

I wasn’t in any of this classes but one teacher in my school, Mr McDonald,was called Tuftie and was completely mental at the same time as being ineffective. His classes had no discipline and some pupils had to get extra tuition in order to pass Maths, kids who would’ve been fine with other teachers.

I think that there’s a trend for people who aren’t really suited to the teaching part of it to become teachers, people who have good subject knowledge but don’t have a good handle on controlling classrooms or disciplining kids. My wife is a teacher and she really enjoys that side of it, she gets a lot out of it. Her opinion is that a lot of the new probationers aren’t really strong on that and don’t do well on it.

[RH33]

15 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

I wasn’t in any of this classes but one teacher in my school, Mr McDonald,was called Tuftie and was completely mental at the same time as being ineffective. His classes had no discipline and some pupils had to get extra tuition in order to pass Maths, kids who would’ve been fine with other teachers.

I think that there’s a trend for people who aren’t really suited to the teaching part of it to become teachers, people who have good subject knowledge but don’t have a good handle on controlling classrooms or disciplining kids. My wife is a teacher and she really enjoys that side of it, she gets a lot out of it. Her opinion is that a lot of the new probationers aren’t really strong on that and don’t do well on it.

 

I was talking to a primary teacher who said much the same thing of next generation.

We had an English teacher who was alleged to keep a bottle in the cupboard, the librarian and re teacher house shared caused many rumours. 
Then the next librarians husband left her to set up a threesome living arrangement.

There was a weirdo art teacher who just disappeared, probably to Peterhead....

 

[Richey Edwards]

There was a French teacher who allegedly ran over her own dog. This led to people shouting "Benji!" in her class, which made her go apeshit.

There was a boy who had a massive bald patch on the back of his head who had the nickname of "Patch". A substitute teacher called him that one day and the boy went mental so the teacher left the room and hid for a while.

There was also an RE teacher who was a bit of a knob and was known for making what might be classed as inappropriate comments to pupils. He was recently in the paper for leaving his wife for an ex-pupil.

[RH33]

16 minutes ago, MixuFixit said:

I don't think anyone is much good at controlling kids when they start, which is why I have a mix of admiration and astonishment at people who choose to train as teachers because it's not like another degree you can use for a load of different jobs. You commit fully to it without knowing if you'll be able to hack it.

Only if you do the straight Primary degree. For secondary you do you’re normal degree then post grad. You can do primary as a post grad too.

Edited April 21, 2020 by RH33

[Jacksgranda]

4 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

We had a pigeon fly in through a window in biology once. Teacher went hysterical.

She should have clobbered it with her handbag and you could have dissected it.

[Karpaty Lviv]

American RE teacher Ms Quinn when a bible fell from a bookshelf; “Oh my god, the word of god is on the floor!”  (Not that funny reading it back but you had to have been there).

She also made reference to fanny, from memory her outburst was “Who wipes your fanny in the morning?!” when giving someone into trouble. She was new as I imagine saying that to a bunch of 1st years in a Cumbernauld high school would stick in the mind. She sadly passed away a few years later. She was a lovely woman. 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Karpaty Lviv

[Newbornbairn]

My brother-in-law had a very short teaching career. Towards the end of his teacher training he was put on secondment at an all girl's school in Dundee. First few days he took lessons in tandem with another teacher then he was given a class to teach solo. 

 

So he's done a lesson plan and he's in the classroom waiting and in troops the class of 15 year olds. It was a quirk of this school  that the chairs were just a wee bit too small for the desks so when all the teenage lassies in short skirts sat down in the front two rows, he saw rather more than he expected.

 

Extremely flustered, he tried to keep calm.

 

"Right girls, um, if you can, err, just open your legs at page 22...."

[Cardinal Richelieu]

4 hours ago, D.A.F.C said:

Do you remember mr Lowrie? Looked like jim from friday night dinner and would karate kick his cabinet all the time or chop the table for nothing.
Latin teacher.
 

My abiding memory of "Happy Harold Cathcart" - the slightly mental maths teacher at my school, was of him leaping round the room doing karate moves whilst screaming "SOHCAHTOA". Of course, that mnemonic was designed to make you remember Sine = Opposite / Hypotenuse, Cosine = Adjacent / Hypotenuse, Tangent = Opposite / Adjacent.

And to be fair it worked. Not that it's done me much use since. 

Anyway, over to @madwullie to reveal what his nickname was when he was a teacher. 

[Carl Cort's Hamstring]

2 hours ago, MixuFixit said:

I don't think anyone is much good at controlling kids when they start, which is why I have a mix of admiration and astonishment at people who choose to train as teachers because it's not like another degree you can use for a load of different jobs. You commit fully to it without knowing if you'll be able to hack it.

I hated my first year for this reason. Absolute hell and I thought about quitting on a daily basis - it was probably only the fact that I had just spent a year and £9000 on the PGCE that stopped me.

 

[tamthebam]

A guy I knew years ago from Aberdeen told me a tale of a teacher who was some kind of warlock or whatever the male equivalent of a White witch is 

The class were playing up after lunch and apparently this boy, just wanting a quiet life, hypnotized the lot of them, fucked off for a pint, and came back at home time and released them from their trance.

[Black Pennel]

11 hours ago, stevieKTID said:

Mr Kerr was our metal work teacher in secondary school, he was a tough guy no doubt, he'd sailed a tiny boat to Iceland and gave a presentation at assembly on it, we used to joke that he rowed there with weetabix in his arm pits because he loved pain.

We were about to start the lesson, a guy in class was wearing a walkman (it was that long ago) and was tapping out a beat with a hammer on the desk, Mr Kerr took exception to this, marched over grabbed the hammer and cracked the back of the guys hand with the wooden handle of the hammer then just stared at him until he took off the walkman, everyone just accepted it because it was just Mr Kerr being Mr Kerr. 

Not actually a melt down, in fact perfectly normal teaching in North Ayrshire in the 80s.

Are you talking about George Kerr ?

If so, I always thought he was an absolute gentleman !

Just goes to show that someone can be a dick at their work but seem OK to the outside world.

[Raidernation]

I have no doubt there are probably stories out there about me, including famously telling an S3 top math class that “a bunch of untrained monkeys in a pitch black room” could have done better on a test. ( I don’t recall ever really losing my temper but I could fake it pretty damn well)

I know at one school I was called “Victor” ( as in Victor Meldrew ) and at another was “Mojo-*name*”

 

Mrs RN#2 was a teacher and apparently had a couple of meltdowns in her time, I can only imagine what she was like having suffered many meltdowns at home!

I even had a couple of students ask me how I coped and apologise for setting her off.

 

Only one I clearly remember as a student was Mr Spongie (bushy red hair) RE teacher. We were reading a book “Run Baby Run” and he really couldn’t handle the more extreme parts so we’d keep asking him to explain until he just gave up and threw the book down as he walked out.

 

 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

We once cause a teacher to have a minor meltdown outside school. Momo Morrison was a part time Highland League Lino and turned up at Borough Briggs one afternoon (Elgin v Rothes I think).  Group of us gave him a load of lighthearted abuse re his eyesight and shouting offside every couple of minutes until the halftime whistle when he stormed over to us, all red faced and clearly seething and said “I’ll see you all on Monday and expect the requisite punishment”.

Monday came but the c**t bottled it.