Did you "lose" a year of school due to having a terrible teacher?

OMM 0000

4th class was a write off for me.

Class would start at 8:30, and our teacher would make us work quietly for two hours or so. Teaching ourselves maths by going through the book on our own. In hindsight, she was probably an alcoholic who was hungover and needed the few hours sitting there like a zombie each morning.

We'd then have our little break.

After coming back we'd do something pointless like Irish grammar for an hour.

Big break.

The afternoon would be something simple like working through our English book or art.

I don't think I learnt anything that year.

Had no Irish teacher for ALL of 5th year and had substitutes on and off in 6th year. Always thought we were at a huge unfair disadvantage for CAO points due to that. They told us there was a shortage of Irish teachers and couldnt get a sub.

Deeec

From 1st year to 3rd year I had a french teacher who was never in. She had really bad back which she told us about endlessly. She never went out sick long term so a stand in was never found. She would miss days or a week at a time - there was very few weeks where she not miss at least 1 day. In our Junior Cert year she was pregnant (which you would imagine is not advisable for a woman with a bad back!) which resulted in her even missing more time. When she did come in she talked and talked and talked about herself instead of teaching. We learned absolutely nothing. Parents did complain but nothing could be done.

20 years later that same teacher is still in the same school and still behaving in the same way. It seems there is no harsh consequences for bad teachers - its a job for life whether you are good or bad at it.

nj27

Not as extreme as losing a year but my English teacher got pregnant and missed the best part of one, then we got this psycho in as a substitute for her and I didn't listen to him very much.

Ash.J.Williams

had the same teacher for 5th and 6th, 5th was tolerable but in 6th she had it in for me the entire year, still haunts me.

Gregor Samsa

Had a teacher in 4th class in Primary school that lost his voice (some kind of chronic laryngitis) and couldn't speak for the whole year. He wrote everything he wanted to say with chalk on the blackboard, which slowed everything down and meant that we didn't cover the whole curriculum - which our 5th class teacher used to get into a rage with us about the next year, because we were all behind. I assume it also had a negative effect on some of the kids in the class who may have had learning or literacy difficulties. In fairness to him, he became very fast at writing legibly. If that was me, it would just be a scrawl that even I couldn't read.

He had a referee's whistle he'd blast if he wanted to get your attention, or if he was particularly angry, he'd just throw the chalk at you. Which was made worse by the fact that he used one of those metal chalk holders (I think he once wrote that he had an allergic reaction to the chalk).

In 3rd year in secondary, around April, we had an English teacher who suddenly one day - totally out of the blue - thought someone had fired a grain of rice through a biro at him, and flat our refused to teach us until the culprit owned up. I genuinely don't think anyone had, but there was rice on the floor from it going on earlier, so it was impossible to prove that it hadn't happened. Every day, we had to come into English class and sit silently with our hands flat on the desk staring forward, while he waited for the admission of guilt that never came. Parents and the (ineffectual) principal tried to intervene, but he just refused to teach. Parents were freaking out, because he was supposed to be doing final revision with us before the exams, and there were threats is legal action, but he held fast. Then a couple of weeks before the exams, he just didn't show up. At that point, they got someone to cover for him. Come September, there was no sign of him, and he was never mentioned in the school again.

My mother bumped into him years later. He said he had had a mental breakdown, and when he thought he was hit by the rice, he just snapped. Obviously there were other things going on, but that's when it all came to a head. He gave up teaching and moved on to something else, recovered from his issues and was happy.

Went from A's in junior cert Irish to Cs/Ds and going for grinds in leaving cert. Now i know there's a big difference between JC and LC subjects but the drop was too big for me. I had the worst teacher imaginable for LC Irish. She sometimes just didn't bother teaching. And she was regularly hungover - the REEK of booze! She also caused me to lose interest in the subject. And the grinds teacher, who was brilliant, reignited my interest in it, but too late: ultimately got a C2 in the leaving. Fairly poor.

daheff

Had a teacher have a personal meltdown in 3rd& 4th class to be replaced by an aged religious zealot. So bad that we stopped every hour for some prayer or another.