What experiences in high school affected you so much that it altered your future?

Jackson

Gold Member
Dec 31, 2010
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I used to love math. I loved Algebra and Geometry so Algebra 2 should have been a breeze, But the teacher I had was a witch. The only kids she was nice to were athletes and cheerlearders. I was very shy and she saw I had a problem wrong so she told me to go up to the board and do the problem for the rest of the class. Right at the start she began yelling at me and I panicked. I couldn't tell her my name if she asked. I just froze and the louder she got.

Stopped all math at that point. No calc, no trig...no dream of becoming an astronomer.

the next week, I was chewing gum and had to put it on my nose for the rest of the class. Hated that woman.
 
I used to love math. I loved Algebra and Geometry so Algebra 2 should have been a breeze, But the teacher I had was a witch. The only kids she was nice to were athletes and cheerlearders. I was very shy and she saw I had a problem wrong so she told me to go up to the board and do the problem for the rest of the class. Right at the start she began yelling at me and I panicked. I couldn't tell her my name if she asked. I just froze and the louder she got.

Stopped all math at that point. No calc, no trig...no dream of becoming an astronomer.

the next week, I was chewing gum and had to put it on my nose for the rest of the class. Hated that woman.

Bad teacher in a bad system.

The only positive I can recall about high school was escaping from it. I think all the mandatory schooling prison system does is suppress people.
 
I used to love math. I loved Algebra and Geometry so Algebra 2 should have been a breeze, But the teacher I had was a witch. The only kids she was nice to were athletes and cheerlearders. I was very shy and she saw I had a problem wrong so she told me to go up to the board and do the problem for the rest of the class. Right at the start she began yelling at me and I panicked. I couldn't tell her my name if she asked. I just froze and the louder she got.

Stopped all math at that point. No calc, no trig...no dream of becoming an astronomer.

the next week, I was chewing gum and had to put it on my nose for the rest of the class. Hated that woman.

Bad teacher in a bad system.

The only positive I can recall about high school was escaping from it.
Oh, how I can understand that! Thank God I had some good experiences, but I never looked at math in the same way.
 
I used to love math. I loved Algebra and Geometry so Algebra 2 should have been a breeze, But the teacher I had was a witch. The only kids she was nice to were athletes and cheerlearders. I was very shy and she saw I had a problem wrong so she told me to go up to the board and do the problem for the rest of the class. Right at the start she began yelling at me and I panicked. I couldn't tell her my name if she asked. I just froze and the louder she got.

Stopped all math at that point. No calc, no trig...no dream of becoming an astronomer.

the next week, I was chewing gum and had to put it on my nose for the rest of the class. Hated that woman.

Bad teacher in a bad system.

The only positive I can recall about high school was escaping from it.
Oh, how I can understand that! Thank God I had some good experiences, but I never looked at math in the same way.
After putting on my reading glasses I realized you were talking about math, not meth.
And that's a good thing. Back when I was in high school we never heard of meth.....just pot, hashish, acid, cocaine (rarely )uppers and downers.:26:

Sex on mescaline was pretty cool at 16 after a Led Zeppelin concert.
 
I used to love math. I loved Algebra and Geometry so Algebra 2 should have been a breeze, But the teacher I had was a witch. The only kids she was nice to were athletes and cheerlearders. I was very shy and she saw I had a problem wrong so she told me to go up to the board and do the problem for the rest of the class. Right at the start she began yelling at me and I panicked. I couldn't tell her my name if she asked. I just froze and the louder she got.

Stopped all math at that point. No calc, no trig...no dream of becoming an astronomer.

the next week, I was chewing gum and had to put it on my nose for the rest of the class. Hated that woman.

Bad teacher in a bad system.

The only positive I can recall about high school was escaping from it.
Oh, how I can understand that! Thank God I had some good experiences, but I never looked at math in the same way.
After putting on my reading glasses I realized you were talking about math, not meth.
And that's a good thing. Back when I was in high school we never heard of meth.....just pot, hashish, acid, cocaine (rarely )uppers and downers.:26:

Sex on mescaline was pretty cool at 16 after a Led Zeppelin concert.
That's so funny. Yes, loved me some meth!. LOL
 
That's so funny. Yes, loved me some meth!. LOL
.I had a really great cocaine summer in 1983 living on Hilton Head Island, SC...actually, I was lucky to make it through that period alive and without winding up in prison at 22 years old on drug trafficking charges.

It's safe to talk about now, but my roommate Jeff ( HS buddy from Ohio) and I met 2 dealers on the beach by chance - one was from Colombia and his roommate was from Costa Rica. So long story short, we were getting 95% pure Puruvian pink ( mostly rocks of coke ) for $1500 an oz....and made a lot of friends....luckily no undercover cops. We were selling grams and 8 balls uncut....people were getting it from us and making money.. ( this was also before crack)

I've personally seen a large suitcase full- must have been 15- 20 kilos...that's how much these guys trusted us. Ironically that's the year Scarface came out.
 
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I used to love math. I loved Algebra and Geometry so Algebra 2 should have been a breeze, But the teacher I had was a witch. The only kids she was nice to were athletes and cheerlearders. I was very shy and she saw I had a problem wrong so she told me to go up to the board and do the problem for the rest of the class. Right at the start she began yelling at me and I panicked. I couldn't tell her my name if she asked. I just froze and the louder she got.

Stopped all math at that point. No calc, no trig...no dream of becoming an astronomer.

the next week, I was chewing gum and had to put it on my nose for the rest of the class. Hated that woman.

I will never for the life of me understand how or why some teachers come into the profession--or stay--and yet hate kids. But it seems for a few this is the case. Let me say for my profession I'm sorry that happened to you, there's no excuse for it and it did inexcusable damage, as we can see. Horrible.

Now here is where we come to the Conservative Conundrum:

I have taught for 25 years, in two states, three districts, and more schools than I care to list due to the nature of my job. What you list here are far, far from acceptable teaching methods, rest assured. Yet if you ask conservatives IN THEORY what's wrong with schools it's that they're "too soft" and there's "no discipline". Again it's always this completely dichotomous message:

I hated school as a kid but also

School should be just like it was when I was a kid
 
I used to love math. I loved Algebra and Geometry so Algebra 2 should have been a breeze, But the teacher I had was a witch. The only kids she was nice to were athletes and cheerlearders. I was very shy and she saw I had a problem wrong so she told me to go up to the board and do the problem for the rest of the class. Right at the start she began yelling at me and I panicked. I couldn't tell her my name if she asked. I just froze and the louder she got.

Stopped all math at that point. No calc, no trig...no dream of becoming an astronomer.

the next week, I was chewing gum and had to put it on my nose for the rest of the class. Hated that woman.

I will never for the life of me understand how or why some teachers come into the profession--or stay--and yet hate kids. But it seems for a few this is the case. Let me say for my profession I'm sorry that happened to you, there's no excuse for it and it did inexcusable damage, as we can see. Horrible.

Now here is where we come to the Conservative Conundrum:

I have taught for 25 years, in two states, three districts, and more schools than I care to list due to the nature of my job. What you list here are far, far from acceptable teaching methods, rest assured. Yet if you ask conservatives IN THEORY what's wrong with schools it's that they're "too soft" and there's "no discipline". Again it's always this completely dichotomous message:

I hated school as a kid but also

School should be just like it was when I was a kid

Teachers cannot coddle every student. My math teacher all throughout high school was a Nazi. The reality was that there was no escaping her if you were going to culminate in Calculus as she was the head of the department and taught the most advanced math classes at each grade level. Even other teachers did not like her. Other teachers complained endlessly that she flooded students with so much homework that it kept them from being able to do their homework in other classes. There were times we would have to use other classes classroom time to study for her exams. Other teachers finally just caved when students were doing it. Thing was, no matter how horrible a person she was, you sure as hell knew your math in the end. When I got to college, the math profs even knew of her for better or worse. She was rather infamous, including her reputation for hitting people with a ruler and throwing erasers at their head despite such things being strictly forbidden....except when she did it.
 
I used to love math. I loved Algebra and Geometry so Algebra 2 should have been a breeze, But the teacher I had was a witch. The only kids she was nice to were athletes and cheerlearders. I was very shy and she saw I had a problem wrong so she told me to go up to the board and do the problem for the rest of the class. Right at the start she began yelling at me and I panicked. I couldn't tell her my name if she asked. I just froze and the louder she got.

Stopped all math at that point. No calc, no trig...no dream of becoming an astronomer.

the next week, I was chewing gum and had to put it on my nose for the rest of the class. Hated that woman.

I will never for the life of me understand how or why some teachers come into the profession--or stay--and yet hate kids. But it seems for a few this is the case. Let me say for my profession I'm sorry that happened to you, there's no excuse for it and it did inexcusable damage, as we can see. Horrible.

Now here is where we come to the Conservative Conundrum:

I have taught for 25 years, in two states, three districts, and more schools than I care to list due to the nature of my job. What you list here are far, far from acceptable teaching methods, rest assured. Yet if you ask conservatives IN THEORY what's wrong with schools it's that they're "too soft" and there's "no discipline". Again it's always this completely dichotomous message:

I hated school as a kid but also

School should be just like it was when I was a kid

Teachers cannot coddle every student. My math teacher all throughout high school was a Nazi. The reality was that there was no escaping her if you were going to culminate in Calculus as she was the head of the department and taught the most advanced math classes at each grade level. Even other teachers did not like her. Other teachers complained endlessly that she flooded students with so much homework that it kept them from being able to do their homework in other classes. There were times we would have to use other classes classroom time to study for her exams. Other teachers finally just caved when students were doing it. Thing was, no matter how horrible a person she was, you sure as hell knew your math in the end. When I got to college, the math profs even knew of her for better or worse. She was rather infamous, including her reputation for hitting people with a ruler and throwing erasers at their head despite such things being strictly forbidden....except when she did it.

Your post is rather a mess. You have here an anecdote, which is mostly what I get. Define what you want. Do you want tough but fair? Do you want teachers rapping kids with rulers and throwing crap at their heads?

Don't tell me stories. Tell me what teachers in 2019 should DO.
 
A near death experience had me crippled for over a year in HS

and so the 'lesson' learned would be that of a youngsters vanity and popularity suffering from it

the upswing would be a curiosity leading to a 3 decade career as an emt/ff

~S~
 
I used to love math. I loved Algebra and Geometry so Algebra 2 should have been a breeze, But the teacher I had was a witch. The only kids she was nice to were athletes and cheerlearders. I was very shy and she saw I had a problem wrong so she told me to go up to the board and do the problem for the rest of the class. Right at the start she began yelling at me and I panicked. I couldn't tell her my name if she asked. I just froze and the louder she got.

Stopped all math at that point. No calc, no trig...no dream of becoming an astronomer.

the next week, I was chewing gum and had to put it on my nose for the rest of the class. Hated that woman.

Bad teacher in a bad system.

The only positive I can recall about high school was escaping from it.
Oh, how I can understand that! Thank God I had some good experiences, but I never looked at math in the same way.
After putting on my reading glasses I realized you were talking about math, not meth.
And that's a good thing. Back when I was in high school we never heard of meth.....just pot, hashish, acid, cocaine (rarely )uppers and downers.:26:

Sex on mescaline was pretty cool at 16 after a Led Zeppelin concert.

So drugs explains your brain damage? Got it!
 
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Being distracted by observing different cultures when I shouldn’t of had to
 
I hated school as a kid but also

School should be just like it was when I was a kid

If this is not a typo, it does not compute. Kind of a math, but a very simple math. Looks like it reads, "I suffered, therefore others should suffer". I would never want a kid to have to go through the prison I went through. That's part of why I never had kids.

But maybe it's a typo?
 
I used to love math. I loved Algebra and Geometry so Algebra 2 should have been a breeze, But the teacher I had was a witch. The only kids she was nice to were athletes and cheerlearders. I was very shy and she saw I had a problem wrong so she told me to go up to the board and do the problem for the rest of the class. Right at the start she began yelling at me and I panicked. I couldn't tell her my name if she asked. I just froze and the louder she got.

Stopped all math at that point. No calc, no trig...no dream of becoming an astronomer.

the next week, I was chewing gum and had to put it on my nose for the rest of the class. Hated that woman.

I will never for the life of me understand how or why some teachers come into the profession--or stay--and yet hate kids. But it seems for a few this is the case. Let me say for my profession I'm sorry that happened to you, there's no excuse for it and it did inexcusable damage, as we can see. Horrible.

Now here is where we come to the Conservative Conundrum:

I have taught for 25 years, in two states, three districts, and more schools than I care to list due to the nature of my job. What you list here are far, far from acceptable teaching methods, rest assured. Yet if you ask conservatives IN THEORY what's wrong with schools it's that they're "too soft" and there's "no discipline". Again it's always this completely dichotomous message:

I hated school as a kid but also

School should be just like it was when I was a kid

Teachers cannot coddle every student. My math teacher all throughout high school was a Nazi. The reality was that there was no escaping her if you were going to culminate in Calculus as she was the head of the department and taught the most advanced math classes at each grade level. Even other teachers did not like her. Other teachers complained endlessly that she flooded students with so much homework that it kept them from being able to do their homework in other classes. There were times we would have to use other classes classroom time to study for her exams. Other teachers finally just caved when students were doing it. Thing was, no matter how horrible a person she was, you sure as hell knew your math in the end. When I got to college, the math profs even knew of her for better or worse. She was rather infamous, including her reputation for hitting people with a ruler and throwing erasers at their head despite such things being strictly forbidden....except when she did it.

I always say, going to Catholic school taught you at least quick reflexes. Because when that penguin started whacking some kid over the head with that wooden pointer, the rubber bullet-shaped tip would fly off and bounce off the walls in unpredictable directions. Didn't matter where you were sitting, you had to be alert.
 
I stopped gong to school twice in the 9th grade because they couldn't keep me interested.This was circa 1962-63 in rural schools in Texas. I took a GED test in the Navy, in 1965, and scored at 11th grade level except in math.
After the military I enrolled at a Jr College for a couple of things that interested me, Sociology and American History.
The Sociology instructor was too stuck on herself to suit my tastes and the History instructor was boring. I've learned more, about both subjects, in the last 12 years I've frequented political message boards than my kids learned in High School and college- mostly because I *wanted* to and I can read. My professional life allowed me to work with some pretty sharp people and lay a foundation of looking at situations objectively by researching ALL available evidence before rendering a conclusion.

Education is merely a passing on of knowledge, good, bad and/or indifferent.

What should school do today? Teach how to find answers not what answers are to pass a test. Teach respect through example using the Declaration of Independence as it's foundation, especially the phrase- all men are created equal and have certain unalienable rights. Teach individual effort creates the greater good Naturally. Teach individualism is not conformity.
Reading, writing and arithmetic are really all that's required to accomplish any assigned task. Engage the creativity a sponge for a brain has naturally. Encourage creativity not conformity to test standards. Stop the alleged self esteem building crap.
Self esteem is achieved with accomplishing a task. Period. Respect is earned when respect is given, which builds self respect. Creativity encourages innovation, innovation can create wealth, wealth comes in more than monetary acquisition.
Standardized conformity is a *one size fits all* mandate- it ain't working.
 

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