Have you ever had a bad teacher? If you think back to all of the teachers you had in school, is there a teacher that immediately comes to mind? If so, he or she was probably a bad teacher. If you can’t think of one right away, be glad you never had a bad teacher.

What makes a teacher a bad teacher anyways? Is it a teacher that could care less about their job and is only there for the paycheck? Is it a teacher that doesn’t get through to the kids? Is it a boring teacher? Is it a mean teacher? It may be a mixture of all of these things. Everybody will have their own interpretation of what a bad teacher is.

It’s easy to define a good teacher

When most people think of a good teacher that they had, that teacher will most likely be a caring teacher that is compassionate and can relate with the students. When students are having a difficult time understanding some of their studies, this good teacher will figure out ways to get students to understand their assignments. They will also keep their students interested in the work they are doing.

This teacher will have a good personality and the students will be highly interested to learn. This person was meant to be a teacher and most would think that they would be there teaching without pay if it were possible. They are sincerely interested in their students excelling in life.

What makes a bad teacher?

To put in frank, it’s basically everything opposite of what we just talked about with the good teacher. Please note that I am not knocking teachers as I think most teachers are good teachers, but of course there are some bad apples. During my middle school days, I believe that I had the worst apple of them all, I’ll get to him at the end of this article. First, let’s talk about a few things that make a teacher a bad teacher.

A teacher with a bad attitude

A teachers personality and attitude it is very important. Some may have the opinion that a teacher is not there to be liked by the students. They are there to teach! This is true, but let’s be real, a teacher with a grumpy bad attitude will have a difficult time engaging the full potential from students. Their bad attitude will have a domino effect that will be spread across the whole classroom.

A good attitude from a teacher will go a long way. There’s no need to be a clown. Teachers are not entertainers, but nobody wants to be around a grouchy teacher with no personality. All this will do is stall everyone’s progress as the students will not want to be around that environment, and this will impact their learning. Unfortunately, they must go to school everyday so they can pass the class.

With that said, we all must realize that teachers are people just like everybody else, and every person (even teachers) have different personalities. Some people have personalities that would suit them well to be a teacher while others do not. I’ll end this by saying that there are far too many teachers that have gotten into the teaching field that lack the type of personality that is needed to excel in this field.

A teacher that doesn’t keep students interested

A good teacher will always make sure that their students are fully engaged with their studies. If a few students are having problems with a subject, they will give an extra effort to help those kids.

A bad teacher will not put in the extra effort. Some will say that’s not the teachers responsibility and if the student wants to learn they will. Sure, the student must put in their work and effort, but it is the job of a teacher to help their students want to put in the work and effort. Generally, if a student is beginning to lack interest, the teacher is to blame.

A bad teacher will not care if their students fall behind. This is especially true during the elementary years. If a kid falls behind, especially in math, they will most likely lose interest and begin to feel dumb. I have seen so many kids in the 5th grade with 2nd grade math and reading skills. When their 5th grade teacher is teaching math, they have no idea what the teacher is doing and will never understand because they never mastered 2nd grade math. It will go on and on as they are passed on to the next grades. That should have never happened, and their 2nd grade teacher is to blame.

Most teachers do try their best to be good teachers

I sincerely believe that most teachers give all they can to be a good teacher. Nobody said being a teacher would be easy. Personally, I know that I would never be able to teach a classroom of 20 to 30 kids. Why? Because I don’t have the patients needed to be a good teacher to a large classroom. If we are talking about teaching a few kids, it’s a different story.

If we all think back to our teachers from elementary school to high school and beyond, we can easily spot out the teachers with good intentions. When I went to Aldama Elementary School in Los Angeles, California back in the 1980s, I had a 4th and 5th grade teacher named Miss West. Almost 40 years later, I have never forgot this woman. She was so kind and caring to us students, and we all enjoyed being in her class which lead to all of us doing well academically. She sincerely enjoyed teaching her students, and we all enjoyed learning in her class. She was the perfect teacher.

Remembering the worst teacher in the history of teaching

After talking about the perfect teacher, I am now going to talk about a guy that I believe to be the worst teacher in the history of teaching. Unfortunately, I was one of his students. It happened during Junior High School (Middle School) while attending a school called Columbia Junior High School in El Monte, California. I was in the 7th grade and I believe the year was 1986 or 1987. I still remember this guys name. His name was Mr. Gonzalez.

He was the math teacher, and I had to sit in his class for an hour everyday. He would not do anything during the whole hour but sit there at his desk. He’s do a roll call, and you didn’t hear from him the rest of the hour. When I say he did not do anything, I am not exaggerating. He never taught us anything or even talked to anyone. Hard to believe I know, but yes, there are teachers out there like this. For us kids that wanted to learn (which I did at this point in life,) we would sit there for a whole hour bored out of our minds.

Our everyday entertainment was watching this teacher wrestle with some kid that was in the class. It happened everyday. I sometimes wondered if it was a relative of his because he was rough with the kid, but the kid liked it and provoked the wrestling everyday.

I remember one time the principle and someone from the school district went to visit the classroom. It was not just this classroom, they were going around to all the classrooms. When they came to our classroom, it looked strange because this bad teacher actually stood up and began teaching for 15 minutes while they watched him. the act that he put on was pretty good. As soon as they left, he sat back at his desk and things went back to normal. I, as well as the other students had to put up with this for a whole year. Of course all students got an A or B on their math report cards.

As a middle aged adult now, it’s difficult for me to process that there are teachers this bad. He couldn’t have been the only one. Surely, there were others out there somewhere that would battle him for the worst teacher of all time. I sometimes wonder if anything ever happened to correct the situation. I know that during my school year he survived, but I like to think that the time eventually came when he was exposed and fired.

Last word on teachers

I believe that some people are good at certain things while others are not. Even though the vast majority of teachers try their best to be good teachers, only a small percentage will be that near perfect teacher. I will never knock a teacher that gives their full effort to be a good teacher. They may lack certain skills of reaching the near perfect teacher status, but you have to give them an “A” for effort and that’s what matters most.