Let’s do a quick experiment, shall we, Pandas? Think about the best teachers you’ve ever had. See how easily their faces pop up in your imagination? You’re probably even smiling. Okay, now think of the very worst teachers you’ve ever encountered. It feels awful, doesn’t it? The sad truth is that nearly everyone has to deal with at least one toxic educator who was out to make their life miserable. Teachers and professors hold a huge amount of influence in their students’ lives. And that power can be used for good, as well as for ill.

Bored Panda compiled this list of pics of people sharing examples of the most toxic teachers they have ever met. The type of behavior featured in this article is appalling. And it really makes you value quality educators even more.

Keep in mind that if you’ve had awful experiences at school, these pics might bring back some bad memories. Otherwise, feel free to tell us about the best and worst teachers you had at school. You’ll find our previous post about bad teachers over here, too. We know from experience just how much teachers can inspire us… or cause us to doubt ourselves.

#1 Yikes

Image credits: JoyAng

Bored Panda was interested to learn about building a sense of trust and openness between parents and children, as well as what to do if there are issues with specific teachers at school. We reached out to parenting blogger Samantha Scroggin, from Walking Outside in Slippers, who shared her thoughts on this with us.

"I always try to maintain an open dialogue with my kids, but it doesn’t always work as well as I’d hoped. I think we can’t expect our kids to open up to us on our timeline and our terms. They have to share when and if they want to, and us parents showing a genuine interest in what’s going on in our kids’ lives sets the groundwork for when they’re ready to open up," the blogger said.

#2 Why Would You Do That?

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#3 Teacher's Logic In Grading Math

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Patience and understanding are key for building trust, bit by bit. "Sometimes this can mean listening to them drone on about Pokemon and their friend drama at school," Samantha told Bored Panda.

"I feel like it’s just as important for parents to have an open dialogue with our kids’ teachers at school to see how they’re doing. We can’t always rely on our kids for the full picture, but it’s important to take our kids’ perspective on school situations into perspective," she suggested.

#4 Teacher Taking A Child’s Hearing Aid As Punishment “Cause She Wasn’t Listening Anyway”

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#5 My 6 Year Old Son's Teacher Marks All Of His Answers With A "1" Wrong Because Of His Unique Way Of Writing It

Even when he shows his work. He loves math and he was super bummed.

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#6 My Chemistry Teacher

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Meanwhile, parenting blogger Samantha said that there's no one-size-fits-all approach when dealing with teacher-related issues. However, she revealed to Bored Panda what approach she took not too long ago.

"I actually recently had an issue with my daughter’s first-grade teacher. She is an older teacher who is not very responsive via the school’s email system. Because communicating with her was so difficult, I told the principal at the end of the school year about my struggles with the teacher. I then requested a teacher for next year who I know to be very responsive," the founder of Walking Outside in Slippers said.

"But I don’t think there is any right way to deal with school or teacher issues. I would defer to the parents to decide what is best for their child and situation," she added.

#7 When You Need A 90% Or Above To Pass The Class But Your Teacher Is A Jerk

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#8 A Teacher In Texas Is Giving A's To Students That Buy His Book And Leave A 5 Star Review On Amazon

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#9 Teacher Making You Feel Bad For Using The Bathroom

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It sometimes feels like certain authority figures are out to get you. It’s not paranoia, though. Some people are so dissatisfied with their lives, so miserable and full of angst that they lash out at those around them.

Unfortunately, there isn’t an exam to thoroughly check if the person hoping to be a teacher is a completely decent human being. There are some bad apples among the droves of hard-working, empathetic educators.

When someone with a dislike for kids and education becomes a teacher, you can’t expect anything good. Some individuals have very low emotional intelligence, and they see their role in the classroom as purely technical: you put in the minimum required work, you get paid.

However, teaching is about far more than just classes, homework, and grading papers. For some, teaching is a calling. And they spare no expense in making their students’ lives better. They help guide them. They support them when they’re down. They thoroughly understand the massive responsibility they have weighing on their shoulders. And they do it anyway, even when they’re exhausted, under-appreciated, and given substandard pay. It’s these educators who we salute.

#10 If You're Poor Just Get More Money

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#11 What A "Great" Teacher

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#12 My Teacher Doesn’t Give 100%

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The way that we approach education in modern times is vastly different from how things were done for, well, pretty all of history. Generally speaking, students are a lot less independent these days. They’re shyer and less proactive, as well.

Childhood independence expert Lenore Skenazy, from Let Grown and the Free-Range Kids movement, went into this with Bored Panda during an earlier interview.

“In the United States, for instance, school only became compulsory a little over 100 years ago. Previously—for hundreds of thousands of years of human history—kids learned simply by watching, copying, helping, and playing,” she explained how learning used to take place.

“In other words, they’d hang around the adults, see how they made things like baskets and arrowheads, they’d ask questions, noodle around, and try to copy what their elders were doing. They’d also help out as soon as they could—fetching things, tracking animals, whatever—and in between they’d be playing with a group of mixed-age kids. All these activities were fueled by curiosity,” she told us.

#13 My Sister Came Home From School With These Spelling Quiz Results. Teacher Said She Spelled "Centuries" Wrong Because The Letters "Ur" Looks Like A Letter "W"

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#14 She Was Six. Why Would She Be Lying About That?

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#15 Toxicity At Its Best

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“You were motivated to learn what the bigger kids in your group knew, too, because they were so cool. Your entire day consisted of observing and practicing the stuff you needed to know— skills and games. If you weren’t curious, you weren’t going to enjoy life, or succeed at it,” Lenore told Bored Panda that kids were driven by a desire to become competent and be respected within their social circles and communities.

#16 Teachers Unbelievably Trashy Response To A Students Passing Away

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#17 Teachers Need To Understand Students Don’t Always Sleep In Class Just Because Of Laziness

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#18 You Know Your Professor Is Actively Looking To Hurt Your Grade When

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Unfortunately, these days, children are less curious and have trouble with motivation. That’s not to say that things are all bad. However, there’s a tendency for students to be passive (because that’s how schools work; they demand compliance) and to lack a focused inner drive.

“One reason kids might seem less curious today is because most of their education, inside and outside of school, doesn’t require self-motivation, it requires compliance. The drive is extrinsic, not intrinsic. Kids fill out worksheets because they have to, not because these seem interesting, or have any immediate connection to the ‘real’ world,” Lenore said.

#19 The Teacher Knew What She Was Doing

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#20 My Loom Before And After The Art Teacher "Helped" Me

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#21 Bored Teachers Regrading Students 7 Years Later

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“Learning soccer means doing the drills the coach assigns, as opposed to tagging along with the older kids and working hard to get good enough so that they’d start letting you play. The key to curiosity, then, is giving kids enough free, unstructured time for them to find something they love to do for its own sake—not for a grade, or coach,” the childhood independence author shared how students are more passive during extracurricular activities as well.

#22 Crazy Professor

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#23 Apparently, You Can't Be A Cheerleader And Be Smart

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#24 A Teacher Of Mine Decided To Talk Rubbish About A Student Who Passed Away In A Car Accident Recently

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According to the expert, giving our kids some unstructured ‘outdoor’ time can help foster their self-motivation and self-reliance.

“Put some junk out there—old suitcases, blankets, buckets—whatever you’ve got. Of course, at first, the kids might be bored. Scratch that: They will be bored. They’ll want to come back in and grab the iPad. Resist the temptation to let them in or entertain them,” she said.

#25 When Your Student Has Cancer And Can’t Come To Class, Maybe Don’t Reply To Their Email Like This

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#26 My Professor Is A Terrible Human Being

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#27 Asked My Professor For A Few Days Extension

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“Give them a stretch of time—and especially if you can send some other kids out there with them—and out of ‘There’s nothing to do’ something will catch their interest. And a curious kid is born,” Lenore said.

“To give dulled-out kids the equivalent of a trip to a new country, send them to do something they haven’t done on their own before. Have them run an errand, visit a neighbor, get something from the woods or the store—something that puts them in a new environment where they have to figure out some stuff on their own.”

#28 It's The Last Day Of Our Summer Vacations Today. The School Reopens From Tomorrow. She's Telling Me To Be In School 10 Minutes Before The Time Given

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#29 My Teacher Lost My Final That Took A Week To Do And Gave Me A Zero, Claiming I Never Turned It In

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#30 Why Do Teachers Do This?

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#31 My Nephew In The 4th Grade Had A Substitute Teacher Today And She Enforced These Rules. Are You Serious?

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#32 He Was The Creepy Wood Shop Teacher

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#33 To Be A Teacher With The Desire To Disadvantage Students Strategically

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#34 Student Gets A Zero On An Assignment For Turning It In Unstapled

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#35 Teacher Said We Need To Get 90% Or More On The Quiz, Only Made 9 Questions

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#36 When Teachers Cover The Clock In Their Classroom

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#37 Highschool Teacher Takes A Mark Off For Diagram

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#38 I Asked My Chemistry Teacher For Some Help And She Scribbled On My Screen

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#39 Kindergarten Teacher Marked An Answer Wrong For Saying This Picture Has 2 Squares, Saying There Are 4. "A Rectangle Is A Special Kind Of Square, We Went Over This"

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#40 And She's The Professor

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#41 In A Classroom. Boys Bathroom Also Has Multiple Signs

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#42 High School Biology Teacher Posts Non-Consensual Butt Shots Of Her Underage Students On Instagram For Her Thirsty Followers

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#43 My High School Was Checking Parking Passes Today, So Everyone Got Into School Late. But The Issue Is That They Didn't Excuse Our Tardy Like It Wasn't Their Fault, We Were Late

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#44 I’m A Teacher And I Made Some Flowers For Decorations And This Other Teacher Took Them And Used Them For Their Decorations Instead

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#45 As A Commute Student Whose Professors Don't Believe In Email

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#46 Just Drove To Class Early In The Morning Through Pouring Rain And Bad Traffic After Sleeping Three Hours Last Night Only To Find This. How's Your Morning Going?

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#47 My Little Cousin Tried To Tell His Teacher Why Loki Wasn’t A Villain

Cousin: "I think he is not a villain because he was threatened every time he had to do something bad. If you were in that situation, would you take your life for that?"

Teacher: "This is off topic. Just write about Loki and how he's a villain. Use an exact example of..."

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#48 It’s Really Wrong When Teachers Try To Get The Other Students To Make You Feel Bad

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#49 Terrible Teacher

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#50 This Is What Our Social Studies Teacher Told Us North America Is

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#51 Lost Half A Point Because My Line Dipped Too Low

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#52 UCSD Math Professor Continues Teaching Despite Classroom Flooding

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#53 Asked My Teacher Why I Got 1/2 Off This Question. It Was Because I Put An “Extra” Space

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#54 The Teacher Needs To Go Back To Primary School

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#55 Teacher Refuses To Change My Grade

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#56 This Tutor

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#57 Jesus, Sounds Like She Herself Was Having Some Sort Of Breakdown! Who Does That To A Child?

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#58 My Professor Wrote A Book Relevant To Our Field. She Has A Stockpile Of Them And Said If We Wanted One To Send Her Our Address

She sends me the book and THEN requests pay that was never previously mentioned. She pretended as if she was giving out copies to the class in order to sell her book.

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#59 My Professor’s Response To My Request To Attend Lectures Remotely This Semester Out Of Concerns For Exposure To Covid

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#60 My Teacher Complains That Students Join Late Despite Never Being On Time To Start The Class

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#61 My Teacher Failed My Friend For Not Putting The Last Letter Of His Last Name

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#62 Teacher Refused To Let Me Fix My Grade

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#63 Our Professor Wouldn't Upload The Syllabus Nor The Slides To Huskyct. We Had To Buy A $16 Book (Written By Her) To Know The Exam Dates And Course Content

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#64 My Previous Math 1060 Professor Has Nearly A 50% Drop Rate, 30% Fail Rate, And A Mere 20% Pass Rate. Didn't Take Me Long To Find Out Why (Actual Snapshot From Hw)

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#65 My History Teacher Won't Let Us Use Wikipedia But Apparently She Can

It's the same text.

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#66 This Teacher Doesn’t Erase The Board Fully And Continues To Use It

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#67 We Revived A School Shooting Threat Yesterday And My Teacher Refuses To Lock The Door

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#68 College Professor Is Sick And Deciding To Play An Hour Long Video For The Class Instead Of Just Cancelling It

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#69 I Missed Two Classes During The Second Week Of School For My Grandmother's Funeral (Which I Told The Professor About Beforehand). I Was Very Excited To Take This Class

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#70 Toxic Teacher In School

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#71 One Teacher At A School Camp Used A Bunch Of Water Bottles For Her Activity About Protecting The Environment. I Found Them All In The Trash Immediately After She Was Done

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#72 When Teachers Assign Quizzes That Only Have 2 Questions. You Get One Wrong, You Fail. Also, Making It Worth The Same Amount Of Points As A 6 Paragraph Paper

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#73 That's Very Sad

End of the year. The last drawing lesson before the exam. The teacher told me that my work was disgusting and she would burn it so that no one would see it. I cried all evening in the toilet. And you know what they gave me? 5. Jury and other teachers.

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#74 When Your Professor Is A Savage

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#75 My Teacher Gave Me Another Statement As A Question

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#76 Student’s Mom Had Cancer, And When She Missed School, Teacher Told Her That School Is More Important Than Home

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#77 In Person Classes Finally Resume. Drive 45 Minutes To University In Sweltering Heat. Teacher Comes In Fifteen Minutes Late

Says she'll take the class on zoom from her office. And now I'm watching a middle age lady figure out paint.

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#78 Today I Have A Test Online And The Teacher Won't Let Me In, Which Will Probably Lead To A Bad Grade

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#79 People Who Had A Toxic Teacher In Their School

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#80 My Health Teacher At School During The Pandemics

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#81 Her Teacher Sent This Picture Home. The Little Girl Is 5. Does This Teacher Thinks This Is Ok?

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#82 A Spanish Teacher Created A Little Controversy With The Following Homework Assignment

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#83 Did They Think She Was Sweating On Purpose?

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#84 My Nephew's Teacher Doesn't Know What A Fossil Is

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#85 Actual Reply My Spanish Teacher Sent To A Student Asking For Help

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#86 When Your Professor Says You Can Just Lock The Door Tomorrow

E-mail says: "Thanks for the heads up. My understanding is it's philosophy, not sociology (the class is in Dodd, which is also the home of philosophy. But, the sociology offices are in Haines). I'll call UCPD in the morning and ask their advice. 

FWIW, after the incident on south campus a few years ago, the university installed locks on the doors of every classroom. In the unlikely event that there is some kind of attack, we can lock the doors at the first sign of danger. There has never been a single case of a mass shooter breaching a locked door, so this is an extremely effective defense especially as Dodd 121 has no windows". 

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#87 Shedding A Full 20% Of Everyone’s Grade Potential. This Is An Email A Professor Sent Out At My University

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#88 Isn’t This Unprofessional? This Is A Gen Ed Class On Art History

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#89 When Teachers Do This

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#90 Professor Gave An Extension On An Assignment And Then Docked Me 22 Points For Taking Advantage Of The Extension

Professor answer: "Good responses here and good writing in general - just wish it wasn't 5 days late, still, I like that you used specific examples and explanations"

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#91 And Then The Teacher Marked Your Answer As Incorrect

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#92 That's Messed Up

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#93 Toxic Towards People With Disabilities

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#94 What Is Wrong With People?

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#95 I Can See A Teacher Saying That

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#96 Teacher Making Me And 4 Other Students Wait For 7 Mins To Unlock The Door While He Talks To Other Teachers 3 Feet From The Door

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#97 My Teacher Made 5 Kids Redo This Because Of This Exact Thing. Not Change The Color But Fully Redo It

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#98 My Professor Emailed This To Me The Day After I Spent 2 Weeks Working On 2 Assignments

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#99 Professor Was A Bit Sick And Didn't Feel Like Grading. Gave Everyone A 9.25/10 And Didn't Even Bother To Check If Anyone Actually Got 10/10

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#100 I Just Found Out My Grad School Professor Is Copy And Pasting Feedback For Assignments Because He Forgot To Switch Out The Name In My Grades

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#101 My Math Teachers Excuse For Kicking Someone From My Online Lesson Because They Accidentally Turned On Their Camera

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#102 So We're Doing A Self Help Unit And Our Teacher Gave Us All Notes That Had One Thing She Liked About Us To Get Us Started On Writing What We Like About Ourselves

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#103 A Friend Just Uploaded This Homework To Facebook

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#104 My Son’s Teacher Counted Off For Grammar. I Feel Like This Should Be Sent Back Tomorrow With A Reply. But What?

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#105 A Question My Professor Asked For Homework. This Is University

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#106 Yeah, Okay, Wait A Second

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#107 Preschool Teacher Calls Students Stupid. Goes On To Defend Himself In The Comments Too

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#108 Confusing

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#109 Professors That Assign Homework But Don’t Release Answers. Instead, You Have To Buy A Solution Manual To Study Properly

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#110 This "Study Guide" That My Grad School Professor Said "We Would Find Helpful"

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#111 Just Started School And Already Have To Deal With This

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#112 My Professor Emailed The Class To Tell Us That We All Failed The First Test And It’s Entirely Our Fault

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#113 My Teacher Put A Tab Limit On Chrome That Closed The Most Recent Tab If There Are Already 3 Open. Plus, They Blocked Us From Googling Stuff

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#114 My Friend Is Partially Blind

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#115 My Language Arts Teacher Never Lets Us Charge Our Computer In Class. Even Though Our Class Is Towards The End Of The Day, She Will Get Mad At Us If We Ask To Charge

Today she took the step of literally putting baby-safe outlet covers and tape in the outlets so that we can’t charge our computers.

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#116 My Teacher Sent Out This “Apology” After Yelling At Me For Not Turning In The Chapter Assignment 24 Hours Before It Was Due

She called this “not staying on top of my work” and used this as justification for not curving out first exam.

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#117 My Ethics Professor Playing Games. Syllabus As Shown, My Email, His Response, Syllabus Changed After The Email Exchange

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#118 I Have Covid And My Tutor Is Giving Me A Low Tutorial Participation Score Instead Of Writing It Off For This Week

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#119 Poor Woman

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#120 Same Exercises, Different Right Answers

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#121 Presenting While Sitting In A Ditch

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#122 The Teacher Puts The Question In Wrong And Refuses To Fix It

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#123 My Teacher Was Complaining About Our Internet Speed And Said That The Bad Connection Was Our Fault Then He Opened His Browser

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#124 And I Thought Teachers Now Were Bad

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#125 I Received An F On My Paper. This Is My Professor’s Comment

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#126 My Friend Who's Attending Online College Sent This Screenshot When He Tried To Inform The Professor That He Will Be Having A Power Outage And His Laptop May Shutdown

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#127 Why Did My Professor Do This

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#128 My Physics Teacher Is Toxic

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#129 When Your Science Teacher Doesn’t Understand Basic Biology Or Anatomy

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#130 My Professor Grades Random Activities And Never Gives Grades Over 90% Because Nothing's Perfect

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#131 Our Computer Teacher

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#132 My Younger Sister’s Homework

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#133 I Think My English Teacher Hates Me. English Is Not My Mother Tongue By The Way

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