Eccentric Teachers

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What are the most eccentric teachers you guys have had?

I recall a Greek-speaking English teacher in ninth grade who was called back from his retirement to fill a teacher shortage. He wouldn't teach <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, one of the required books because he found it too depressing and spent half the class on tangents.

Things he talked about were interesting, but I wonder if he shouldn't have been teaching college.

Then another English teacher I had was, well, imagine Justice Stevens with some personal quirks teaching an English course. He graded all of his papers using a typewriter and never touched computers.

He was also obsessively politically correct and would go off on political tangents, but not one of those teachers who penalizes students for disagreeing politically.

Then there's my current Spanish teacher.
I first met her when she came into the EAC (environmental club) my sophomore year with a conspiracy theory ("chem trails") that she'd printed off the internet. Apparently the government sends plains to spray crowded areas in criss-cross patterns to slowly poison people. She wouldn't tell us why she thought they were doing this as she didn't want us to think that she was a conspiracy theorist.

When she introduced herself in class she listed here interests (in Spanish, but I'll translate). Went something like "religion and metaphysics, animal rights, extraterrestrials, political alternatives, alternative news sources, [her] cats."

For Constitution day she passed out some editorials (translated to Spanish) on the destruction of the Constitution. Also came out that she's a member of the Libertarian Party. While I'm a libertarian with a lower case "l" and agree with the points she was making in the article, it'd have been counterproductive if the kids in my class had generally understood what it was saying (the few who did understand it later told others and it got back to my math class).

Then whenever she shows slides of her journeys in Mesoamerica she talks about the UFOs and/or time travelers who created these civilizations (she claimed that Peru's cities were created using laptops).

She's a good teacher, and very nice, but she's certainly the most eccentric teacher I've ever had (she also knows constructive and historical linguistics, which is nice since she can answer questions that I have, of the sort that the rest of the class couldn't care less.

Eccentric teachers like the three I mentioned are really a great addition to the school though.

And as I think about it, I've gotten to discuss the English language with the first I mentioned, geography with the second, linguistics with the third, and history with all three.

Really fun, at least for someone like me with AS.

You guys have any eccentirc teachers you've really liked?

er... me?

My chem teacher. He grew up overseas, so he would always tell us stories about growing up (and good stories, too!). He also is infamous around the school for his science experiments that sometimes get a little out of hand.

But he's also one of the smartest people I know and it's really interesting to talk with him (about science or otherwise), especially outside of class. Good times.

The most eccentric teachers I've ever had

-My English teacher back in 9th grade (at my old school). He knew how to control his classroom without being too cruel. He was very lax and disorganized. He would often go off into tangents, but they were extremely informative and never got boring. He came from an acting background, was obsessed with anime, and was the sponsor of the school's Japanese club

-My Pre-Algebra teacher back in 9th grade- Was very laid-back, was sarcastic, loved action movies, and was studying for a degree in psychology in addition to teaching pre-algebra.

-My current Drama teacher- Knows every movie in the book and speaks in extremely casual slang.

-A substitute teacher whom everyone at my school calls 'Rasta Sub' because of his dreadlocks and Jamaican accent. He carries a stringed instrument with him everywhere, and always has a story to tell. 'Rasta Sub' spends most of class time sharing common knowledge in unusual ways. (The power of fatih+Money=Power of Money)

-My Algebra teacher at my old school. Lived, acted and looked like the stereotypical 'loser' that so many people make fun of. (i.e. overweight, short of money, etc...)

Your English teacher sounds like a cross between the first teacher I described and my Con Law teacher who runs the school's Anime Club.

Your drama teacher sounds like the first person I ever met aside from myself to have AS.

I have to agree with vetivert.
My answer is me.
I am easily the most eccentric teacher that I have ever had.

my teachers cant handle kids like me. theres always something crazy going on in my LD classes where everybody is running around and making noise. my teachers have lost all feeling from being at my school.

Okay. Brace yourselves.

My main class is this low-functioning autism ret*d class.

Yeah, that's right, I said ret*d. So sue me.

Anyway, this guy is a wierdo. He stops to pick up trash any time he goes out of the room.

He HATES being out in public...

HIS authority reigns supreme. (In his own head. )

His hand trembles really bad so his writing looks like crap.

He yells at our class's deaf kid! What an ass.

He constantly berates me for problems that go with being an Aspie (being dead serious, being blunt and totally honest, one-upping him on intelligence...)

I took an IQ test. my IQ is anywhere between 145 and 170.

This man still treats me like one of his tards.

My college seems to attract eccentric teachers en masse. One of my geography teachers refers to everything as the magic *whatever it is* and has names for his globe and other equipment. He also tells bizarre jokes. My maths teacher also behaves very eccentrically and of my biology teachers has a totally bizarre website. go to http://www.dr-sanderson.org/ to see proof of his eccentricity.

Edited.

I had one as a substitute teacher in high school. He would regale the class with stories of his time in Africa and Egypt which I found very interesting. He also took up the entire class period talking, so we did not do any work. Then when he was back the next time, the teacher wrote him a note to instruct him not to talk (for so long). He said that the note was for the class to not to talk! It was a misinterpretation but it was interesting!

I've never had a really eccentric teacher. The worst one I had was an English 102 professor in my local community college.

This woman was completely obsessed with sexual symbolism. She wouldn't discuss anything in class but sexual symbolism. She picked stories for us to read that had as much of it as possible (we read a LOT of Kate Chopin), and even worse she started forcing it into things where it obviously was not. Her fashion was sort of funny... it was like she wanted to be physically appealing, but didn't have the nerve to really go for it and her fashion was out of date. She was also old enough that she'd lost her figure. She looked like a train wreck, to be honest.

She and I didn't get along very well. All my teachers I've ever had have formed either instant like or dislike for me, and she was a dislike one. And she's the kind of person I tend to dislike, I don't like people who try to present themselves as anything other than just another person. Her name, I kid you not, was Quarg.

We were reading a short story in class called "A Rose For Miss Emily", by William Faulkner. I learned to appreciate Faulkner from a later teacher, but at the time I thought he was a hack. Anyway, in the story, Miss Emily dates a man named Homer Barron, and wants to marry him but he's not interested. Homer described himself as "not a marrying man", and liked to hang out at the pub. Quarg decided that the most important point in the story was discussing the fact that Homer Barron was homosexual. I found this really annoying, because I found Quarg's obsessiveness over all things sex related annoying. So I raised my hand and contradicted something she had just said, citing a point in the book.

Quarg stared at me in visable fury for about 10 seconds, her nostrils flaring and her eyes changing sizes. Finally she screams "WELL YOU'RE WRONG!! !" and seeths for a few minutes before going back to what she was talking about before I spoke like nothing ever happened.

I ended up having to fail that class rather than drop it, for a complicated reason I won't get into here.

I had another teacher, named Pinsky-Newman. I had her in 12th grade, for a half credit class the state of Maryland requires all high school students to take called GPI. Stands for Government and Political Issues. I'm not sure if she was eccentric, or just stupid. Her favorite thing was to refuse to teach the proper lesson unless she had fewer than 2 absentees. But this was a required class in 12th grade, and there were kids there who knew they wouldn't graduate, so they showed up just often enough to keep the the truant officer at bay. So we probably got a lesson every other week.

I had terrible organization skills at the time. The girls who're always on top of everything were getting 120% grades on things because Pinsky-Newman expected so little of us, but I was getting lots of 0%s because I never knew what was expected and when.

Pinsky-Newman also gave us a drill where we had to write a paragraph on "If someone offered you a million dollars to kill someone, would you accept?" I stated that there were certain people, like Hitler or Houssein, who I'd kill for free, and other than that I didn't think so, but I wasn't sure because $1mil is a lot of money. She saw fit to report me as a dangerous person to the guidance councellor. Luckily the councellor at that school was actually half decent, and she took about 5 minutes to decide that I was normal and my teacher had overreacted.