Top 20 WORST Mistakes Made by Teachers

Top 20 Worst Mistakes Ever Made by Teachers

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the times teachers made the worst decisions on the job you can think of.

#20: Inappropriate Math Question
Word problems are a good way to help make mathematical concepts more understandable for students. But this is not an ideal example of one. Ohio math teacher Daniel Rapp gave his 9th students an assignment with a reference to, of all things, sexting. This explicit question sparked a furious reaction from parents, who were rightfully outraged that a teacher would craft such an egregiously inappropriate word problem. Rapp was reprimanded but, following an investigation, allowed to keep his job. Hopefully, he made sure to keep his assignments as unproblematic as possible after this unfortunate incident.

#19: Terror Attack Assignment
Encouraging students to use their imaginations is great. That is, to a point. An Australian teacher gave her Year 10 class an assignment in decidedly poor taste. They were tasked with imagining they had to plan a terror attack as effectively as possible. It’s pretty easy to see why this rubbed so many the wrong way. Thankfully, the school administration stepped in, canceling the assignment and speaking with the teacher about its inappropriateness. Some have argued that while the teacher may have been well-intentioned when crafting the assignment, she ultimately shouldn’t have given it to her students.

#18: Facebook Posts
Venting about your job on social media is a common, understandable practice. But if you’re not careful, the wrong person can easily see your grievances. That’s what happened to June Talvitie-Siple, a Massachusetts teacher who lost her job after making negative comments about her job on her personal Facebook page. These included remarks about students and their parents, that weren’t received too warmly. Though she thought her messages were restricted to her modest friends list, her privacy settings weren’t as tight as she assumed. Talvitie-Siple - and likely many others - learned a very important lesson about social media smarts from this experience.

#17: Candy Crush Chaos
If you’ve ever played Candy Crush Saga, you know it’s notoriously addictive. However, one Indian teacher seems to be especially attached to the mobile game. App usage records, checked on assistant teacher Priyam Goyal's phone, revealed he would spend close to two hours a day playing Candy Crush on his phone. Other significant portions of time in a five-and-a-half hour school day would be spent talking on the phone and surfing social media. Goyal was suspended for prioritizing his phone over his students. Maybe he could try teaching a class on how to play Candy Crush?

#16: Teaching Under the Influence
The first day of school can set the tone for the rest of the term. So, it’s good to start it off on a high note. However, Oklahoma third-grade teacher Kimberly Coates went down an unfortunate path, kicking off the new school year with some alcohol. After she was reported for exhibiting strange behavior, she was questioned and charged with public intoxication, due to failing to pass a breathalyzer. Substance use disorder is unfortunately not uncommon in a stressful and demanding field like teaching. And this story is a sad reminder of what it can lead to.

#15: Impromptu Swordfights
One of the most vital parts of learning chemistry is safety. However, New Mexico chemistry teacher Loviata Mitchell doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo. In a lesson about "metal and melding" Mitchell had her high schoolers fight with samurai swords. If that already sounds like a bad idea, they didn't have any protective gear either. One student was left permanently disabled after getting hit by a sword, and Mitchell tried to cover up the incident. A lawsuit was filed against Mitchell and the school district. Between this and “Breaking Bad,” Albuquerque chemistry teachers really deserve better representation.

#14: Giving Kids Melatonin Gummies
Working with kids can be exhausting, especially when they're kindergarten age. But that doesn't mean teachers should be giving out supplements to them. In Texas, it was revealed that a special education kindergarten teacher was giving her students melatonin gummies to calm them. This led to students coming home lethargic and exhausted, without parents knowing exactly why. Once the truth was revealed, the teacher resigned. Though you might think of melatonin as a benign sleep aid, overdosing can and does happen to children. Hopefully, the parents and children alike are both sleeping peacefully after all this.

#13: Inappropriate Turtle Feeding
The death of an animal can teach a young person a lot about the cycle of life. But usually it’s not anywhere near this graphic. Idaho teacher Robert Crosland fed a terminally ill puppy to a snapping turtle, right in front of his students. Unsurprisingly, this caused widespread outrage, leading to Crosland being charged with animal cruelty and the turtle being euthanized. Crosland was ultimately acquitted and able to keep his job. And his students have since come to his defense. Still, we’re guessing he’d much rather be in the classroom than in the courtroom.

#12: Insensitive Lesson
A topic as serious as the slave trade needs to be handled carefully in the classroom. And certainly not like this. In a lesson about slavery, Bronx social studies teacher Patricia Cummings used Black students as literal props, having them lie face down on the floor as part of a demonstration. It was alleged that she had stepped on at least one student's back. She was fired for the incident, but she didn’t stop there, filing a $120 million lawsuit against the New York City Department of Education, and her lawyer announcing plans for a $1 billion class action suit.

#11: Unauthorized Art Business
Art classes can help students to hone their creative abilities. But this Canadian teacher saw it as a way to line his pockets. Quebec art teacher Mario Perron had students make creations in the style of renowned artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. And then, he tried to sell them online, in a store discovered by parents. Some of the price tags for these works from 96 different students were listed at over $100. A lawsuit was filed against Perron and the school board for this breach of trust. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. And this story? Even more.

#10: Would You Like Fries with That?
There’s nothing wrong with a teacher guiding troubled students with their career choices; but have a little tact while doing it. Well, the teacher – or teachers – in this scenario definitely did not have tact: they just stapled a McDonald’s job application to their students’ failed tests or assignments and called it a day. There are actually multiple versions of this story online, so we have to assume it’s a common practice for fed-up profs to encourage failing students towards the food service industry… something that’s more than a little insulting to fast-food employees. However, if it encouraged even one student to try harder, hey, maybe it’s not all bad.

#9: The Sweet Smell of Racism
There are certainly enough bullies in school to go around; we don’t need the teachers getting in on the act too. At an elementary school in Swansea, Wales, schoolteacher Elizabeth Davies was in a charge of a group that included a large number of Bangladeshi students. Claiming the kids constantly smelled of curry, Ms. Davies made a habit of spraying them with air freshener. Her teaching assistant said she suspected Ms. Davies was guilty of racism, and would often smugly say that “there [was] a waft coming in from paradise.” As a result, she was summarily sacked.

#8: Our Lips Are Sealed
Silence is golden, but this is ridiculous. One exasperated Florida teacher took this to the extreme, however, when she taped a disruptive student’s mouth shut. And when the poor girl had to remove the tape to cough, the teacher’s didn’t miss a beat; she simply put the tape back and muttered, “What happens in my classroom, stays in my classroom.” Or, in this case, on the local news. Unfortunately, this isn’t even the only “teacher taping a student’s mouth shut” story circulating online, but let’s be clear: this will only result in a sticky situation for the offending educators.

#7: Dirty Dancing
This student from Stovall Middle School in Houston, Texas will likely never forget about his 15th birthday. That’s when his 42-year-old teacher decided it would be a good idea to give him a four-minute, full-contact lap dance in front of the entire class. And, by all accounts, it was a very explicit dance. As if it wasn’t already inappropriate enough, she capped off the whole performance with the words “I love you baby, happy birthday.” Yikes. Miss Felicia Smith was subsequently arrested for an improper relationship with a student, and was sentenced to three-years probation.

#6: I’m Rubber, You’re Glue
Exasperated that one of her students would not focus on his work and kept calling her rude names, art teacher Lynda May reached the end of her rope. According to the court transcripts – yes, this went all the way to court – the student banged a glue stick loudly on a desk. To give the student a taste of his own medicine, Ms. May took the glue stick and did the same thing right back – except, she accidentally hit him in the hand, drawing blood. She was ultimately acquitted of the assault charges, but even so we assume she still wishes she had “glued” him to his chair in detention instead.

#5: Risqué Writing
We get it: getting a kid to read is like pulling teeth. Well, a UK teacher known to her students as Miss Rusty solved that little problem: to encourage her troubled class to develop an interest in literacy, she wrote an erotic novel. Well, actually, it was worse than that: the characters were modeled after her and her students, and they also engaged in drug use and criminal activity. Ultimately released online, the novel entitled “Stop! Don’t Read This,” caused a big kerfuffle, leading to the termination of Miss Rusty’s employment. But she did get her 15 minutes of fame.

#4: Trapped in the Closet
What’s an appropriate punishment for children at school: time out? Detention? Lock ‘em in a closet? Uh, no, definitely not that last one. Well, one teacher at a Manchester, England school thought that was a good idea. Unfortunately, one of the students she kept in the storage cupboard was an 11-year-old with dyspraxia, a developmental coordination disorder that can affect motor skills, speech and more, making learning difficult. The teacher decided he wasn’t writing fast enough, so she sent him off to the closet. In fact, the poor boy told his mother that he’d been locked in the closet alone for at least an hour at a time before.

#3: Sex Ed, Up Close & Personal
To celebrate the arrival of summer, and to commemorate their time in the fifth grade, California elementary school teacher Crystal Defanti put together a DVD, compiling the best moments of the school year. Unfortunately, she sent them home with both a memento and a crash course in sex ed: yes, she accidentally included one of her own, very personal videos on the DVD. When families innocently sat down and selected one of the options on the menu screen, they were taken to a shot of Ms. Defanti naked and pleasuring herself on a couch. We’re sure it was an honest – albeit really stupid – mistake, but it still prompted plenty of birds and bees talks!

#2: Removing Hearing Aids
One of the great things about technology is that it can allow students with disabilities the same opportunities as others. For example, hearing aids can help let students with hearing disabilities hear just like their fellow students. However, in a reddit thread that answered the question “Who was the worst teacher you’ve ever had?,” one student, who was deaf, recounted the story of how his sadistic teacher used his hearing aids against him. In order to punish the child in question, Mrs. Baron would frequently remove his two hearing aids to isolate him from the others. She’d then force him to go sit in the hallway by himself!

#1: A Secret Sauce We Could Do Without
This story is not for the faint of heart. Mark Berndt, an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles for more than 30 years, frequently organized food tastings in his classroom. He would blindfold the children and make them eat cookies that he’d prepared. What those unsuspecting students didn’t know, however, was that those cookies had a secret ingredient: Mr. Berndt’s genetic material. Berndt was caught by police in 2012 after he tried to develop pictures of these infamous “food tastings,” and the photo technician thought pictures of blindfolded third graders were a bit strange. The teacher was then sentenced to 25 years in prison, and the students he victimized were awarded a $140 million settlement.

Do you have a bad teacher story? Let us know in the comments!