Teachers- we've all had our favorites, and
we've all had some that we hated to be around.
Despite how we may feel about them though,
theirs is one of the most important jobs in
the world, as they are responsible for teaching
the next generation.
Part of that instruction is not just arithmetic,
grammar, and history, but also proper codes
of conduct and morality.
Many studies have shown that due to the sheer
amount of time students spend around teachers,
they can be one of the most influential figures
in a child's life.
But what happens when good teachers go bad,
or when bad teachers are given responsibility
over a classroom of young, impressionable
minds?
These real-life incidents just might shock
you...
Surprise Field Trip
High school chemistry teacher Travis Lechien
was quite popular amongst the students of
Hanover Central High School in Cedar Lake,
Indiana.
That's probably because he would often invite
many of the students over for after-school
study lessons at his home, and by study lessons
we mean he would give the kids alcohol and
smoke hookah with them.
One day though he found out that it was the
birthday of one of the students hanging out
at his house, so he piled all the students
into his van and took off for a nearby club.
But as you may have guessed from the other
activities he engaged in with the students,
this wasn’t a normal club.
No, let’s just say it was a club that is
supposed to be for adults only.
After a few hours of this very enlightening
field trip, Lechien was driving the boys back
home when he got pulled over for speeding.
Suspicious as to why the 31 year old man was
driving around at night with a car full of
young boys, the police questioned the students
and discovered where he had taken them.
Lechien was promptly fired from the school,
though he would have likely been fired soon
anyways as rumors about what Lechien invited
students over to his house to do had reached
the principal, who was already cooperating
with law enforcement to investigate Lechien.
In the end Lechien lost his job and was charged
with three counts of contributing to the delinquency
of a minor, a class A misdemeanor that earned
him a year of jail time.
It Pays To Be The Principal
Over in Harry Potter-land, we mean the UK,
Jo Shutter was a headteacher, or principal,
who had won an award for her great leadership
skills and the performance of her students.
While she was running a tight ship at school
though, she was also secretly funneling much
of the school's budget towards her own expenses.
Shutter would routinely misappropriate money
and then secretly use it for such things as
seven thousand pounds spent on her birthday
party, ten thousand pounds on travel, and
a whopping three thousand pounds on flowers.
Shortly after her money mismanagement came
to light, she got a double-whammy as she was
accused of cronyism, giving school jobs to
her family and friends over other well-qualified
individuals.
Authorities may have been slow to suspect
that Shutter was such a crook though given
that the BBC had asked to film a documentary
about her, given her brilliant and inspirational
leadership.
The only problem with that is that the documentary
was directed by her own sister.
In the end Shutter didn't face any legal repercussions,
but was banned for life from teaching.
Sometimes The Past Comes Back To Haunt You
Melissa Petro was a regular, unassuming elementary
art school teacher, well liked by staff and
her students.
For three years she taught various art classes
to children without incident, and despite
her new life she was hiding a very dark secret.
This secret would only come to light when
Ms. Petro admitted to it publicly on her own
volition- probably not a great move.
It all began when Craiglist decided to take
down its adult services section, a part of
its site which was well known for being used
by people to offer certain adult services.
It turns out that Ms. Petro had worked as
a professional companion for a brief time,
a fact she admitted to in an opinion piece
she wrote for The Huffington Post.
Describing herself as being in difficult financial
times, she engaged in this work for several
months though soon quit, finding it to be
“physically demanding, emotionally taxing,
and spiritually bankrupting”.
As soon as her school found out about her
past, they promptly fired her.
Humiliating Special Needs Students
No doubt teaching is a difficult job, but
even when you're dealing with the stress of
handling a room full of teenagers, you should
still have the composure to deal with the
behavioral needs of a special needs student.
Amanda Terrell had one such kid in her class,
a fifteen year old boy with Asperger's syndrome
who would sometimes act out.
Rather than try and handle the situation delicately,
Terrell grew tired of his behavior and built
a 'bad kid fort' out of cardboard boxes to
place around the student's desk.
Enraged over the humiliation of their son,
the child's parents took issue with the school.
Terrell was suspended over the incident, but
was then re-hired for the next school year.
The school board defended its decision, saying
that Terrell was still a good teacher who
had simply made a mistake.
Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad is a revolutionary tv show made
possible by two unique realities of America:
teachers get paid next to nothing, and healthcare
is so expensive that you literally have to
run a drug cartel to stay on top of your bills.
Seriously, this show couldn't have taken place
anywhere else in the world.
Except it sort of did, although not for the
same reasons that Walter White started peddling
meth.
Across the pond in the UK once more we find
an IT teacher named Mohammed Sarwar.
Liked by his community for his charitable
work and always a good example for his young
students, Sarwar unknowingly led a secret
double life.
After clocking out of school, Sarwar would
clock in to his 'real' job, which was the
running of a criminal network.
While he may have had the neighbors fooled,
he didn't have British police fooled who had
bugged his car and been tailing him for weeks.
Eventually they recorded Sarwar talking about
cocaine with one of his students and then
was followed as he took the student to a drug
deal in a local retail park.
The police made their move and Sarwar was
in custody shortly thereafter.
Confessing to ferrying kilos upon kilos of
cocaine around Britain, Sarwar earned 21 years
in prison, with no leniency for his role as
an educator.
A Drink To Unwind
Maria L. Caya has a very stressful job as
an Elementary school teacher.
Watching over a bunch of young children is
no doubt enough to wear the nerves of even
the most level-headed teacher, and certainly
nobody would ever fault a teacher for having
a drink to unwind after a long, hard day.
Caya however apparently needed to unwind way,
way before her work day was over.
While chaperoning a field trip to a bowling
alley, Caya decided to have a couple of drinks.
Unprofessional but well, it's a bowling alley
and drinking is sort of expected in these
places.
What was a couple of drinks though turned
into a couple more drinks, until eventually
the other teachers chaperoning the kids had
to call Caya's husband to come pick her up.
Violently ill, Caya was taken to the hospital
instead, where she was found to have a blood
alcohol level as high as .27- over three times
higher than the legal limit of .08.
While there were eight other teachers present
on the field trip and the kids were never
in any serious danger, Caya clearly showed
a lack of responsibility and professionalism
both with her decision to pour back a few
dozen cold ones while still on duty.
Fight The Power!
Ryan Pleune was a passionate environmentalist,
and honestly we can't blame him.
Our parents used to make fun of hippies who
wanted to save the planet, and thanks to them
making fun of hippies we're now running headlong
into irreversible global warming- thanks mom
and dad.
With the health of the planet very much at
stake, and along with it the prosperity of
our own civilization, Pleune decided that
he wanted to set a good example for his students.
While he was a qualified teacher, Pleune was
instead working as a bus driver for a local
high school.
On the way back from a field trip, Pleune
decided on an educational detour, and instead
drove the kids to a local protest outside
of the Salt Lake City courthouse.
Environmental protesters had gathered there
and according to Pleune, he wanted to make
the kids aware of the cause.
He even thought that the school would be pleased
with his actions, but it turns out that basically
abducting a bus-load of children without telling
anyone isn't exactly high on the list of things
a school wants their bus drivers to do.
Pleune was fired but faced no criminal charges.
Mocking Students
Chicago is world famous for being a rather
tough town.
With a very high rate of gun and gang-related
violence, it's no surprise that the city can
make some people pretty hard inside.
Yet we would at least expect our elementary
school teachers to show some compassion towards
their kids, and certainly not to mock them
mercilessly on social media.
On school picture day one of an elementary
teacher’s students showed up with jolly
ranchers woven into her hair.
The teacher immediately took a photo of the
student's unusual, but decorative hair style,
and sent it to her husband, then posted it
on facebook.
Soon the picture was the laughingstock of
the online community, despite all it ever
being was a little girl's excited impromptu
hairdo.
Upon learning of the humiliation, the little
girl's parents sued the school while the teacher
was put under investigation.
Sure, the hairdo may have been out of the
ordinary, but tell us that you never did something
silly when you were seven years old.
School and Alcohol Don't Mix
Teaching might be a more stressful job than
we're aware of, because in Toro Canyon Middle
School Californian teacher Tonya Neff was
found intoxicated while teaching.
Or, we guess, trying to teach anyways.
Police were called when Neff showed signs
of intoxication, and when they arrived she
was being treated by the school nurse.
It turns out that Neff had mixed prescription
drugs with alcohol, and likely didn't mean
to get so intoxicated, underestimating the
interaction between the medicine and the alcohol.
Neff was taken to a local hospital for treatment
and then was booked into jail to face felony
charges for child endangerment.
Too Much School Spirit
For this next story we go north to America's
top hat, Canada.
Back in 2010 a Canadian high school decided
that it would hold a dance competition for
its teachers to show off their best school
spirit at a pep rally.
The event turned out to be wildly popular,
though not for the reasons the school hoped
for.
One of the teachers ended up performing a
lap dance along with a male teacher, gyrating
their hips to the beat and dancing provocatively.
The incident was recorded on two different
phones and the footage soon went viral.
The teacher was fired and ended up losing
her apartment, forced to live out of her car.
She was relentlessly slut shamed for the inappropriate
stunt and said in a later interview that she
had contemplated suicide.
Today though she's left Canada and works occasionally
as a substitute teacher, though she uses her
husband's last name on any job applications.
Meanwhile the male teacher involved in the
scandal by virtue of being male is largely
forgotten and didn’t have to suffer years
of humiliation.
There's a certain amount of trust that goes
into the teacher-student relationship, and
while many students complain of mean or strict
teachers, few can probably claim that their
teachers were as terrible, or perhaps as naive,
as the ones on this list.
What about you though?
Have you ever had any crazy teachers?
What stories can you share?
Let us know in the comments!
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