5 ms·

My high school physics teacher got fired middle of the year. Turned out he wasn't at all licensed to teach and may or may not have actually finished college. He

by IIAOPSW 10y ago

My high school physics teacher got fired middle of the year. Turned out he wasn't at all licensed to teach and may or may not have actually finished college. He got all the way to tenure before anyone noticed. The guy was a wonderful teacher and knew his topic insanely well. Other students hated him cause he actually held students to a standard. Dude ran a convenience store out of his class room to fund our robotics team. He convinced me to re-enroll in the AP Physics B class under the promise that I wouldn't have to show up and instead would study AP Physics C (calculus) with him during his prep time. I was then bribed into this non-existent class with pirated software (thus getting me into programming). He did all of this so that there would be enough students enrolled in the AP Physics B class. For the record I got a perfect score on my exam. The man broke every rule in the book and our lives were better for it. In conclusion, yes it happens. Yes you can be anti-rule anti-authority and still be successful and non-edgy. Fuck da police.

helthanatos 10y ago
That's not at all where I thought you were going with that. Some rule breakers are good others are bad. Some only break certain rules. I'm confused as to why he didn't finish college online or something when they found out? I've seen teachers be emergency certified in similar circumstances.
- IIAOPSW 10y ago
  >Some rule breakers are good others are bad. True. Maybe I just idolized this guy cause he was both smart and stuck it to the man. >I'm confused as to why he didn't finish college online or something when they found out? I don't know what the rules are on that. Even if it were possible by this time he already tried to forge documents and otherwise lie his way through. Even before the fraud the man didn't really have to many allies in administration. Also the district didn't even have the balls to tell us (the students) why our teacher disappeared one day. I had to learn it through another teacher in a private conversation outside the school. Really just screw public school in general. The whole place was 95% waste of time followed by a "congratulatory" piece of paper.
  - teslabox 10y ago
    > Really just screw public school in general. The whole place was 95% waste of time followed by a "congratulatory" piece of paper. John Taylor Gatto (and John Holt, and many others) say "wasting time" is the whole point of compulsory education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto#Main_thesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto#Main_thesis "Against School: How Public Education Criples our Kids, and Why" - http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm Archive.org should have the complete text of "The Underground History of American Education", which was formerly posted in its entirety at http://www.JohnTaylorGatto.com http://www.JohnTaylorGatto.com Also search for "I quit, I think", and ... "The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher"... several copies of these essays are scattered around the internet. Edit: favorite'd your earlier comment, as I like how your teacher was good at teaching physics in spite of not having a congratulatory paper from a "higher education" establishment.
    - IIAOPSW 10y ago
      Public schools serve one primary purpose. They free up women to work in the labour market. It turns out that having every kid attended to one-on-one by their mother was a terribly inefficient system compared to just shoving them all in a room and letting one person look after ~20. The fact that any sort of education happens is just a nice add-on after the fact. School also does a fantastic job of preparing you to submit to the arbitrary demands of authority figures. Today its the teacher, tomorrow its the cop. Society is a well oiled machine from cradle to college to job to marriage to suburban home to grave. Sadly I'm too much of a fan of indoor plumbing to consider the alternative. We're all just cogs in the machine.
      - mschuster91 10y ago
        Nice narrative, and especially the "bend and break the kids to conform with mainstream" rings a bell. Yet I don't believe the major driving force is to free up women as laborers - schools have been existing way before women had the right to work or vote. In my opinion schools and universities rather serve to breed out worker drones and the curriculums are based on corporate needs, not society's. And this has, especially in the last two decades, been visible in the EU with the Bologna reform. Classes with no direct economical advantage (arts!) are falling way behind classes in the STEM field.
magic_beans 10y ago
I know it's messed up, but this story makes me so happy.

by IIAOPSW 10y ago

helthanatos 10y ago

That's not at all where I thought you were going with that. Some rule breakers are good others are bad. Some only break certain rules. I'm confused as to why he didn't finish college online or something when they found out? I've seen teachers be emergency certified in similar circumstances.

IIAOPSW 10y ago
>Some rule breakers are good others are bad. True. Maybe I just idolized this guy cause he was both smart and stuck it to the man. >I'm confused as to why he didn't finish college online or something when they found out? I don't know what the rules are on that. Even if it were possible by this time he already tried to forge documents and otherwise lie his way through. Even before the fraud the man didn't really have to many allies in administration. Also the district didn't even have the balls to tell us (the students) why our teacher disappeared one day. I had to learn it through another teacher in a private conversation outside the school. Really just screw public school in general. The whole place was 95% waste of time followed by a "congratulatory" piece of paper.
- teslabox 10y ago
  > Really just screw public school in general. The whole place was 95% waste of time followed by a "congratulatory" piece of paper. John Taylor Gatto (and John Holt, and many others) say "wasting time" is the whole point of compulsory education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto#Main_thesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto#Main_thesis "Against School: How Public Education Criples our Kids, and Why" - http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm Archive.org should have the complete text of "The Underground History of American Education", which was formerly posted in its entirety at http://www.JohnTaylorGatto.com http://www.JohnTaylorGatto.com Also search for "I quit, I think", and ... "The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher"... several copies of these essays are scattered around the internet. Edit: favorite'd your earlier comment, as I like how your teacher was good at teaching physics in spite of not having a congratulatory paper from a "higher education" establishment.
  - IIAOPSW 10y ago
    Public schools serve one primary purpose. They free up women to work in the labour market. It turns out that having every kid attended to one-on-one by their mother was a terribly inefficient system compared to just shoving them all in a room and letting one person look after ~20. The fact that any sort of education happens is just a nice add-on after the fact. School also does a fantastic job of preparing you to submit to the arbitrary demands of authority figures. Today its the teacher, tomorrow its the cop. Society is a well oiled machine from cradle to college to job to marriage to suburban home to grave. Sadly I'm too much of a fan of indoor plumbing to consider the alternative. We're all just cogs in the machine.
    - mschuster91 10y ago
      Nice narrative, and especially the "bend and break the kids to conform with mainstream" rings a bell. Yet I don't believe the major driving force is to free up women as laborers - schools have been existing way before women had the right to work or vote. In my opinion schools and universities rather serve to breed out worker drones and the curriculums are based on corporate needs, not society's. And this has, especially in the last two decades, been visible in the EU with the Bologna reform. Classes with no direct economical advantage (arts!) are falling way behind classes in the STEM field.

magic_beans 10y ago

I know it's messed up, but this story makes me so happy.