Are all RE teachers mentalists?

I don't know about the teachers, but our RE syllabus seemed to go mental. One term we were doing "think lateral" questions (how can you join these dots in only 4 lines sort of thing) and reflection on the golden ration, then the paper at the end of the year was stuff about Unions and the Closed Shop. WTF?

My RE teachers at school seemed to all be history teachers who'd been forced into RE duty and were thus not very enthusiastic. We watched Rain Man in one lesson, the RElevance of which still escapes me.

One of my A Level philosophy tutors was a strict Catholic which struck me as anathema at the time but now I don't think it was a problem.

I would have liked to study all the multi-faith stuff. That would have been, like, interesting.

I felt really sorry for her as she was evidently a little fragile but harmless and meant well and simply wanted to teach and play the guitar during assembly

(now our geaography teacher is a diff matter entirely - whilst singing in assembly he used to lift his arms unto the lord with his eyes closed and would shake and do little "accept us lord" fill ins during the songs, he also once exorcised w@yne g1tt1ns cos he was a bad child - no shit - placed his hand on his end and demanded the demons leave. they didnt tho because he went on to beat someone up later that day)

all true i promise you

I think RE is treated differently from school to school in terms of importance and there seems to be a bit less of simply retraining a teacher from another subject to do the job such as the History teacher mentioned above and teachers that I had at school.

If you ask me it's the Maths teachers who are mentalists.

the important task was subtly to kick him while up at his desk, on one leg or the other, to see if he noticed, and demonstrate toll all which leg it was

Grant O most glorious Trinity
Father Son and Holy Spirit
That as this school was founded to Thy glory
So it may forever flourish to Thy perpetual praise
Who livest and reignest
Thy light and Thy salvation
God ever blest
World without end
Amen

This was taught to us by Sister somebody from Leeds, who was an Anglican so I'm not sure why she was referred to as Sister (are there such things as Anglican nuns?). She was one of only a handful of teachers who wore a gown all the time, as opposed to just at assembly and on special occasions, which led to the whole class singing the Batman theme when she ran across the yard in it when it was raining.

Oh and RE was called Divinity, too.

Mr. Miller, shop teacher. Three days spent on how to sharpen a pencil.
Ms. Callahan, gym teacher to two generations of unappreciative females in my family. She never got in the pool and told girls who had extended dance remix approach to period-related pool avoidance that 'it stops when you go in the water'. My mum advised me never to fuck with this woman but I couldn't resist asking her 'how would you know?' to the periods/pool assertion - perfect insult on so many levels.
Mr Tibbs, art teacher. Would get into crying jags because he had a crush on two beautiful blond boys in my class who did not requite.
Mr. Weirauch, gym teacher who taught Health and couldn't resist offloading his morality and homophobia issues onto us. Whole class of boys pretended to be queer for a day just to fuck him up.

THE WINNER however was Mr. Boyington, maths teacher who had a highly developed system of demerits for misbehaviour and ZERO CLUE about actually teaching maths because he got sidetracked screaming at us. He would point at students like a pod person in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and rasp "Warning!" and if you got two, he set you extra work (which nobody ever did as a form of solidarity). He also SHOOK with rage when angry, which generally happened 20 minutes into the class. I was the last person in the class to be Warned and behaved dismissively: "perhaps if you spent less time freaking out and handing out warnings and more time trying to teach the damn class you might actually get results. Besides, if you have to beg for respect from a bunch of 14-year-olds I honestly pity you."
"Language! Warning!"
"What did I say?"
(vibrates) "I don't like your attitude."
"Well, that's a bit rich considering nobody here likes yours, nobody's learning anything, and just to add insult to injury our parents' property taxes also bought that hideous tie."
"I'm going to write a note to your mother."
"Hey, go for it, she thought you were crap when she went here too so I'm sure you'll get a lot of sympathy there."

(Yes I was a Teflon-coated Vulcan bitch disrespecter of incompetent adults until I was 16, primarily because I didn't want to be a goody-goody straight A's type in the eyes of my peers. But I was friendly enough with some of my teachers to get the skinny on the personality defects/tranquiliser prescription habits/'issues' of staff they didn't care for)

SUZY RULES

It was kind of a shame he had to leave, he would do absolutely mad things like say "Hit the floor, gang!" and then make us all lay on the floor because it was an important survival skill in the the jungle.

The fiercest thing we did, though, was to deactivate this bully. Another of the artskool punk girls, Esther, was a cousin of Squeaky from the Manson family (she would have made the best goth EVER). One day we'd had enough of Toby and his book-flinging, girl-hassling ways and red-lipsticked HELTER SKELTER! SQUEAKY SAYS DIE!!! all over his locker. He didn't cross us, look at us or speak to us ever again and would change directions if he saw us coming towards him, blowing kisses.

Then I went to a Catholic high school. The bizzarest incident with a teacher was when an extremely sour-faced nun came in one day to lecture us sophomores on the various birth control devices available. As I recall everything she said was medically accurate, although she did make a point of dwelling on failure rates and nasty side effects (not that either are to be dismissed lightly).

He had a severe heart attack just after seeing my GCSE results, apparently. I nearly killed my maths teacher! RAH!

And I wasn't even IN the Scouts.

He never taught me himself, but my English class was held in the room next to his. Whenever we heard him start to raise his voice, my English teacher would raise his hand and signal us all to be quiet, and the class would sit in silence listening to the furious shouting from the next room.

Also, no corporal punishment at my school. If a teacher had struck a student, lawyer-based hilarity would surely have followed.

Then there was the guy who ran the drug ring.

One of the music teachers had a habit of locking unruly pupils in the cupboard at the back of his classroom. However, that was also where he stored the bike that he rode to and from school on. He stopped locking kids in there after he left one there for a couple of periods, and found his bike completely dismantled.

The problem was there was not consisten way of saying that sentence - so some people believed he had an epiphany whilst bathing, whilst others thought he had seen God in the buff in his omnipotent tub.

I also had a history teacher who had a smelly old dog. If you were late for class he made you do press-ups and the dog used to try and hump you.

Can't remember anything about my divinity teacher except that everything thought he was gay. He used to wear stripey blazers and a straw boater on special occasions which may have fuelled this rumour.

Oh, and anyone got a good theory on why primary/secondary school teachers tend to be so odd? Is it the low pay?

This might explain why we're such a godless bunch.

But would have made the test (Q1: Capitalism or Communism?) too hard.

I apologise to the many fine educators (and students) who I have needlessly slandered in my preceding sentence.

I just checked, and found out that it was abolished in 1989, not 1990. There's next to no information about it online, unfortunately.

Easiest to distract was our Latin teacher, except there was a Latin Roulette element. Maybe four times out of five you could say something like "What kinds of hats did they wear in ancient Rome, sir" or "What elbow did they lean on while eating?" and he'd be off for the rest of the class, rambling on. The fifth time he would go beetroot coloured and screech at you "DO YOU TAKE ME FOR SOME KIND OF FOOL? DO YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING? DETENTION!" To be honest, this was entertaining too, albeit at a cost to someone (me, once).

I had CCD but it was through my church not my school. No one knew what it stood for.

I have forever associated 70s burguhl-wheat hippydom with christian mentalism thanks to this.

This thread's totally amazing.

I always wonder about teachers who only waste your time. Do they think they're doing a good job (self-deluded) or do they know they are shitty?

all RE teachers are mentalists

My housemate's an RE teacher! He is also an atheist and an award-winning Happy Hardcore producer.

.....my very first maths teacher was simply palin evil

― james (james), Monday, 28 July 2003 11:38 (7 years ago)

He is also an atheist

Does he tell the students? Is it a denominational school?

Secular school, sounds like the biggest demographic is second gen Muslims. He says he's always straight with his students about his atheism if they ask him and it's never been a problem.

cf. a friend of mine who teaches RE in a secular school with a lot of evangelical fundies in his classes. He's a Quaker and regularly get's told that he's going to burn in Hell.

Fun, da mentalists.

Is this in the UK, Ed?

yup, east london.

Ha, my housemate's school is round those parts too.

I would think atheism an advantage in teaching RE frankly.