Teachers saying "you would amount to nothing"

I was too busy behaving like a moron to remember anything any of my teachers said to me.
 
I had that but in fairness it was deserved, I did nothing but dick around in class. Turns out they were wrong, but I can understand why they said it at the time.
 
Resident said:
My sis-in-law was told she wouldn't amount to owt unless she studied 24/7, she'd never become a nurse like she wanted. Unfortunately this came from both the school and her grandparents of whom she lived with.

She studied hard, got the grades and went on to uni and became a nurse. Now in her late 20s she carried on with studying and has had a high level research role.

Some would say despite being told she's not good enough she's made a success of herself, near 40k a year, multiple medical qualifications etc etc.

But here's the rub. She's not happy. Constantly in a mood, nothing and no-one is good enough for her leading to her being terminally single despite wanting a relationship. She's always trying to find that next education step to take but doesn't have a clue as to where she now wants to be, the initial goal has been satisfied. Although constantly employed she moves from job to job within the NHS because her colleague 'annoy her' for not being perfection etc.

So being academically successful doesn't alway mean being a success in life.
Click to expand...


Surely less than 40k a year is not "successful" for a uni graduate?

That's skilled labour levels, college/vocational stuff
 
lunar said:
Ironic isn't it; bin men are in a job, considered key workers and pilots are out of work.
Click to expand...

It has been really weird and in some cases horribly ironic.

The career I was toying with pursuing a year ago has completely vaporised and I'd have been out of work if I'd jumped ship while my current employment is a bit of a dead end job it is about as safe as anything in the current climate.

Someone I know who had done quite well for themselves but have a history of making some really nasty belittling comments towards people who hadn't done as well, including to me, has ended up with their business bankrupt and moving back in with their parents due to COVID-19 and I didn't feel any sympathy at all on hearing it.
 
Rroff said:
It has been really weird and in some cases horribly ironic.
The career I was toying with pursuing a year ago has completely vaporised and I'd have been out of work if I'd jumped ship while my current employment is a bit of a dead end job it is about as safe as anything in the current climate.
Click to expand...
I was going to jump ship last year and while I'd not have been out of work, it would have been even more challenging in the current situation and I'd not have been happy with it at all.

I'd looked at moving into other jobs a few times before that and would definitely have been stuffed now in a few cases. So yeah, I'm extremely grateful to my gut instinct and intuition. I do really feel for those who are suffering through no fault of their own though.

Rroff said:
Someone I know who had done quite well for themselves but have a history of making some really nasty belittling comments towards people who hadn't done as well, including to me, has ended up with their business bankrupt and moving back in with their parents due to COVID-19 and I didn't feel any sympathy at all on hearing it.
Click to expand...
Karma is a *****, eh? :D

FoxEye said:
My current opinion of myself is that I'm barely scraping average, but I honestly believe I was built up way too much as a kid and it made me an arrogant little ****.
Click to expand...

I'm one of those people who is probably capable of a lot more. Now I'm a little older I just want an easy life and don't want to be doing tonnes of labs and certs that I'm not keen on in my spare time (been there, done that). I'm currently pushed more than enough mentally and doing OK financially but don't want any real responsibility tbh.
 
Last edited:
I will always regret not throwing one of my A-level economics teachers out of our 4th floor window. He admitted to whole class he hadn't graded my essay properly :(
 
Last edited:
My main memory from primary school is my year 4 teacher who would yell at anyone who had the misfortune to use a double or, worse, triple exclamation mark for emphasis: "Overuse of punctuation is the sign of a weak and lazy mind."

Miss Dimock bringing her A game to grammar noobz :slayer:
 
Rroff said:
It has been really weird and in some cases horribly ironic.

The career I was toying with pursuing a year ago has completely vaporised and I'd have been out of work if I'd jumped ship while my current employment is a bit of a dead end job it is about as safe as anything in the current climate.

Someone I know who had done quite well for themselves but have a history of making some really nasty belittling comments towards people who hadn't done as well, including to me, has ended up with their business bankrupt and moving back in with their parents due to COVID-19 and I didn't feel any sympathy at all on hearing it.
Click to expand...

“Always be nice to the people you meet on your way up the ladder of success as you‘re only one **** up away from having to ask one of them for a job when your Plan A goes pear-shaped.”
 
Terminal_Boy said:
“Always be nice to the people you meet on your way up the ladder of success as you‘re only one **** up away from having to ask one of them for a job when your Plan A goes pear-shaped.”
Click to expand...

Indeed - we've been hiring all sorts who've been made redundant, etc. unexpectedly due to the current situation - some were on like 3x the salary previously in roles like sales director - though I don't expect them to stick around longer term.
 
Guest2 said:
I remember as kid one of two of the teachers at my primary and secondary school would say things like "you will never amount to anything" and "you will be a bin man when you're older"

Now i'm not sure if teachers still say the same sort of things to kids these days but looking back now I am around their age (36) I can safely say they were wrong and am probably on at least 2 or 3 times the average teachers salary. I highly expect some of them will still be working now, maybe as elderly substitute teachers having to top up their pension in their 60s :D

Did your teachers ever say your would amount to nothing and would like to shove it in their face that they were wrong?
Click to expand...

My mother told me a story that when they moved from London to Brighton they mentioned it to the junior school headmaster he said "oh we don't invite people around for cups of tea, we invite them around for a sherry!" He thought we were east end trash or something he always had it in for me used to make me the butt of his jokes to make all the other kids laugh at me in class. God I hated him. In secondary school I wasn't particularly athletic and the sports teachers used to do much the same. The maths teachers were all past retirement age and belonged to a different era they carried a cane or strap and used to take particular pleasure and meting them out at the slightest infraction of their many rules, gleefully I would add. Most teachers simply ignored you though the one word of encouragement I had was the art teacher who really liked some stuff I drew I still remember that. Miss Jarvis was her name, thank you miss. This was back in the 70's/80's, different era then I imagine everyones a special snow flake now apparently.
 
there has to be some kind of irony with a school teacher telling people "you will never amount to anything" ? it's not exactly a prestigious job is it.
how many people aspire to be a school teacher?
 
arknor said:
there has to be some kind of irony with a school teacher telling people "you will never amount to anything" ? it's not exactly a prestigious job is it.
how many people aspire to be a school teacher?
Click to expand...

There is an interesting topic in that point regarding why teaching is not a more attractive career, as it should be something people aspire to.

My wife is about to retrain as a teacher having had 12 years off work while being a full time mum (and prior to that working in investment banking/hedge funds). She doesn't need to work and is doing it because she wants to. She is effectively over qualified. For most people a teacher's salary and the perception of teachers in society could keep the more aspirational out of the career. It's a real shame as for obvious reasons it is an important position.
 
Skidder said:
There is an interesting topic in that point regarding why teaching is not a more attractive career, as it should be something people aspire to.

My wife is about to retrain as a teacher having had 12 years off work while being a full time mum (and prior to that working in investment banking/hedge funds). She doesn't need to work and is doing it because she wants to. She is effectively over qualified. For most people a teacher's salary and the perception of teachers in society could keep the more aspirational out of the career. It's a real shame as for obvious reasons it is an important position.
Click to expand...
well I'd imagine a lot of people who get in to teaching actually want to help people learn and wouldn't dream of coming out with such nonsense.
but it seems at least when I was at school a few of them were bitter and depressed and liked to take it out on the students because they hated the job so much.

I went to a crap school though, doubt it was much fun for any of the staff
 
No never really saw any of this firsthand, although anecdotally I heard it happen from PE teachers laying into members of the rugby squad about how useless they were.

I still remember the grade I was most proud of on my school report, would've been 2nd maybe 3rd year at secondary school. A "2 A" for Biology, with the number being an effort rating 1-3 and the grade being standard performance grading. Generally speaking for most subjects if you got an A grade you would invariably get either a 1 or a 1.5 for effort. This teacher was basically saying you got top marks but you're not really trying.

Terminal_Boy said:
Never met any of my teachers again after leaving school, so I’ve no idea if they’d have been satisfied that I did alright for myself. Having left school almost 40 years ago, I suspect that they’re not around to ask.
Click to expand...
After uni I ended up working somewhere just up the road from my old school (literally about 3mins walk in a straight line). I remember bumping into one of my old teachers a couple of times and he was disappointed, saying I should be doing a lot better for myself than the crap job I had at the time. So I guess I was kind of the opposite of the OP, teachers expected more from me than I achieved.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom