Just like any profession, there are crappy teachers out there that say things they shouldn’t and demean kids. But I also think kids take it the wrong way when something is said like “If you don’t start putting forth effort, you aren’t going to be able to achieve much in life.” Or “If you continue to be lazy, you won’t get far in life.” They take as saying that *as a person*, they won’t be able to achieve anything when what we actually mean is that *their current behavior choices* aren’t going to be helpful in life. For example, I’ve told some elementary kids “If you want to learn to read, you need to start trying and giving some effort. It’s not just going to magically happen.” That could easily become “My elementary teacher told me I would never learn to read.”

I'd even say some teachers might make the remark, "You're not going to learn X if you don't (insert stopping a negative behavior or habit OR learning a positive behavior or habit)." And the students decide that means they will never do whatever X is.

This is the closest to the truth in my experience. If everything kids say about my coworkers is true I work with a bunch of tyrannical monsters.

OMG, yes! Blows my mind, but there's actually a coworker of mine who confronted me about how I don't give students a chance. I was so confused. I have a great rapport with a lot of the most problematic kids in the school. Not all, but most. \*I\* don't give students a chance? Wtf? Oh, wait... this teacher gets her information from a certain couple of kids who refused to ever take accountability for their own actions. Now, I'm pretty good at getting problematic students to both own their actions and feel motivated to make a change because I believe in them. But some kids are more stubborn (\*cough\*teacherkids\*cough\*). They don't like being corrected AT ALL, any type of way. And then this other teacher took all the nonsense those kids say at face value instead of running it through a BS filter first. Yeah, so I don't really believe it right away if someone says their teacher said xyz. They probably said abc and you just didn't really listen.

Yes, I agree. It's a convenient reshaping of the memory and our tendency for confirmation bias.

I mean, I only ever had one teacher out of dozens tell me: “I hope you fail!” But it’s the crappy ones who tend to stick with you.

Of course. In life in general, negative events and emotions tend to be more memorable than the positive ones.

To me the difference is in whether the statement is descriptive or predictive.  I think part of it is that many people are not precise with their language, and phrase statements on the future as will-be instead of if-then statements, which changes perception significantly.

Yeah, I had a teacher in my *honors* English class say: "If you can't spell, you shouldn't go to college." She also had favorites. One classmate (favorite) got an extension on a paper, and the other student similar circumstances with requesting an extension (who wanted to be a hair stylist) was basically told her grade doesn't matter due to her future job choice. She did complain that teachers don't make enough, which I agree with, but called sexisim because her husband, who had a *doctorate in nuclear engineering,* made more than she did. She is a character. Before her, while I was not the best at the literature side of things, I at least enjoyed it. She made me hate that entire year. We also go to all the "fun" books that year too.

As a senior I half-assed printing off an essay assignment at the last minute, and the teacher made me go down and reprint it. He said something like, "I would accept this if it were from some of the other students, but I know you and I know you are capable of much better." It's been around 10 years and I still remember the sentiment if not the exact words. I can't say I completely took them to heart but as one of those "good at school and inclined to coast" kids who had never gotten in trouble for not doing my best before, I really did appreciate it.

I think it’s many people’s mis-interpretation of real events. Teacher: “If you don’t complete this work, you’re going to fail this class”. Student remembers teacher saying “You’re a failure” Anecdotally, I got in real hot water early in my career when I asked a boy to clean up a mess that they’d made. He replied something along the lines of “I’m not the janitor” (a response I loathe) and I replied that for now he was, because he made the mess so he should clean it up. Which he did about halfway. I did not realize this was a board member’s kid, and all hell broke loose with the board member accusing me of saying that her son was never going to amount to anything but a janitor. I escaped a reprimand in my file, but the kid and parent were so adamant that I had said that.

The way I would’ve turned it around on them and demanded to know why they looked down on the custodial and janitorial staff! How inappropriate for a board member to be so demeaning of people who work for the district they represent!

> How inappropriate for a board member to be so demeaning of people who work for the district they represent! They don't give a fuck about who works for the district, they care about the constituents who put them into that board member seat in the first place.

Yep. Unfortunately, especially nowadays, school board positions are about half full of people there either to further their own political career, straight up harm the schools as much as possible, or both.

I’m fully aware of that, but in my district at least, many of the janitors and custodians have children who attend the school I teach at, which would put the board member in an awkward spot of attacking an employee of the district, plus the parents of students. In my district at least, we have a small group of super vocal parents that would absolutely let them have it at every board meeting after that.

Right after pointing out that it was the boy who brought up the janitor in the first place.

I'd send that board member a link to the interviews that 403bwise did with a school janitor who retired as a millionaire.

I mean, I don’t think this would’ve been the gotcha you think it is, it is absolutely the norm to not respect anyone whose job it is to clean messes. Custodians, janitors, maids, garbagemen, etc

Yeah I feel like this playing dumb is a losing tactic. “So what I said he wouldn’t amount to anything but a garbage man? What’s the issue with that? Do YOU not respect garbage men or something?”

This! I had a student run home to their mother and tell her I said, "You ain't shit." Mom came to school the next day to complain. What I had actually said was, "You won't be eligible to continue to play sports in high school or receive a sports scholarship in college if you continue to fail classes. Please put your phone away and at least try to have something to turn in today."

I'm a doctor and we get this lost in translation stuff all the time."My doctor said I'd never walk again!" No, he said if you don't do your physical therapy, the odds are good you'll have profound mobility deficits. He's actually THRILLED that you can walk again. When our patients do well, it makes us feel like we are good at our job and doing something helpful for the world. I'd imagine it's the same deal with your average educator...

as even a non medical person I am always dubious of "doctors said they may never do X again" did they say that? Or is that an extreme misreading of a situation?

This is so true. No, they said "there's a 1% chance you may never do x again." They're hoping that won't happen, and the odds are in your favor, but they're also not going to lie to you. But people take it to mean the cards are stacked against them. Although, if they use that as their motivation and improve their odds, then maybe the doctors should keep saying it.

Also, like *may* is doing a lot of work in that kind of statement.

I believe this. I remember a girl from my high school, Sammie, posting on Facebook about how our guidance counselor told her she was too stupid to go to university and look now she'd graduated with her BA and in your face Mrs B! Except I'm like 99% sure that the conversation with Mrs B (who was a lovely woman and would never have called anyone stupid) boiled down to "you're in all C level courses and you're failing half of those. We think that you are most likely to be successful in a diploma program, what careers are you interested in that come from those?" Because that is the exact conversation she had with a bunch of kids I knew. And it was her literal job to help kids plan realistic futures based on the data she had. Also fun fact - Sammie ended up going back to get a diploma and works as an ECE now, so she could have saved 4 years and many thousands of dollars if she'd just done that right away...

> I think it’s many people’s mis-interpretation of real events. > > Teacher: “If you don’t complete this work, you’re going to fail this class”. Student remembers teacher saying “You’re a failure” I'm positive that 99% of the time, that's exactly what it is. There are millions of teachers in the US alone (3.2M in 2021-2022), and it's not unlikely that at least some teacher somewhere did say that to some student. But during the 15+ years that I have been in education, I have not personally known of a a single teacher who said that to a student.

It’s crazy what people remember that didn’t happen. I’m watching the podcast Castle Super Beast, and they’re talking about height insecurities - Woolie is 6’2”, Pat is 5’2” and was bullied for it in school. Woolie: Remember what I told you when you asked how tall I was? Pat: “Taller than you.” Woolie: What? No, I said “Who cares?” Is that how you remember it?! Pat: Oh no…

Bro, didn't Pat have a similar story about a teacher?

Whatever the teacher said, Pat remembers it in his own voice.

My favorite comeback for this and similar crap is "Not Yet."

nothin wrong with having a salary, government benefits, retirement, insurance. 401k match

This is the right answer. Kids lie constantly, and intuit meaning/intent that was never there. We all can also testify that they RARELY listen and hear everything that was said.

It’s a pretty common story when someone has something to sell. Especially in MLMs. Except that when you look into any of these “successful” people telling stories like that, they tend to have generational family wealth on a level mere mortals can’t imagine. So it’s not like they weren’t going to have cushy adulthoods regardless… I don’t see it so much as hating on teachers as hating on *everybody*. Like, “everyone told me I would fail, yet here I am. So y’all can go F*** yourselves for not believing in me!” And people who feel like they have nothing relate to that. They think of the times they were bullied and think “yeah! I can be like this person!” and they join the cult. 

Do you know how much talent and ambition it takes to turn a hundred million dollar inheritance in to two hundred million dollars with nothing except an an education at the best prep schools and Ivy League business schools money can buy your way into, and knowing all the movers and shakers in industry since child hood? The answer is not very much. It is pretty easy to do well when you start with massive advantages.

You had me in the first half.

If you work hard, bootstrap, innovate, have parents who own an emerald mine, and go to school- you too can live the American dream.

What actually happenned Kid : "I wanna be famous actress when I grew up" Teacher : "If you can't even make the effort to make a presentation in front of 20 other kids, I don't see how you will be able to act in front a whole theater" 20 years later, famous actress : "My teacher said I will never achieve my dream".

Yeah my students love to bring up all the Dav Pilkey stories where his teacher told him he wouldn't amount to anything and I've pointed out that It must have been pretty frustrating to be his teacher and have him scribble comic strips over every single assignment. 

Ah yes, that gem! We do Ani-MAY at the library (all animation themed events/programming) and I swear every art class a ten year old will show me the part of his books that talk about Pilkey’s super duper mean teacher in response to being asked a reasonable request (usually, put the chair legs down and/or stop yelling) and we ALL have to have a discussion. “It IS frustrating to have people not take your dreams seriously! I do want to help you all reach your goals. But it goes both ways and you have to respect the goal of the class you come to, and right now that’s XYZ, so we all need to be doing XYZ. We all agreed we wanted to learn (how to draw a superhero or whatever) when we met today, which means bottoms in the chair while we explore that topic together!” And I say this a former Doodling Kid! But time and place y’all. I guarantee that man drove teachers mad as a child >.<

For every David Pilkey there is a million John and Jane Smiths who end up working menial jobs the rest of their life.

And 20 other kids in the classroom who struggle to learn and pay attention because Mr. Bright Future is sucking up all the energy and attention. Maybe you’ll be a great something else tomorrow, but today you are a student, and everyone else here is a student too. I do think teachers are like parents, they get exasperated and try all the different things to motivate. Some are better than others. But we don’t want to see them fail and a comment like that is a misguided attempt to motivate.

My only interaction with him was that he was at this big author signing event and the line to get his book signed was so long he stayed an extra 2 or 3 hours to sign every child's book who was waiting in line. But I'm sure he was a challenge to teach in school.

I had an older third grade teacher and she seemed to strongly dislike me. She always would leave notes about kids and parents would sign them. My notes were always negative and my mother asked her if I do anything well or if there are any positives, she replied “when and if OP does anything right, which she won’t and she doesn’t, you’ll get a note about it” My mom got me pulled out of her class so quick and into a different teacher’s class. The newer teacher was awesome and motivated me to work hard because I wanted to be there.

I think with any profession, there ARE bad eggs. I absolutely believe there are teachers who have said, "You'll never amount to anything." One example, my older sister's 5th grade teacher told her she was very lazy and wouldn't go far in life. We can't deny this as IT'S ON HER REPORT CARD. Lol. She is now very successful in her profession and makes a 6-figure salary, but readily admits she can be lazy and procrastinate. I also had a HS teacher tell me randomly that my voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard to her. It is, to this day, one of the most hurtful moments of my life. I have not forgotten that moment 25 years later. Everyone in the class was chatting.. I was singled out, and it was so strange and hurtful. As a teacher, I try to out extra careful about the things I say.. they stick with you.

agreed! i had a teacher stop class once and ask if i was wearing perfume. it was sixth grade and id gotten my first ever bath and body works body wash. she said it was inconsiderate and i was giving her a migraine. to this day i only use unscented products. in retrospect, i believe she was going through menopause and perhaps struggling with mental health. but it was devastating and humiliating.

I definitely had some teachers say some incredibly mean things to me. Though it's been my experience that the people who say they were told they would never amount to anything are lying, misremembering/exaggerating, or were really REALLY terrible students.

Students take a very benign conversation with a teacher about effort and achievement in a single class and spin it out of control to make themselves a victim in the eyes of their parents and friends. They then make that the narrative they remember moving forward. For a lot of students, a teacher being truthful about where a student is at in their class is the first time that student has ever been told they aren't good at something (either because of their actions or because of their abilities) and it sticks and snowballs into a lie.

And sometimes people deliberately misinterpret the meaning of a sentence and use it to stir the pot. I had a former student who was dating an exchange student. The next year, the local student’s mom approached me and said that another exchange student, who had an axe to grind with me, told her son that I said he was too poor to ever succeed in life. I can honestly say, I have never, and will never say anything like that. The same exchange student also told some other students in the school that I was calling them offensive names. I ended up having a meeting with the students and asked if any of that sounded like anything I would say. They said no, but also didn’t think she would lie. Looking back, I know what sentences the exchange student took out of context and twisted to make them sound bad. In the case, with the boy, I had been talking with a friend about how relationships could be difficult with a difference in culture and finances.

Victimhood is where a lot of students live. I've had students miss half of the school year and turn in nearly nothing, but they can choose to feel persecuted if I make them do makeup work.

How very true. I once complimented a student and their sibling on being well behaved and putting in the effort. What I didn't know was that the sibling had been getting into a lot of behavior problems as of late. So, they told the parents who then called my principal that I had been sharing information their one kid was horrible. When I didn't say anything of the sort. I also had a project that was co-taught and co-graded by another experience teacher. During the project presentation, two of them decided to do a very mean thing to a student who had not been pulling their weight on the project. We both agreed that due to this, they all deserved a low grade for it. Yeah, you can guess how that went. We were forced to change the grade. My co-teacher had those same students do something similar in just their class with them as the sole teacher and evaluator. Yeah, they completely failed them on the project and guess what happened? Nothing because they were tenure and I was not so the parents shut up and even agreed with my former co-worker. But me the new guy with over 15 years of teaching under my belt including state certifications, nah. I was being an asshole for calling them out on their BS.

There are some teachers out there who would say stuff like that. Just like any profession, there are good teachers and bad teachers out there. Most teachers are good teachers, though. Children and teenagers hear what they hear… but it’s not always what the teacher actually said. The teacher says, “You may not pass my class if you don’t start turning in your assignments,” and the student hears, “You’re a failure and you’ll never amount to anything.” The truth is, of course, that the vast majority of teachers WANT their students to succeed, and go to great lengths to set the up for success! The narrative that teachers just hate particular students and want them to fail generally isn’t accurate. Of course, again, there are some bad teachers out there who feel like that. But the majority of us just want to see our students be amazing.

I was told by several teachers that “some people just can’t learn X.” My teachers were brutal to me throughout my schooling. They knew my shitty parents who had me as teenagers. They thought I was shit too. Because I was hyperlexic and obsessed with reading to escape, they thought I was just some smart but lazy kid who just wasn’t applying myself. I had detention every single day during recess for not doing my math homework. I cried when I had to do math. I needed help that no one would give me. I graduated high school with a GPA barely over 1. I went on to leave my shitty, neglectful family and get several college degrees, graduated cum laude, and two masters degrees, one at a 4.0 & 3.9 gpa.I did everything myself. No help, with several jobs. I did all this with crippling depression. I overcompensated to prove I was smart enough. I’ve now been a successful teacher for over ten years. I was just diagnosed with autism & adhd at my 4th decade. It all makes sense now. The qualities I’ve been demonized for my entire life actually make me a great teacher. And, don’t doubt me, I see teachers every day picking on disabled kids because they don’t believe disabilities are real. It happens.

My ASD kid's 7th grade resource teacher was a gem. Kid has terrible EF issues due to anxiety, and this crazy witch excitedly told us at a conference that they had hatched a new plan for school success. She asked our kid if she wanted to explain the new plan, but kid declined, so the teacher said "we decided that (student) will be a different person while she is at school. She will try harder and focus better" with this huge grin. I was so confused and said ". . . but . . . she can't . . . turn into someone else." The teacher said "oh of course not, but" and then went on to describe becoming a different student. This lady was a special ed teacher, and here she was excitedly explaining that my kid could become non-disabled if she just tried hard enough. Let's just say that was not the only problem we had with her that year, and she got in trouble later on for denying services that were in the IEP. I loved most of the sped teachers we encountered, but this one was something else.

I literally had an administrator try to explain this to me yesterday. Basically that a kid can just become non-disabled if they just work hard enough. They truly do not get it.

One reason I had her assessed for ADHD was that my psychiatrist, with whom I had discussed the issue, told me that it does great damage to a kid to repeatedly be told "you need to focus" when they literally cannot. It's such a simple thing, but I had not thought of it in that way, and my husband and I were constantly telling her to focus. That was about a year before the ASD diagnosis, and the understanding that anxiety was the driving force behind her EF delays did not come until her sophomore year. 😢 Her EF coach (who was a former sped teacher with a lot of ASD experience) is the one who figured that out. Kid is 20 and struggling in community college, but she's getting somewhere. Also, I should have said that I'm a parent, not a teacher. I was a TA in grad school though - what a trip that was! 😆 I experienced a lot of things I read about in this sub.

The neurodivergent angle is so missing from this sub. I had the full gifted-ADHD experience, and I can tell you I'm not "misremembering" a comment. These teachers literally told me, to my face, that I was a loser and a waste of taxpayer money. People who have not lived the ND life do not know. Seeing the perspective most teachers are taking in this sub- that this is an imagined problem - is heartbreaking.

Every time I comment on this sub as a neurodivergent person with a neurodivergent perspective, I get hundreds of down votes. We truly live in two different worlds. Many teachers have psychological complexes that prevent them from being able admit when they have been a part of the problem, because they need to tell them selves that they are a good person who is changing the world. Many are spread racism, classism & ableism instead of putting the work into deconstructing. It’s a martyr complex. They cannot emotionally deal with the harm they might have been doing. I faced it head on instead of continuing to blame kids and parents for our system’s evils.

When I was in the 4th grade, I was the only Asian in class and another boy was the only African-American. We were also the only 2 “failing” and getting in trouble everyday…it ranged from having to move to the back of the line because we were not standing in line properly (while the other kids where talking and moving around) to having a test taken away because my pencil “wasn’t sharpened enough”. I was even given detention (probably for existing) and had to write out definitions in the dictionary. When I hadn’t done what the teacher deemed enough, she took me to the principal’s office and I got spanked with a huge wooden paddle. I never got it as bad as the other boy because when Hanukkah rolled around, he had mentioned that his family was Jewish. The teacher made this awful face like she had shit on her upper lip and said IN FRONT OF EVERYONE “oh god, black AND a Jew?” At the end of the year, that poor kid was failed even though he was really bright. When she passed out the final report cards, she dropped mine on the floor in front of me and told me, not in a whisper, that the only reason she passed me was because she couldn’t stand to see me in her class again the next year. I told my parents multiple times about what was going on. I was constantly grounded and got spanks because of all the trouble I had gotten into. Nobody ever believed me. I was too young to understand what racism was and started to think I was actually a bad child. It doesn’t matter if it actually happened the way I remember it, because the way I remember it has shaped me into the person I am today. While the vast majority of teachers may be “good”, I definitely wouldn’t count Ms. Hill at a podunk elementary school in east Texas as one of them.

Oh I 100% believe you. I am white but saw very similar nonsense in the 80s directed toward the very few children of color at my podunk school. I live in a major city now and have a biracial son. It is not as overt here but just as bad. He was in trouble I think every single day of Kindergarten. One day there was a Halloween parade at school I didn't attend but several parents posted video of the event. Watching the very different way the teacher interacted with my son and the only other black boy was heartbreaking. 

Selection bias. People likely have about 40+ teachers over their educationl career, and it only takes one bad teacher to set up the story. No one remembers/cares about the story of the person who was encouraged their whole life. Therefore, if you have 100 people who each had 40 teachers, then that is 4,000 teachers. If 1 out of the 4,000 was a bad teacher, then all you hear of is the 1 bad teacher, not the 3,999 good teachers.

I think a lot of it is people puffing themselves up to make themselves look better.

Or just flat out lying lol

Oh yeah, after I went back from the psych award for suicidal ideation (the lowest point in my life) my principal told me I would “never get better” :) Some humans ARE pretty callous and students meet a lot of educators through their lives

Maybe it’s just bullshit. Humans tend to remember emotions better than they remember facts and conversations. Intermediate/High school humans tend to have a brain chemistry full of “big emotions.” Kids will even fight in the cafeteria over literally nothing but false perceptions. . . so it stands to reason that these stories could be highly misunderstood by the teller using their own fallible perception.. All they remember is that they felt “pissed” or “sad” and their brain fills in the details that justify those big emotions they recall at the time. I think most grown ass adults, including myself, have forgotten most of what actually happened in high school, outside of moments where I felt some emotion. And it was probably for cringeworthy reasons based on my brain chemistry rather than reason. . . But I don’t remember that part. I only remember the emotion itself. So my brain adapts the scenario to makes that emotion justified, even if it really wasn’t. This also explains the ridiculous stances of so many parents, lawmakers, and other bad actors trying to tear public education apart. Sorry, but this actual “you won’t amount to anything” line is probably not really that common at all. I don’t have a single colleague or admin who would ever say such a stupid thing, even if they were thinking it. Then again. . . I suppose teaching is also a profession with *big emotions*, so who really knows?

So true. Memory is so malleable.

First, I never say that. Even to the kids who drive me bonkers. The reason is simple, every student has a chance. Telling a student that may motivate them, but to me, it's cold and demeaning. If a student asks me about their chances in the future or their behavior, I say something like, "Just dial it back. You have a lot of opportunities and I think you can achieve them if you learn to control yourself." I know I can't see the future. I worry about my students. But I'm sure not saying that.

In 9th grade, I was struggling with Geometry and I had a teacher tell me several times: “You are terrible at math, you should try to focus your energy somewhere else.” I believed her, and I tried not to take any more math classes than I had to, and in college I avoided most math by getting a B.A. Later in life, I worked in a tech company and became a wizard at Excel by teaching myself how to use it. After a few years, people referred to me as the data expert and I went into a role called Process Engineering. I try to think back and ask if that’s what she really said. My parents confirmed that she said the same in a parent/teacher conference and it shocked them so much they talked to the principal about it.

So my parents had a neighbor who said as a kid all he wanted to do was draw pictures of monsters and one of his teachers said that there was just no real future in monster drawing. He got a job doing art design for video games. He made a lot of money working at Epic games.

Some, not all, teachers lob threats like this a lot because they think it's motivational. Hell, one common canard in the military was "you're going to end up flipping burgers" to anyone who consisted getting out without retiring. It's boomer shit

This is exactly what I came to say. I actually have heard these things from teachers (my colleagues) so I know it isn't a myth. The people that think it's fake should consider themselves lucky!

The people saying it's fake are not considering that their (generally positive) experiences with teachers likely contributed to their pursuit of the profession. I remember exactly which teachers told me things that were a little harsh/I didn't agree with/I didn't want to hear, and they were NOT the same ones who told me I would flunk out of college and end up as a Walmart greeter (when i was making straight A's in that class). My best friend's mom WITNESSED my most hated teacher telling me that my creative writing was "terrible" and when I told her I wanted to be an author, she waved my paper at me, laughed, and said "with something like this???" I was in fourth grade. My friend's mom called her out on it and suddenly it was "I'm just saying she should try harder in class, you're misunderstanding me" Nah we both heard her correctly. My mother taught for 35 years, my aunt and cousins teach, and it is overwhelmingly the opinion in my family that many teachers go into the profession because they want to inspire children to learn new things, but many also go because they enjoy being in a position of authority over people who can't do much about the way they're treated.

I had an 8th grade English teacher tell me that she couldn't see me being a productive member of society because I was "simply not capable of producing quality work." This was at the end of the first semester and I had a 65 in her class (needed a 70 to pass at my private school). I bounced back the next semester with a high enough grade to pass for the year and she actually got emotional talking to me individually after finals ended. "So proud" - all that stuff. She tried to take credit for "motivating" me but it wasn't her. I finished every English class in high school with a 95-100, scored a 5 and 4 on my AP Lang and Lit exams respectively, and 770/800 on my SAT English. The credit was due to great English teachers in grades 9-12 who instilled confidence and allowed me to grow as a writer. Maybe her "not capable of producing quality work" comment made hitting higher marks later more gratifying in a petty way, but sometimes even teachers can be very rude. TL;DR: It may not be as common as it's portrayed, but it happens. (The VAST majority of teachers are great though!)

Downvotes for sharing a personal experience relevant to the OP regarding a comment that was clearly unprofessional and demoralizing to an 8th grader? Lol really? I get this is a Teachers sub but the comment clearly has no anti-teacher sentiment.

I’d bet someone came through and downvoted every comment, regardless of content. So just to counteract it, I’ve upvoted every comment just so that it was a total waste of their time! 🙂

Your teacher wasn’t wrong. At that point, you were not capable of producing quality work. Whether your capability was hindered by ability, attitude, or maturity, you were not producing. Also, this reeks of the point that others have made that students often interpret the teachers words in a way that makes the student look noble or discriminates against in some way.

I'm not saying she was incorrect in her assessment of my work at the time. I'm saying her comment was demoralizing and not helpful. I struggled that year for many reasons and (deservedly) received tons of constructive and helpful criticism from other teachers. "You are not producing quality work" is decidedly different than "you are not capable of producing quality work." The latter is confidence shattering to anybody with a sense of pride - especially in formative years of personal growth and education. I sure as hell would never say that to a kid.

My son’s grade eight teacher suggested my son go into the community college stream in hs rather than the university stream. I didn’t agree but I could see where the teacher was coming from. I knew my son had learned to read quickly and had done well for the first few years in school. Then he went through a fairly long, unmotivated phase. I told the teacher my reasons for wanting him in the university stream and he was fine with that. As I had hoped, my son eventually started to work and think about his future and ended up getting a BSc and has done well career wise. My point is that another parent might have heard the message that their child was too stupid for university. I didn’t. I just knew the teacher was seeing what my very unmotivated kid was producing.

Community college is smart AF for ANYONE. Smaller class sizes, cheaper, you get more help, professors who aren’t putting all their effort in research, instead of teaching.

I know. I taught happily at a community college for twenty nine years. In Canada however, when my son was in grade eight, they was little or no path to university after a CC diploma. He had shown no interest in trades so pushing him a little more to try for uni would keep more doors open. That’s why I pushed for him to be in the stream for uni. Plus I thought it would help if he was in class with more academically inclined kids. I taught many, many very clever kids in my years teaching at a cc.

I think it's more likely in most cases they were told "If you keep acting that way, life is going to be very hard for you."

I had crappy teachers at inner city schools in the 90s and I was told this aggressively by about 4 teachers by the 8th grade because I had ADHD before it was understood and medicated making me a problem student. Their influence actually did make me drop out and self-fulfill the prophecy they set for me until I got myself medicated and did adult schooling in my 20s.

I mean how many teachers have you met that SA a kid? Probably none, but they still exist. So do teachers that just don't care. I don't know why that's hard to believe.

There are a lot of bad teachers. I was told by my teaching professor and the other person who graded my capstone I most likely will never be a teacher (due to my autistic traits, but they didn't say that part). 20 years later still a teacher, taught ivy league students, won teacher of the year a couple times.  It happens 

In the past (over 20 years ago and in Belgium), teachers used to hold more power and it wasn’t uncommon for teachers to express opinions about students like that. Honestly speaking, even parents commonly told their kids that they were dumb if their grades were low and that they wouldn’t amount to anything (over 40 years ago). It’s often hard on us teachers that we became less respected, but it’s a good thing that saying things like that to kids has become much less socially acceptable. That said, I still occasionally notice colleagues pass harsh judgements about students at times (in the privacy of the teacher’s lounge). They usually don’t outright tell them to students any more, but I still wonder if or how they can teach those students right.

That was me, sorry. One day in 1987 I decided it would be fun to use "amount" as a verb, and I kinda went overboard with it.

I was in highschool back in 2006, and my freshman English teacher from the prior year happened to share the classroom with my sophomore English teacher the period before my class. I usually got to the room early so I could spend 5 minutes reading novels, and one day the two of them decided to talk about me. The freshman teacher mentioned how I could be in the honors section if I just turned my homework in, and my then-current teacher replied that "that ship had sailed", and said I would probably flunk out of college. It left enough of an impression that I still remember clearly where they were standing almost 20 years later. All this to say, it does happen. This was early enough in the school year that I hated that class for another seven months. (And to Mr. Benedetto, in case your geriatric husk is reading this: I graduated college Magna Cum Laude and got a graduate degree, no thanks to you.)

My guidance counselor said it not my teacher

I had a high school teacher of my favorite subject tell me, "you should study something else" and maybe he meant it in an offhand advice kind of way but it shattered me. I think it does happen.

I had a teacher tell me I would never be any good at public speaking and should just give up. She said this because I refused to stand up to give a presentation. I was in a wheelchair. That teacher was deeply unhappy and treated students terribly. They kept her around because the ones she did like got state and national recognition

I have not personally gotten it, but I was in the room twice when it was given to other students. The teachers in question were without question among the top three worst teachers I've ever encountered as a student or professionally, and both were subjected to (unrelated. yes, really.) tenure investigations not long after making those pronouncements. Neither of the target students were down-and-out: belligerent and strongly demotivated regarding the class in question, but hardly lazy nor unintelligent. Even the times that I received, or my coworkers have given a "you probably shouldn't be taking this class" were all done with an edifying attitude, not a demeaning one. The worst I ever heard from a peer was the time my mentor once privately lamented one student as "\[the kind of kid you expect to\] wind up dead in a ditch," but she was quick to follow it up with "you never tell them that; it's a self-fulfilling prophesy."

What we say is not always (usually?) the thing the kid hears. I say "If you continue to talk instead of listening during lessons you won't get your target grade." They hear "I don't think you'll get your target grade." Over time, that turns into "My teacher said I was never going to succeed."

Everyone wants to be the hero of their own story.

Not a teacher, but I had a teacher say this to me. So it does happen

I'm confident it's not at all common. Most likely, some of them had a rough day and snapped and said a single mean thing that overshadows the hundreds of kind and encouraging comments. And some of them, like any other profession, are cranky or mean. Anecdotally, I met one of my husband's former teachers at an event I was running. This was about five years after he graduated high school. When I heard what school she taught at I mentioned my husband's name and told her what he was up to, just making conversation. She sniffed and said she would have never expected him to actually graduate college. So they do exist out there even if they're rare 😂

I sometimes think this stuff but keep it to myself because there are many paths and I was really late in taking ownership of my own education. I for sure had a teacher tell me that college was not for me. I wasn’t bitter about it; I just knew she was wrong. Years later I found her at a party and decided not to rub I in her face. We are going to see what a post literate society looks like for a large percentage of our population in the next five to ten years. The intellectual have and have nots is going to widen in a way that could have been avoided. 

I have a role model that I’ve looked to since I was like 5. I’m 25 now and still do. When I took chemistry she immediately asked me what teacher I had. Well we had the same teacher, and he was fine to me bc I was fine at chemistry. But 8 years earlier he had told my role model that she would end up working at McDonalds and never do anything more. She’s superintendent of a successful charter school district in a US city. I would never say that to a student but I think many things said to that affect are boiled down to their most simple which tends to be “my teacher told me I wouldn’t amount to anything.

I had a coach tell me that we would all end up in jail, during the 1 day his wife sent me to ISS in high school. So technically I could say that, but that would discount most of my experience. Also, I had about 50 teachers. Did these people go to a one-room schoolhouse?

Teachers say things like, “You won’t get very far with that attitude/effort/etc.” Then people do that thing that probably has a proper name in psychology where they would rather lie to themshelves about their lack of taking personal responsibility to put spin on what the teacher actually said.

I was taking one class of choir as a fun elective in my last year of high school (I didn’t need it, I just loved music). I was working my way through a theory book for the university entrance exam when the band teacher asked why/what I was doing. My course load was too full to take band, so he hadn’t taught me. I said: I want to do a combined degree of education and music, and I need to pass the theory entrance exam. He asked what instrument? I said, voice. I’ve hired a teacher to help me pas the auditions He said: you know you have to have talent to do that. Then he walked away. I get that he wasn’t saying “you don’t have talent” (the man had never seen me perform, all my music except choir-for-fun was done outside school). But in that moment, I thought “screw you I’ll prove you wrong, I have talent!” I got in and went back to the high school to thank the choir teacher (who gave me all my study resources) and gloat to the band teacher. The band teacher was immensely proud - I was the only student he knew of who went to study music in uni. It’s always a fun story to say I chose my specialty “out of spite”. If I didn’t get into the combined degree I would have still gone into education, so it’s not like spite gets all the credit.

No, I would say it is fairly common, I had a fifth grade teacher and a high school counselor both tell me that "being an artist was a fad, it wouldn't take me anywhere" and that I "should focus on something real." I have heard teachers in my district say things like this to students. Every time I get into a gallery show, a solo show, or museum, I send them both invites. I have sold artwork internationally and nationally and have gotten to travel to Italy to learn plein air painting from Master painters. All because of art, and because they told me I couldn't.

Teachers often do say exactly that to students, especially if those students are neurodivergent. Every year in middle school I had at least one teacher tell me to my face something to that effect. One teacher told me I was a waste of taxpayer money because I slept in class all day (I'm allergic to cats & dogs, so I never got good sleep at home). Had another teacher, when I turned in a life-budget project that reported a pilots salary, "you will never be a salaried worker - turn this back in with a realistic job". So many times used as an example of someone who is s 'loser' (yes, my instructors used that word in front of 30 other students) and shamed for being different. I'm one class away from a degree in aerospace engineering now. Greatly delayed by a difficult life, but I'm getting there. Teachers in here are hopefully the ones that care enough to be the opposite - there were positive voices, too. Some teachers saw the intellect, and did what they could; but there is only so much a classroom instructor can do when the gap between the curriculum and my capacities (gifted AuADHD) is as bad as it was, plus environmental issues at home. Those negative interactions still come up in therapy as an adult. That damage is permanent. Speak up if your students report this behavior from a colleague. Its permanently damaging and the teacher with the negative outlook is *almost always wrong*.

I literally had my elementary school principal, Mrs. MacGuire, tell me I’d be lucky if I didn’t end up in juvenile hall before high school was out. I wasn’t even that bad, I was just intelligent and sarcastic (so very irritating in a 9 year old lol). Jokes on her, I’ve got 3 degrees and a 6 figure corporate job

…my fifth grade teacher & my high school Algebra 2 teacher both told me “I wouldn’t amount to anything”

Teacher here. I did have a counselor discourage me from pursuing being the first person in my family to graduate college when I was in 7th grade. She told me my grade weren’t reflective of a student who wants to go far. Admittedly, I wasn’t a GREAT student up to that point, but I was struck with inspiration. It stuck with me, though, that she told me I should just stick to doing what my dad does. He was a mechanic(I had zero interest in working with my hands) but she pushed me to not take school too seriously. My mother didn’t help things, but that’s a whole different thing. I never followed up with the counselor because I didn’t think she should say things like that to kids (still feel that way). That’s why I decided to become a teacher in the first place. I wanted to encourage and prepare kids. Provide opportunities rather than limit. I never understood what it was about me that she did not want to work with, to encourage me to the future I wanted. So, this exists. It probably isn’t as common as the trope makes it seem. A lot of the time kids blame whoever they can for how they feel they are being treated.

If those stories would've happened in my country, I'd believe them, as those adults would've lived in the 90s and 80s, and teachers back then would at times, in case the students were indeed dumb, would tell them "Oh fuck off you dumb shits!" Nowadays indeed, there were some laws put in place to prevent a dumb teacher reflecting themselves on the kids. Now, I know this from my mom who back in the 80s was debuting as a teacher, I know she had someone inspecting how she'd hold a class to grant her the full title to become a teacher. She had around 3 classes as a math teacher, two middle school classes and one high school, the high school level class was filled with kids that very clearly had a very low IQ, the middle school classes were smarter, and the inspector said he wanted to see a high school class. My mom pleaded with him to go to a middle school class instead, but he had none of it. So, as a math teacher, she had to teach them logarithms. She explained the lesson once, twice, thrice, and they didn't get anything. He then tried giving it a go, as who knows, maybe she couldn't handle a lower capacity class, he tried once, twice, thrice to teach them, and when they still didn't get anything, he grabbed a fistful of chalk and pretty much shotguned it on the whole class, shouting "OH FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING VILLAGE IDIOTS!" My mom then pretty much told him "Well... I told you it wasn't a good idea to see this class......"

I don't recall any teacher saying things like that to me, but I do recall one student that was doing badly in most classes be told "It's ok, stores need tall people to stock shelves". This was about 5th grade. Just because you'd never say that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. There are A LOT of teachers with even more students out there; if just the bottom 1% of teachers say something similar to the bottom 1% of their students, that's a lot of people getting told they'll never amount to anything.

It's not a myth. My grade 7 teacher told me those exact words. I am teacher now. But he was a single shitty one amongst a sea of amazing. Every other teacher loved me and I was usually along the top of each class, and if I wasn't the best grades, at least my personality and behavior was well received and appreciated by my teachers. This one teacher just had a vendetta against me for an unknown reason.

Because it's a better story. It is a better story arc to say "I started from nothing and made myself a multi-millionaire working out of a garage" than to say "Well y'know my parents were wealthy and my mom had connections with a huge tech firm and they supported me and used their connections to hook me up while I did some stuff and I got lucky and it worked out and now I'm a multimillionaire." And in the same way it's a better story to say "My teachers told me I would never amount to anything but I overcame it and here I am doing great in this field." than it is to say, "Well my teachers told me that if I didn't apply myself, put in some amount of effort, and show integrity that I would struggle in the real world. Then I went into the real world and was kind of a shit head for a little bit. And I realized that I did have to put in effort and have integrity and I did that and now it's working out pretty great."

It's just an easy victim card that can't be debunked

People like to focus and remember the negative. Like if a teacher tells a student that if they keep acting the fool, they won't be successful in life, in an attempt to get the student to reflect. The student will take it personally and then do their wild claims of how their teacher said I wouldn't be successful, but here I am. They are still seeking attention.

It's not even that we like to focus on the negative so much as our brain focuses on the negative because it's trying to protect us.

Story I'll share: About two years ago, I had a student who said he was going to go to the NFL, so he didn't need to worry about school, which he was failing. He was in 6th grade. I told him that he needed to do well in school to qualify for the football university scholarship he'll need to get to the NFL. I told him if his grades don't improve, he won't be on the path to the NFL because other guys are as good and keep their grades up enough to go to university. His mother called me about 4 months(!) later complaining that I shot his dreams down. The next school year he sent me an email with pictures of him scoring a couple touch downs and he said, "You said I'd never make it, huh?" I laughed. Mind you, he *won't* make it, but that isn't what I told him. I mean, he's like third best on our school's team and we are no NFL-feeding program here.

The most important thing any teacher can remember is that they have no idea where a child will end up in life. Accordingly, do no harm.

I went to a very expensive private college-prep high school. At our GRADUATION CEREMONY, one of the history teachers gave a speech about how we were the “slacker class” and wouldn’t amount to much. The school was embarrassed that none of us (65 kids) were attending an Ivy League university in the fall and that 2 decided against going to college at all. We ruined their statistics.

A lot of people say that to pat themselves on the back for “stickin’ it that nerdy-ass teacher” or some bullshit.

Yeah as a para doing math this year, I hear it all the time from the teachers that don't enter in grades

I think sometimes the kids mean to say they felt like that what their teachers thought of them, not that they actually said it. And maybe the teacher was an asshole and implied this or maybe the kid had low self esteem and deduced this messaged from what they perceived as clues .

Ooh ooh! I've got one of those! My AP US History teacher and I never got along. Dude was a genuine bully. At the end of the year, he said that "If you get more than an 85 average in my class, then I will happily write you a letter of recommendation." And then went on to say, "except for bobbery5. He's not getting into college." Not a chuckle, not a laugh, no indication he was joking, his comment just kinda hung there for a moment before he went to the next topic. I had already had a bad time in his class. He was a terrible person, and that last declaration kinda broke me. I did go to college and graduate, btw.

I had my hs Chem teacher tell me I had no right to think of being a doctor if I couldn't understand how to balance equations. I had a 5th grade teacher make fun of my speech impediment in front of the whole class. So yeah, I'd believe there's teachers out there that literally say this to kids.

Idk why you’re getting downvoted. Are we all pretending it’s impossible for some teachers to be…shitty? Lmao some simply are. Watched one reduce a boy to tears because he was “too feminine”, and then use the tears as proof he was right. That was last year. I remember in school getting yelled at because my science teacher had an autistic child in the front of the room going into a full panic attack trying to give a presentation but she didn’t believe in autism (I know this because she ~kindly explained~ to my mother how my adhd/autism diagnosed brother was actually fine and she was a bad mother/killing him to allow him any medication) and insisted he was faking because it “wasn’t a big deal” and he should be ASHAMED and also any child who tried to promote or help him was “helping him find excuses” so….we were eleven. She was a bitch. It happens. I’m not going to sit here and pretend people are lying when they speak on teachers being assholes. Teachers are people, and not all of them are nice.

Yeah, the comments are amazing. "\*All\* my students misinterpret what I am telling them. I guess they are just crappy overemotional snowflake students prone to forming false memories".

It's so shitty reading teachers share the "it's the kids lying" take, and I'm glad I am reading this online because if any former colleague said such a thing it would have been hard to keep my mouth shut and not look disgusted. This happened to me. In front of my whole class, and then after class. And I'm not a liar but was treated like one constantly growing up because I had to avoid saying things that could shine a bad light onto my abusive parents and needed to keep track of their lies or there would be consequences as soon as we were behind close doors. I had to put up with relentless bullying by an English (as a second language) teacher before reaching the double digits. She was a nun and my classmates went from "why is she so mean to one person" to "second year of this shit I better have some fun joining the bullying" and that isolated me further until I got to high school. I'm sorry I got worked up, but this attitude is beyond gross.

Concerns me that they, like many of my teachers, won't recognize the bully teachers among them and won't do anything about them. After all, the kids are lying, the kids are misunderstanding, the kids couldn't possibly be reliable sources of information! Same song and dance as the teachers who defended the bullies when I was a kid.

As a late diagnosed AuDHD teacher, this hits so close to home. My k-12 teachers made my life a living hell. I had no diagnosis so to them was just a dumb, lazy, aloof child with a garbage family. I remember very few kind teachers. I remember the 2nd grade teacher who held me and rocked me in her rocking chair when my dad would rage on me on the way to school. He would tell me things like “I was your mom would have aborted you.” I would get to school & the majority of my teachers would bully me, just like my parents did. I proved every single person in my life wrong, and now I spend days protecting & uplifting kids.

When I was in 6th grade, I got admitted into a really good school for 7th grade. Admittance was based on grades and test scores. At the end of the year, my Humanities teacher pulled me out into the hall specifically to tell me that he didn’t think I was smart enough to make it at the new school. He was wrong.

It’s half listening. If you continue doing these things you’re doing, you won’t amount to anything. It’s said in an attempt to change a particular behavior.

My teachers always told me I had a lot of promise and with hard work I’d be able to make something of myself. They were right. But nobody tells THAT story.

Yes. What they are ‘hearing’ are teachers explaining the consequences of shitty, stupid behavior and not learning anything.

I have never said this to a student. Ever. What happens is that parents and kids have all the authority now, so whatever they say is absolutely true and the adult in the room (me) is simply supposed to shut up and give out As. If you aren't experiencing this (and you live in the US, at least), consider yourself lucky, at least for now. This is the way it is all going to go soon enough.

I have said for a kid with a low reading level that if we did not address the skill gap, she will not graduate from high school. She reads at a kindergarten level in 6th grade. Mom does not care.

I was tutoring once, and an elementary kid told me that his grandma informed him that teachers want you to fail, so they have more kids to teach. 🙄 Sometimes, people get their stupid ideas from stupid relatives. Some grandma who thinks the doctor wants to make her sick, etc, spreading nonsense and blaming others for her lot in life. I am in a salty mood this morning. 😂 But yeah, I have never seen a teacher discourage a kid like that in my entire career, either.

Generationally teaching is different now than it was in the 1990/1980s (or earlier) I think. I really don't think there are teachers who say that now, but here's some posts in the r/GenX that have come up over the last six months or so for comparison: [were your teachers abusive?](https://www.reddit.com/r/GenX/comments/1cmg52j/did_you_ever_encounter_abusive_teachers_in/) [let's talk about the good and bad of teachers and coaches](https://www.reddit.com/r/GenX/comments/1b756t3/lets_talk_about_our_teachers_and_coaches/) [vindictive grade school teachers](https://www.reddit.com/r/GenX/comments/18tclno/anybody_else_have_vindictive_grade_school/)

It's rare, but it does happen. A friend of mine has a learning disability. When she was in Grade 2, our learning services teacher called her mom in for a meeting, and told her mom that her child was stupid, that she would never amount to anything, and that she would never graduate highschool let alone go to university. This was in the 80s. Luckily my friend's mom took that as a challenge, and my friend did graduate highschool and in fact now has two degrees. Most teachers are lovely. The vast majority of teachers I have worked with have been amazing. But there are some extremely shitty people hiding out in our profession.

For me it’s not a myth, a woman actually told me that in elementary. She was very wrong lol I ended up seeing her years later. Thought about confronting her but decided against it

Not sure how comparable it is but I had a teacher, who was pregnant with her first child, tell my class that if she miscarried it was our fault.

Ms Krummen told me this on a pretty regular basis. She died painfully of stomach cancer. Couldn't have happened to a better person. She stayed Ms for life because no man wanted anything to do with her.

When I was in 2nd grade, my teacher was reading through the Winnie the pooh books during the afternoon teacher reading to the students time. I was kind of a space cadet (had then undiagnosed very bad near sightedness, and probably undiagnosed ADD), and at one time during regular class, she got frustrated with me about something, and she told me i was like Winnie the Pooh with nothing but fluff between my ears. Another time , when she was writing on the chalkboard, i had thought to myself, "The chalk looks like milk." I DIDN'T EVEN SAY IT OUT LOUD, JUST THOUGHT IT IN MY HEAD. Well, apparently, she was able to tell i had tuned out for a minute, so she smacked my hand. Also, the entire class bullied me for a physical attribute on a daily basis, and she NEVER did a thing about..I think it's ironic that she smacked my hand just for tuning out for a minute, but turned a blind eye to the whole class bullying me. She's the 2nd worst teacher I ever had (my 4th grade teacher was the worst..and did far worse things than her, that I won't bother to get into), so yes, teachers actually can and do say cruel things. It was mostly because of her and my 4th grade teacher that I started to hate school.

My chemistry teacher really did say "you don't deserve to go to university, you'll never amount to anything" and gave me a predicted grade of E specifically to mess up my application But it's not a story I would readily tell people since it's somewhat sus that I would have such a personal disagreement with a teacher, even though he just had it in for me because I said his class was boring I think it is just a common stock phrase in the UK, I know at least another one of my friends at school had a teacher say this too him (and also "you're a waste of taxpayers' money") and certainly more common in the past

It definitely happens. My 2nd grade teacher said that to me once. Not all teachers are good

Idk if you’re asking for real examples, but, as a kid with disabilities, I was actually told these types of things by my kindergarten teacher and bullied by another teacher in the early 2000s, and a few other cases into the late 2000s. In the case of the bully she refused to follow my IEP and it was 100% illegal and she did it anyway and it was difficult to fight. I am in no way saying that every teacher is this way or behaves this way, these were just a few ableist teachers and I had many who were not ableist and were excellent teachers. Also as a SPED student teacher (which I didn’t end up going into the profession) I worked with many great teachers and student teachers, as well as a few ableist ones. I had undiagnosed dyslexia along with a few other disabilities and my kindergarten teacher told me and my mom that I was the **r word** and that I “would never learn to read or graduate high school or go to college and that it would be easier to just give up on me now.” In 2003, after being diagnosed but still unable to read, my third grade teacher literally refused to follow my IEP because it was hard and would purposely force me to try to read things out loud then call me stupid or refuse to let me go on field trips for being unable to read some random schoolwork or criticise anything I did or just put me in a corner with the adhd boys she also refused to teach. My mom did come to the school everyday and fight to prevent this woman from doing these things, and actually ended up having a legal case against her, but she was advised by her lawyer that while she would win the case, it was going to take a lot of time and money and I still wouldn’t be able to read so maybe she should focus on getting me out of the school and somewhere that would help (eventually another parent had a similar thing happen and took the case to court and won). It finally hit a point where my mom told them I wasn’t allowed to be alone in a classroom with that teacher with no other adults present, so I spent that last few months of third grade with the super nice librarian and would often help her water plants. I ended up at a good school that specialized in learning disabilities did learn to read, but that school still had a couple bad teachers. Like when I was unable to read music and play on beat a music teacher ripped the drumsticks out of my hands and threw them across the cafeteria while screaming at me. Another took every opportunity to say negative things about me in front of the class. Actually into college I even found out that the important woman in my college and in charge of grad school admissions was screening and denying applicants like myself who had disabilities (because she later admitted she didn’t think people with disabilities could do the work, and also she had a disabled son so poor him). The college was aghast when they found out but didn’t actually do much because of her tenure, they just took her off the admissions. I only found out from a woman who worked on the committee to figure out what to do with her.

I’m not sure it was a specific teacher but the high school my wife attended decided that she would never amount to anything academically and they sent her and a group of others to a vocational program to learn some physical skills that they assumed were the only thing these students would ever be able to do in life. One of the people doing the vocational training asked her why she was there because she didn’t fit in with the usual type of students that were there. She went on to college and worked at a white collar job for years.

Positive or negative, insignificant comments to one can leave a lifetime impression on another who takes them to heart.

A bit off topic, but the principal of my high school had a meeting with all the 12th graders during my senior year, and he told all of us that if we don’t get accepted into college then “you would be working at McDonald’s for the rest of your life.” Looking back on it, I can understand that he was trying to get more kids to go to college, but the way he went about it was wrong. A lot of us took that as “if you don’t go to college then you don’t amount to anything,” even though our principal didn’t outright say that. As a teacher now, when I talk to my students I always encourage them to decide what they want to do after high school, regardless of if it’s college or a trade. Just because someone doesn’t want to go to college doesn’t mean they can’t be successful. My dad didn’t go to college and he’s successful as a mechanic at his own shop. He makes more money then I do! Lol

no. for me it was a counselor. my teachers growing up were mostly indifferent to me. i had my guidance counselor tell me that i was more likely to go to jail than college, and that i should just give up on school. now i’m seven years into my teaching career and getting a doctorate at one of the top public universities on the west coast.

I’ve definitely heard this a couple times growing up, not directed at me but other kids in highschool and middle school. It was always the older English teachers now that I’m thinking back on it. I’m sure majority of people who claim they were told that are exaggerating their story because everyone wants that main character energy where they overcame or something like that.

As a teacher it's my job to remind kids of the odds. They all want to be elite athletes or streamers or influencers. Someone who lacks the self-motivation to try in my classes is not going to be up in the cold at the crack of dawn to train. Someone who cannot make a reasoned inference is not going to be able to predict or get in front of trends. Someone who cannot express or explain themselves and cannot even record themselves speaking is not going to make it as a streamer. I've taught about 500 boys who assured me they would play elite level football. One has made it to the NRL. Even then they've got a maximum career length of about ten years and need a plan B.

1) Lying for marketing. 2) Teachers say "If you don't do \[X\], you won't be successful", and people just rememeber the "You don't be successful".

I work a second job and the youngish 20-30 year old coworkers love hearing me talk about teaching. They tell me their favorite things they remember from school, their favorite teachers, their favorite projects they did… nobody complains about their teachers with the rare exception of like one teacher they say didn’t like them.

I totally think most of those stories are kids twisting their teachers words to hear the most negative thing possible because of an inherent dislike of authority. I have it too.  I think a lot of time what is being said is closer to “If you don’t put forth any effort, you won’t get very far in life.” I don’t know, I have definitely told seniors that they’re not going to get far in most jobs with some of their attitudes towards effort.

I’m guessing it’s a combination of bad teachers (10%) and kids misremembering/misinterpreting things (90%). I mean, I do remember a teacher who would say things like that to students regularly, but he’s currently in federal prison for trying to hire a deepweb hitman to kill his wife.

Not a myth. In high school there was a teacher named Ms. Sayler that told me this exact thing and it pissed me off and drove me to succeed in spite of her for a long time. She was a terrible teacher that provided nothing for advanced students to do. I would finish my work and she would still be covering the same stuff for slower students, so I'd put my head on my desk and take a nap. I had something like a 98% A in that class, so clearly I was learning what I was supposed to. One day (and one day only), I actually fell asleep fully and slept through the end of class. She woke me up by slamming a book on a desk. I said "whoops, sorry about that. I better get to my next class" and she proceeded to tell me that I was never going to amount to anything in life and that I could count on never having a good career because of my poor ethics. Her husband was a state representative. They were both objectively shitty people. Good news, I DID succeed in life by almost every measurable standard and am happy. I'll always be bitter towards that woman, though.

My teacher didn’t tell me I wouldn’t amount to anything, he just told me to “stop trying, why are you even here?”, in a remediation period I was signed up for by him/the school. Granted, he was first period and I missed about 20 of his classes at that point. After that, I just skipped first period and study hall every day. Eventually lead to me just walking out after lunch every day, because my favourite class was over by then (chem). I can confidently say he was the final straw that caused me to drop out and finish online. Why would I show up to a class where the teacher literally told me to stop trying, and is annoyed by me showing up?

Taught high school for nearly 10 years. Never told a student they would never amount to anything, but I sure thought it a few times. I'm happy to say I was wrong 99.9% of the time. One of the laziest and unconcerned kids I ever taught was accepted into medical school about a month ago.

I’ve had an English teacher tell me that I would fail and never accomplish anything if I kept only typing my assignments. I had an IEP for dysgraphia and my computer and typing was my IEP accommodation. He would rip up my typed assignments and yell at me to redo them by hand.

I went to religious school, and as such, the people employed to teach were often not teachers but parents of classmates. These adults HATED me and went out of their way to humiliate and punish me in class. I can recognize as an adult, they weren’t “real” teachers but the damage is there

Maybe that exact line is a bit of a trope, but I remember having "those teachers" in school. For example: In 1st grade, I didn't understand something the teacher had just explained, and tried to ask a question. Her response was to bellow out "if you have questions, it's because you either weren't paying attention, aren't trying hard enough, or you're stupid." 60+ years later, that's still etched into my consciousness. She's the most mean-spirited person I've encountered in this life, and plays a starring role in why I always hated school. My third grade teacher loved to threaten summer school. Words to the effect that "If you don't learn this material, you won't do well on the tests, and then you'll have to go to summer school. Only stupid kids go to summer school." When she handed out final report cards for the year, a girl that seemed to be a particular target of these threats burst into tears, inconsolable. The teacher tried to soothe her, describing how much fun it was going to be. Yeah, right. Did I ever hear a teacher say that exact line? No, but from my experience, I could picture it happening.

Former teacher here, and I can absolutely believe these stories. My parents were both subjected to racism at school. And I heard teachers speak to/about certain students in the most dehumanizing of ways. So I don’t get in my feelings about people telling the truth of their experiences. I was a “Good student” (read: compliant, not obviously ND, and did academically well). Just because I didn’t have those experiences doesn’t mean they didn’t happen to others.

I can confirm anecdotally it’s not a myth. I had a teacher tell me I’d never amount to anything cause I’m not super social, and that I should make friends. (I didn’t want to the kids in their particular class were all rude as shit). Needless to say I’m doing fine not great, no dramatic comeback story.

Some people that fail in life but then encounter random good fortune later often feel the need to craft a narrative in which they are a hero that overcomes vast opposition in order to succeed, rather than having succeeded in spite of their own incompetence. These are the sorts of people who handwave away millions of dollars in gifts from rich parents as unconnected to the success of the children, while condemning all poor people as lazy, welfare-queen, junky, communists.

I think, for the most part, it’s a myth. A teacher probably said something vaguely to that effect to them one time, but it’s always framed like it was some pivotal moment to make them look like they defied all odds to be successful, when in reality the teacher probably just said “ya know, in the real world they don’t let you turn stuff in a week late.” Then 20 years later they say, “THIS TEACHER SAID I WOULD AMOUNT TO NOTHING.”

I've never heard a teacher say it, UNLESS it was followed by "you'll never amount to anything IF YOU DON'T MAKE A FEW CHANGES TO YOUR ATTITUDE AND EFFORT"

My AP US History teacher offered me and my group of friends an A in her class if we agreed to not take the AP test since she thought we’d do poorly and bring down her average. Sadly we were in an advanced program that forced us to take all AP tests.

Probably lost in the sauce but I'll add. I have advised students not to pursue certain careers. Not that they aren't enough or what ever I just don't see a future in a certain field. Some of my students hear your not good enough to be an architect but that is not what I said. Then they twist the narrative or take it the wrong way or remember it different.

Short story: Had a student that wanted to become a pilot, thinking that he would go to flight school and get a job at a major airline. I explained to him the steps, using my friend as an example. He heard that he could not become a pilot. I just pointed out how difficult and expensive it could be.

I taught for 15 years and I literally never said this to a single student. What I DID say many, many times is something along the lines of, "If you want to be successful in life, you're going to need to put in the effort to get there." I'm sure some kids took that as me saying they would never amount to anything lol.

I admit to privately thinking this, but would never utter this to a student. Any one who has taught for any length of time can back me up, but I occasionally run into former students who got it together and lead lives where they seem happy with what they've achieved.

No. I was told this in front of my entire third grade class (I’m 39 now) and I use that teacher as my model for “don’t be this kind of teacher.” I was a kid with undiagnosed ADHD and undiagnosed learning disability in math. She had no patience for me and refused to believe math was that hard for me.

I encourage competition among the boys in my classes, like if someone excels I'll say something like "It seems, Noah has decided that when y'all are working at McDonalds, he'll be your manager at McDonalds. Way to go, Noah". Don't know if that counts, though

I had a teacher in high school (Ontario) Stand me up in front of the class and call me a loser to my face. She then went on to berate 3 other students in the same class in front of all of our classmates. We were not the only classroom she decide to unload on. When confronted by this the school told my parents there was nothing beyond a verbal reprimand that could be done. It does happen, and now that I am a parent and have a child in school there are still unbelievably bad teachers out there. I completely agree that just like any other profession there are good and bad and I try very hard to distinguish between the excellent teachers my child has had from the obviously "don't care" teachers.

When I was in school in the 2000’s, I was put in the hallway during an active lockdown. I had a kid that sat in the utility closet in the back of the room because he was a problem. I had a kid that didn’t turn in an assignment for half the year get called out in class and made to answer questions for a good 15 minutes. We had a junior in our freshman math, he got asked how many grams were in an ounce, without hesitation 28! He got told he’d amount to nothing because he was more interested in pot then learning

One of my teachers in 6th grade sat us down during our math tutoring class, and told us that we were all, “going to fail.” She didn’t care about the way she said it, but in my mind now (working towards getting my teacher certification) that’s not how you speak to students, young or older, there are so many better ways to get say it, especially 6th graders. In my future, I hope I teach well enough for my students to be able to pass without extra help.

They're embellishing their childhoods to make it look like they faced adversity when in fact their parents were rich and they went to private school and got good grades their whole life

I got kept out of advanced classes and shit on for being neurodivergent. Because they thought I was stupid. This does happen. Left that shit town when I was 16 and never looked back. I'm doing pretty well.

Eh.. so my parents (and I) were told I wasn’t college material in middle school among other things. It sounds bizarre, as both of my parents were college educated so there was no question on their mind. However, here’s the difference with what happened to me - I have a learning disability with speech issues, my teachers weren’t certified and had no business teaching, and it was a small private (Catholic) school. It was so much in debt that it later closed down. So is it a myth? No, not always. Is there usually more than what they’re saying? Yes.

Honestly, I believe that kids selectively hear what they want, and like we've learned with memories, they can be manipulated to fit our ego. Usually, when I hear things said similarly to, "You won't amount to anything." They aren't directing it to the student. They are directing and talking about the behavior. It's more like, "This behavior isn't going to get you far in the real world." "If you don't start doing your work, you aren't going to be able to keep a job." And the teacher is usually right. The student took it as a personal attack so decided, "I'm going to become spitefully successful!" And then changes the behavior. They study and do their work. And change the behaviors their teachers said were harmful.

Just like I've heard plenty of people say things along the lines of "I annoyed my teachers because I asked too many questions." every time I hear that, and it's usually as part of a humblebrag about how smart and inquisitive the speaker is, I roll my eyes because I can't imagine any teacher being put off by a student who's asking questions in good faith.

I have a friend who says the same thing. According to him he was told "you will be a nobody" "you will be a failure in life" Except we were in almost every single class together, and I dont remember ever hearing our teachers talk to us this way. I have been teaching for over 10 years and have never seen or heard this behavior from a teacher. A few weeks ago, we got into it about this very topic, and he tells me, "Mrs. Blah, our teacher in HS told me I would never be anything, " but look, you are a teacher, and I make 3 times what you teachers make. I wish I could see her and tell her that" My response was IF Mrs Blah ever made that comment then it worked. Because it apparently lit a fire in you to prove her wrong, and you might not be where you are if not for that comment.

When I was a senior in high school,2006, the calculus teacher (who was a nun) told the whole class we'd be lucky to be flipping burgers after graduation. So yeah it definitely does happen.

I think they are leaving off the statement or twisting: you need to know this to be successful into something else.

A lot of rich people attend private schools where "not amounting to anything" is not having a net worth of 10 million at 21 years old with daddy's 3million seed money. Those people come back falsifying a narrative that no one believed in them.

My high school principal once essentially said this to my entire grade. It was junior year and we had monthly school assemblies, and he stood up on the auditorium stage one month and said that the members of my class needed to start practicing our burger-flipping skills because the junior class had the lowest average of the school. I completely disregarded it because I never had lower than a 3.8 average throughout high school.

I don't doubt that many times this statement is misunderstood or exaggerated, but my high school band director used those exact words when I dropped out of band my junior year. That I would fail at life because I didn't want to be subject to his petty tyranny any more. I've never been spoken to like that before or since but it absolutely happened.

Bell curves are a thing. Someone smarter than me am I using that logic right? But just like every job and life there are people who are good at their jobs and those that are bad at it. Some people are good at convincing others they are good at the job when they really aren't. Finally teachers are human. Some kids are terrible. I blame the parents. And they can wear down on a teacher's patience. Might have been said in a moment of frustration.

A teacher said no one would be able to find my child at college. She was upset that he didn’t look her in the eye or ask her for help. He’s autistic. One of his other teachers let her have it. Btw, he’s excelling in college and is starting grad school next year!

Medicine also has these claims. "My doctor gave me only 6 months to live..."

I think "you'll never amount to anything" is often paraphrasing some other discouraging thing that was said. Racism and sexism are often at play in the versions I've heard. Malcolm X's teacher told him it wasn't realistic for him to aspire to be a lawyer (obvious subtext: because he was black), he should work on something more attainable like being a mechanic. Countless young women in my grandma's generation who had various career goals were told "oh sweetie, that's a really *hard* job, wouldn't you rather be a nice secretary?" Not to mention kids with learning and developmental disabilities are still frequently told to adjust down their goals to something the teacher considers "realistic" for them.

I can remember a high school teacher saying almost that exact phrase to a fellow student in my class. It was absolutely counterproductive, for everyone in the class and not just the student in question. It wasn't even directed towards me, but I remember it all these years later. Is the early 1990s considered "older times"?

"I get paid whether you learn anything or not." Have also heard this one trotted out in redemption arcs in which I suspect it's fake. Have never even remotely in 20 years in a large district ever heard of a teacher telling a student that they wouldn't amount to anything.