Everyone I know had one or two high school teachers who, let’s just say, left a lot to be desired.

Someone shares the story of how they made one of these teachers pay by simply agreeing with his irresponsible suggestion.

Let’s see what happened.

Teacher wouldn’t listen, so the entire class complied and he got fired

This happened in the early 2000s in my junior year of high school.

The district had just built the 3rd high school in our city and most of the teachers were new.

The band director was one of those new hires. He was qualified for the job, but had zero people skills and was extremely abrasive towards students.

Starting off well.

He had previously taught at university, and could not wrap his head around the fact that high school students are not college-level music majors who live in practice rooms and write symphonies in their sleep.

His normal behavior consisted of berating students for not knowing the university-level curriculum, talking down to everyone about how he couldn’t understand why they were so incompetent, and stopping rehearsals to go on long tangents about things that had NOTHING to do with music.

And as we’re going to see, his behavior really affected the students.

Every day at least 2-3 students would leave class in tears. We complained to the higher-ups and they repeatedly brushed us off.

He made students HATE attending his music classes, and many dropped band and orchestra as a result.

One of the classes he taught was supposed to be “Intro to music theory”.

For those who don’t know music, this would be a class that should typically teach things like different types of chords, the definition of music symbols, the logic behind key changes, etc…

In the first class of the year, there were about 25 kids enrolled. Most of these were music and drama kids who wanted to be teachers or performers in the arts one day.

So, they did not need any more drama in their lives. But this teacher made sure they got it.

On the first day, he handed us a quiz because he wanted to see how much we knew.

I think there were maybe 3-5 kids who were able to attempt a single question on the quiz.

No one got a single answer right. That’s how advanced it was.

Imagine signing up for what you think is a basic pre-algebra class and walking into advanced calculus.

This teacher spent the entire class period berating us for not being prepared when no one could even attempt his quiz.

We told him: “This is an intro class, none of us have learned anything like this before” and his response was: “Really? I thought this was an advanced class”.

For how long did he think he could get away with this attitude?

The next class period there were maybe 15 kids enrolled. He did the same thing: asked us to perform something we couldn’t even understand, and then berated us for not being prepared.

At every class, he would say: “I thought you all were musicians, this is supposed to be an advanced class!”

By the end of the second week, there were 6 students left enrolled in this class, including myself.

He softened up slightly to those of us who stayed and seemed to think we were his prize students and that this was his class of elites (think Professor Slughorn from Harry Potter).

In truth, we all thought he was insane and cruel, but the 6 of us had sufficient musical background and experience to understand a fraction of his lessons.

Without the bell curve, we all would have failed his class.

A few months go by and we are at the end of the first semester.

By now, every student connected to music in the school hated this guy, and repeated complaints had done nothing to fix the problem.

The admins filed away every complaint but never did anything more than remind him that he’s supposed to be more kind to students.

He changes nothing, and still berates students and makes them cry.

It’s giving Professor Snape vibes, in my opinion, but to this teacher, everyone is Harry.

So when it comes to the final exam for his theory class, he decides that he wants to give it to us early, so that on the day the final is supposed to be scheduled, we can have a class party instead.

Maybe he’s mellowing a bit?

Of the 6 of us left, 4 of us have the same period after his class together as well.

That class was AP English, and we were prepping for the AP test.

We had no problem with a class party in music right before the AP prep exam, so we didn’t complain.

The day comes of our music final exam and after we finish the test he tells us that for our class party, he wants to take us all to breakfast at a new IHOP that opened 20 minutes away (his class was 1st period).

We try to tell him all the issues with this plan.

He still thinks he is teaching college students.

We aren’t allowed to leave campus without permission slips (it was a closed campus policy due to an incident where a student who left campus for lunch got hit by a car and was killed), we will not get back in time for 2nd period, which is a final exam.

HE doesn’t have permission to remove us from the campus, what if there is an emergency and we are unaccounted for because we aren’t even at the school?

His solution was to tell us that after the start of class on our final class day, he would be going to IHOP, and if we wanted to join him, that was our choice, but if we didn’t we would have to stay in the classroom and not bring attention to the next that there was no class and no teacher.

Things are about to get serious.

Without talking about it to each other, the 6 of us saw an opportunity to finally get the admin’s attention to the complete disregard this teacher had for rules and policies.

We made sure to inform our English teacher that we might be late to class on the day of the final, due to a class field trip for music theory.

She was irritated and reminded us that this final was very important and that she would not give us extra time if we came in late.

We told her that we understood, and gave her details about where we would be and what we would be doing, and who we would be with. She said she still expected us to be in her class.

On the day of the final, we all went to IHOP.

It took forever to get there because of construction, and forever to get our food because the restaurant was newly opened and had a large number of customers.

We got back to the school halfway through our 2nd-period class.

The admins were waiting for us. Security was waiting for us.

My English teacher had called the front office to complain that 4 of her best students were missing and that she was fairly certain we weren’t even on campus.

Wow. This teacher is about to get a reality check.

The admins had checked attendance and seen that we were all marked present that morning, and they had searched the entire school looking for our class.

The 4 of us walked into our English final to a livid teacher.

We knew she was pissed at us, but couldn’t punish us beyond saying we had the same remaining time as the rest of the class (since we had been with a teacher in our absence).

None of us did as well in the final as we could have if we had the full 87 minutes, but we were doing well enough in the class already that the lesser marks didn’t affect our overall grade too much.

The band teacher had a “private” reprimand that was so loud the entire school could hear it.

He was confused as to why the administration was upset that he took minor children off campus without permission or notice, without proper school transportation, or even a good reason.

Maybe after facing some grown-up consequences, he’ll finally understand.

He stayed with his usual attitude, but this time towards the admins: “Why are you guys so incompetent about this, they are old enough to drive, what’s the problem?”

The English teacher (who I actually adore, and who was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had) absolutely went Mama Bear on the administration about how they could continue to employ someone who disrespects the other teachers so much as to deprive his students of their final exams and put them in potentially dangerous circumstances.

He told us to drive ourselves to the restaurant, and any accidents or medical issues would have been the school’s fault.

He was fired later that day.

Many of the students had a gleeful but confused reaction since the 6 of us weren’t talking to anyone about it.

All most people knew was that this tyrant of a teacher was gone.

We didn’t spread the story very much of how it happened because we still feared being reprimanded for our involvement since he technically gave us a choice to go with him or stay, but I always smiled when people gossiped about what the final straw was that got him fired.

This is a true malicious compliance story right here.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to it.

One reader shares their opinion.

Exactly.

This user shares a personal experience.

This reader shares a heartfelt opinion.

And to end on a high note…

This outcome was like a harmonious symphony!

Such fun when kids decide to band together!

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.