From a thread in the discussion section of The Session (http://thesession.org/):
When I was 8, my piano teacher, on hearing a wrong note, would emit a horrible sort of monosyllabic growl. I didnāt like that much, but it was better than a whack.
When my daughter took piano lessons, if her teacher (who shouldnāt have been teaching) didnāt like how something sounded, heād say, āDo you want to hear how that sounded?ā and then proceed to pound out some dreadful stuff, totally exaggerating what sheād done. After she came out of her lesson two or three times in tears, I told him I could make her cry at home for free and we looked for another teacher.
Susan
sigh
Donāt get me started on teachers who shouldnāt be.
Someone once said (and I paraphrase) that there are two kinds of teachers: teachers, and autocrats who roll up their sleeves.
One of my college English profs would always pick one or two students in each class to bear the brunt of his torment. No matter what those students did, he would be sarcastic, rude and downright mean to them, doing his very best to humiliate them in front of their classmates. I can only assume he was trying to make himself feel superior by tearing down others. Compensating for a certain physical inadequacy, I assume. Luckily, I didnāt get picked for this āhonorā. What really pissed me off was that this was honors English, so there were no real slackers in the class.
Edited to say: And he wasnāt a very good teacher, either.