I've had some interresting teachers in my day
I think I'll start with my eight grade physics teacher.
nice enough middle aged bloke, funny in his own way and pretty good at teaching. It was when it was time for the practical stuff he turned into a grade A loony.
One time we where doing an experiment trying to find out the boiling point of some flamable liquid. we did this by having a test-tube of the stuff emersed in water, and the water was heated with a bunsen burner. we where paired up in groups of two and we where four groups at each table I believe.
At some point of the experiment the tubes started bursting, splashing flamable liquid on the tables and before we knew it three of the four tables we where using where covered in flames. We ran around like crazy trying to put them out. Guess what our teacher did? did he help us put out the fire? did he order us to vacate the room? no, he stood there laughing his head off while our notebooks and stuff caught fire and we ran around like crazed lemmings. He knew that the tables couldn't catch fire and that there was no real danger of it spreading, but what about if one of us kids caught fire trying to save our books n' stuff?
He later told us that this sort of thing usually happens, and that there has never been any serious injurys....twunt...

same teacher, another day in the physics lab.We where learning about electricity. He thought that he would demonstrate conductivity in a rather different way. We each got a turn at holding two electrodes, with dry hands, with wet hands and so on.... with one electrode in each hand!
He cranked it up to the point where our arms and fingers bent by themselves and we couldn't let go of the damned things until he shut the machine off. We're running a current strong enough to tighten our muscles totally beyond our control through our torsos and our damned hearts for christ sake! If someone in there had an unknown (or known for that matter since he didn't ask us) heart condition they could have died!

same guy, yet another day of teaching physics. We where learning about pressure, and how to measure it. We where looking at mercury at that time and how it was possible to measure atmospheric pressure with it. He thought it would be a good idea if we had a look at mercury and talked about it a little. He had some in the storage at the lab and he got it out for us. It looked real cool and everything. there was only one problem here. He told us to touch it....with our bare hands....
we probably didn't touch it long enough for it to have any affect on us, but it really isn't a good idea to do this.

I have more stories about this man, but I think you get the picture
he was trying to kill us.

I'll get back to some of my other teachers later, but now I have some work to do.
( The little pink animal is mostly harmless, except on, Mon 14 Nov 2005, 12:27, Reply)