Most Embarrasing Moment

[Laura Smith]

Just for a laugh what it your most embarrasing moment ever?

Laura

[Guest]

Just for a laugh  what it your most embarrasing moment ever?

Laura

I remember when I was a pupil in a GCE Physics class answering what I thought was a question but subsequently turned out to be a statement

Teacher - "a unit of power is a watt"

Me - "is it an amp sir?"

[John Simkin]

I used to have a habit of saying at the end of the lesson “place your textbooks on the table as you go out”. However, I normally did not use the word textbooks. Instead I would refer to the author, therefore: “place your Culpin’s on the table as you go out”.

I began using a new textbook with my Y10 GCSE Sociology class. It was written by a man called Jack Nobbs. You can imagine what happened at the end of the first lesson using the new textbook. It was the first and last time I used that phrase at the end of the lesson.

[Jean Walker]

Two I will never forget:

1. When I was 15 and fashion was for stiffened half petticoats under full skirts - at a dance, doing the then fashionable progressive tango, I stepped down to the floor, stepped up and having put my stiletto heel through the bottom of the petticoats, stood up to find said petticoats standing on the floor by themselves, much to my embarrassment and that of the complete stranger whose hand I was holding.

2. Going back stage to ask for Joan Sutherland's autograph on my program, she sweetly asked me: And who is it for? (Meaning what name would she write) to which I repled in my nervousness: Oh, just for me. As sweetly as ever, she replied: I'm sorry, my dear, but I cannot remember all of my fans by name.

[John Simkin]

We were studying the subject of social class in Y10 Sociology. The students had to draw a pyramid showing the class structure. I gave them a list of different occupations and they had to place them in the appropriate social class section.

A few days later one of my students gave me a letter from her father. The letter stated that he had been looking at his daughter’s book and discovered that she had placed his occupation (a refuse collector) at the bottom of the pyramid (unskilled manual worker). He took exception to that and insisted that his job should appear higher up in the pyramid.

I phoned the man up and explained the official guidelines on how class membership was defined. When he complained about these guidelines, I invited him to come into school and to explain his point of view to the sociology class. I thought this could be the basis of a good debate on the importance of jobs such as refuse collectors.

I was a bit worried about the reception he would receive and gave them a talk about the need to respect the views of visitors, etc. On the day of the visit I was apprehensive about how the lesson would work out. This fear was increased when he arrived at my classroom. He was wearing his best suit. However, it was his brightly coloured and expensive waistcoat that really caught the eye. It was an obvious attempt to show the class that he had money. This was reflected in his talk. Instead of explaining why his job was so important, he concentrated on all the fiddles he could get up to in his job. Apparently, he was making vast amounts of money from going through the rubbish he was collecting from the homes in the area. This included wedding rings and other personal items found in rubbish bins.

I found the whole experience highly embarrassing. So did the man’s daughter. However, the students were fantastic. They did not laugh at him and instead asked him sensible questions. Some evenly gently raised questions about the morality of not giving people back their wedding rings. I am sure the students learnt a lot from the lesson. I know I did.

[Nancy Eldreth]

WELL THIS IS JUST HORSING AROUND

When I was in my teens. I loved horses and had my own horse.

Read many books on them, studied them, rode several styles Western and English. Stayed more to the English style.

So, when I got brave enough began doing jumps with my horse, English style.

Went three feet, fine the horse and I did well.

Raised the level to a four feet level, the horse and I did well.

Went to a four and half feet jump, I was afraid but the horse mastered it with perfection. I survived.

Went up more to the five feet height of jump. Took my horse up to it so she could see the jump and she shook her head, NO NO NO.

I figured it to be just of coincidence.

Then I took her into the fastest run I could get her to go.

She was flying, it seemed.

She got to the jump started to take it, then gave an abrupt stop.

She stopped, I didn't. I went over the horses head - over the jump without the horse.

I landed on the other side of the railing posts and landed on the ground. I layed there for a while the wind was knocked out of me and noticed the horse shaking it's head again NO NO NO. Than the horse gave a loud sound I never heard before and if I didn't know any better, that darn horse was laughing at me.

I yelled at her, FINE YOU ARE OVER THERE AND I MADE THE JUMP, YOU REFUSED TO TAKE. YOU LAUGH AT ME, COME OVER HERE BLAZE AND HELP ME UP. Believe it or not the horse came around the posts and walked over to me and leaned it's head down and I grabbed the bridle and she pulled me up. I said to her SHAME ON YOU. She put her head down as if to say I am sorry. I got mounted back up on her and we headed home.

Never in my life was I ever laughed at by a horse and it is worse than being laughed at by any human.

She never would do any five foot jump. I never went over her head again.

So much for horsing around.

[Mike Perez]

Back in my grade school days, I used to sing the National Anthem before every home basketball game. Now you have to understand, I can sing but I can't read music and at that time I had no idea how to count beats per measure. Anyway for weeks the band instructor and I had been using the count of 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, Oh, say can you see. Well I had been watching the band instructors foot as she tapped it on the floor for weeks so that the band and I would start off at the same time. So here I am standing on stage in front of a packed gym with a PA mic and a mic for the local radio station. I watch the foot and it starts tapping 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, I start singing OH then I notice the foot and don't here the band. SHE CHANGED THE COUNT ON ME WITHOUT TELLING ME to 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, so I was just a little early with the singing.

I didn't show my face in the gym for the entire game

[Derek McMillan]

There are no circumstances under which I will mention my most embarrassing moment. It is not in my memoirs which are to be published posthumously. Nobody will ever know. I haven't even told myself.

So make do with this. My erstwhile mother-in-law got cigarette ash over her dress and without thinking I brushed it off...she moved and I found my hands in a position which was very difficult to explain. And we both went quite red and talked loudly about something else.

[John Ritchson]

Greetings All:

My most embarrassing moment was was during that quiet moment in church as the pastor is going to the podium to deliver the sermon I broke wind in a particulary spectacular manner and to make matters worse, it was also a real stinker.

Happy Yule to All:

[Rob Jones]

There are so many moments in teaching, some fantastic others embarrassing, that I wished I wrote them all down. Two of the latter come to mind.

1. I had a boy called Andres Arce in a class once. You can guess how it was pronounced, so I generally avoided it and just called him Andres. One day, my guard was down, he was absent and during register call, shouted loudly "Has anybody seen Andres Arce", to paroxysms of laughter of course.

2. I had suspected a boy of systematically stealing small items of music equipment, so planted a small interesting shaker instrument to see if he would nick it, planning to later call the deputy head and catch him with said shaker. At the end of the lesson, it disappeared so I gleefully called the deputy head and we nailed the thief. We asked him to empty his large bag and discovered not only the very small shaker, but an enormous amplifier, two large speakers, 10 cables, a CD player and around 20 CDs, which I hadn't missed! The story circulated not only around the school but around the city and I still get teased about it.

[Pamela Brown]

Back in the sixties we rented a house in Westhampton Beach for the summer. July Fourth weekend was, of course, huge. In addition, a new nightclub, appropriately called The Barge, opened; it's headliners The Yound Rascals. We waited in a long queue to get in. When we finally sat down it was on tiny bongo-drum-type seats, and everyone was squeezed in together. Somebody kept bumping my hip; so in the spirit of equality, I bumped back. Another bump; I bumbed back. Then a woman put her hand on my arm and looked at me with wonderful cornflower blue eyes, and in the silkiest, most lovely voice, said, "Oh my deah, I'm so sorry!"

It was Bette Davis.