10. Charlie Brown's Teacher
Students often feel as though teachers are speaking a different language. In the animated-film adaptations of Charles M. Schulz's long-running comic strip, Charlie Brown and his friends hear a whole lot of "Wah wah woh wah wah" from their teacher and not much else. Poor kids. It's really hard to learn anything when you can't understand a single word the teacher says.
9. Mr. Herbert Garrison on South Park
Using puppets, a male S&M "teaching assistant" and potentially racist tendencies as classroom tools, Mr. Garrison is not so much a bad teacher as an incredibly distracting, offensive and inappropriate one. But when he's not too busy trying to get fired or going through multiple sex-change operations, he is actually quite supportive of his students. It's just too bad those times are few and far between.
8. Miss Viola Swamp, Miss Nelson is Missing
Miss Viola Swamp is the meanest, most horrifying substitute teacher a child could ever imagine. She takes over Miss Nelson's rowdy, spitball-throwing elementary-school class in Harry Allard's children's book, Miss Nelson Is Missing, and forces the children to (gulp!) be quiet and do arithmetic. She also cancels story hour and assigns them an insurmountable amount of homework. Oh, and she's also a witch. Miss Swamp may be a terrifying teacher, but when Miss Nelson finally returns to class, she discovers that her students no longer misbehave.
7. Dolores Jane Umbridge, Harry Potter
She is the witchiest witch to ever walk the halls of Hogwarts. With her sickly sweet voice and hot pink outfits, Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge not only terrorizes Harry Potter to the point of making him bleed (literally) but also uses her authority to make everyone at Hogwarts and beyond miserable. She is a terrible teacher — forbidding any spells in Defense Against the Dark Arts class — and an even worse headmistress, a role she schemes her way into. But no worries: Umbridge's hatred for "half-breeds" brings a swift end to her teaching career, as she is hauled into the forest by a bunch of angry Centaurs. While no one really knows what happens out there, we'd say she gets what she deserves.
6. Edna Krabappel, The Simpsons
Who let this chain-smoking, jaded divorcée teach the fourth grade? Edna Krabappel has good intentions that never quite translate into adequate learning for Bart and his less-than-motivated peers. She lives up to her name as a bitter, loveless loner who lets her personal life fuse into her lesson plans as she shares the cynicism of middle age with the malleable minds of Springfield Elementary School. She tries her best to keep the students in line, but her apathy — she describes her job as "glorified babysitter to a bunch of dead-eyed fourth graders" — ultimately leads to her demise.
5. Mrs. Gorf, Sideways Stories from Wayside School
Any teacher who turns her students into apples is a bad seed. In Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Mrs. Gorf, the meanest teacher of them all, wiggles her pointed ears, sticks out her tongue and morphs her students into apples, which she keeps perched on her desk as a warning. That is until the day her powers are used against her and she too becomes the very fruit she so adores. In a karmic twist, Mrs. Gorf is eaten by one of her students.
4. Sue Sylvester, Glee
O.K., so she's technically a coach, but Sue Sylvester wreaks so much havoc on the students and faculty at William McKinley High School that she has to make our list. As head of the national-champion Cheerios cheerleading squad, Sylvester focuses her aggression on an unlikely rival: the New Directions glee club. Because her team fights other clubs for funding, Sylvester becomes the glee club's most ruthless bully. She's been known to throw dirt in their faces and shove them into lockers. And that's on
3. Miss Trunchbull, Matilda
While the phrase "Go to the principal's office" has always conjured fear, Matilda Wormwood has it worse than most. Her school is steered by Miss Trunchbull, who despises children and delivers cruel and unusual punishments for minor deeds. Thankfully, Matilda gets revenge. Once she discovers her psychokinetic powers, she uses them to convince Miss Trunchbull that her classroom is being haunted by a ghost. In a win for kid-kind, the tyrant headmistress flees and is never heard from again.
2. Professor Furlong, The Faculty (haven't seen myself...so I don't know)
Most students think their teachers are from another planet. For the students of The Faculty, they actually are. When Herrington High School's biology teacher Professor Furlong (Jon Stewart) becomes infected with a "killer" parasite, his lesson plans drift from science to science fiction. While trying to infect the film's central gang, the teacher loses his fingers to the blade of a paper cutter before being stabbed in the eye. Might not want to quit your day job, Jon.
1. Sheba Hart, Notes on a Scandal (also haven't seen)
If we've learned anything from movies, it's that appearances can be deceiving. It's initially tempting to sympathize with Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) in Notes on a Scandal as she's the victim of creepy exploitation by fellow teacher Barbara Covett (Judi Dench). Yet, while she's beautiful and charming, Sheba is also undoubtedly the predator in the relationship she initiates with her 15-year-old student. Sure, scheming Barbara may have a disturbing tendency to control those around her, but it's Sheba who commits an actual crime. As bad as stalking, lying and manipulation are, pedophilia is worse, every time.
time.com
