History Main / MisplacedKindergartenTeacher

Most of them are nice, if overly so. But when these teachers are downright ''nasty'', the trope goes straight into HighOctaneNightmareFuel terrority.

Of course, this is TruthInTelevision.

* This Troper forgets the title, but remembers a reading a book as a child in which a substitute first grade teacher and a substitute military school teacher sent to the wrong schools. The [[HilarityEnsues hilarity that ensued]] had first graders learning how to be paratroopers and soldier kids getting lollipops.

Most of them are nice, if overly so. But when these teachers are downright ''nasty'', the trope goes straight into NightmareFuel terrority.

* Oh come on, everyone has had one of these teachers

* John, who runs the OrphanageOfFear errant teens go to in the [[AWorldHalfFull semi-dystopia]] of ''{{K-9}}'', talks like a kindergarten teacher even when he's extorting ten million credits from the Department.

Compare HippieTeacher, with whom this sometimes overlaps. Contrast SternTeacher and SadistTeacher (though there is at least one case of it mixing, pictured to the right of this very sentence).

[[quoteright:300:[[HarryPotter http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/umbridge1.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:She's like a kindergarten teacher...[[FunnyBackgroundEvent with cats...]]until you [[BerserkButton imply that she's wrong]]. Then she'll force you to rip the back of your own hand open. [[CompleteMonster Repeatedly]].]]

** While Death's granddaughter Susan has largely inverted this trope, treating her kindergarten students as if they were inconveniently small adults, she ''has'' developed the habit of bowlderizing her own vocabulary ('Does a bear poo in the woods?') even in front of grown-ups.

** Not just infantile. She's COMPLETELY inept at everything we get to see. Case point: she can't use chop sticks. CHOP STICKS.

Some teachers have an odd tendency to speak to their students as though they are kindergarteners. Even if they're teaching a class of 19-year-old [[CramSchool Cram Schoolers]], or adults in a [[SensitivityTraining workplace training-course]]. Almost AlwaysFemale, this can be irritating, cute, or both depending on whom she's teaching. Whether this is limited to just her demeanor, or whether it actually affects what she teaches also varies.

[[caption-width-right:300:[[TheUmbridge She's]] like a kindergarten teacher...[[FunnyBackgroundEvent with cats...]]until you [[BerserkButton imply that she's wrong]]. Then she'll force you to rip the back of your own hand open. [[CompleteMonster Repeatedly]].]]

* John, who runs the OrphanageOfFear errant teens go to in the [[AWorldHalfFull semi-dystopia]] of ''{{K9}}'', talks like a kindergarten teacher even when he's extorting ten million credits from the Department.

-->-- '''[[Characters/HarryPotter Dolores Umbridge]]''', ''HarryPotter/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix''

--> '''Umbridge:''' ''“Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say! And to see such happy little faces looking back at me!”''
--->"(Harry glanced around. None of the faces he could see looked
--->happy; on the contrary, they all looked rather taken aback at being
--->addressed as though they were five years old.)"

Compare HippieTeacher, with whom this sometimes overlaps. Contrast SternTeacher and SadistTeacher (though there is at least one case of it mixing, pictured to the left of this very sentence).

[[caption-width-right:300:She's like a kindergarten teacher...[[FunnyBackgroundEvent with cats...]]until you [[BerserkButton imply that she's wrong]]. Then she'll force you to rip the back of your own hand open. [[CompleteMonster Repeatedly]].]]

-->-- '''[[TheUmbridge Dolores Umbridge]]''', ''HarryPotter/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix''

* In ''HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'', [[TheUmbridge Dolores Umbridge]] combines this with SadistTeacher, becoming a CompleteMonster (Harry's detention with her involved WritingLines in his own blood)

* The sweet-voiced [[TheUmbridge pirate re-education teacher]] in ''Escape From MonkeyIsland''. Impeccably voiced by Edie [=McClurg=], and perhaps the scariest character in the game.

[[HarryPotter http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/umbridge1.jpg]]
[[caption-width:300:She's like a kindergarten teacher...[[FunnyBackgroundEvent with cats...]]until you [[BerserkButton imply that she's wrong]]. Then she'll force you to rip the back of your own hand open. [[CompleteMonster Repeatedly]].]]

[[caption-width:300:She's like a kindergarten teacher...[[FunnyBackgroundEvent with cats...]]until you [[BerserkButton imply that she's wrong]]. Then she'll force you to rip the back of your own hand open. Repeatedly.]]

* Miss Caroline from ''ToKillAMockingbird'' manages to be this even though she ''is'' teaching very young kids. The problem is that they're children of farmers who have done manual labor pretty much since they could walk, and they're not really interested in the story of Mrs. Cat and her kittens, etc. She also gets a nasty shock when she meets one of the Ewells, a family who traditionally show up for the first day of school to satisfy the truant officer and hardly set foot in town the rest of the year. She tries to apply basic school rules to him and ends up reduced to tears.

* In ''HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'', [[TheUmbridge Dolores Umbridge]] combines this with SadistTeacher, becoming a CompleteMonster (Harry's detention with her involved WritingLines in his own blood) while addressing the students as though they were five-year-olds.