Throughout the six seasons of Glee, a wide roster of characters circulated in and out of the doors of William McKinley High School, but one of the few characters to stick around consistently throughout each season was the coach of the New Directors, William Schuester. "Mr. Schue" ended up having a personal relationship with nearly every member of the Glee club throughout the years, since he was the show's central mentor figure and also endured some emotional development himself.
While he may not have been relatable to viewers at the time in the same way that characters like Rachel, Finn, and Kurt were, he was still vital to the show and went on to become one of Glee's most appreciated characters. Some of the most memorable moments of Glee featured Mr. Schuester, whether he was teaching the students a valuable lesson or was stepping out of his comfort zone as a teacher in order to do a rap performance to inspire the members of the Glee club.
Though Mr. Schuester was truly a great character, he wasn't necessarily perfect. Throughout the course of the series, there were quite a few issues surrounding Mr. Schue -- and they don't just include character flaws he overcame throughout the show's narrative. Like many of the other characters of Glee, Mr. Schue was occasionally written inconsistently, whereas other moments featured Mr. Schue overstepping his abilities as a teacher into some rather dangerous and illegal grounds.
With this in mind, here are 20 Things That Make No Sense About Mr. Schuester From Glee.
20 He Never Faced Consequences For Performing Raunchy Songs In Front Of Students
Many of the members of the New Directions had a lot of fun performing some rather inappropriate and raunchy songs with the rest of the glee club, and Mr. Schuester was no exception. Some of Mr. Schuester's most notable raunchy performances were "Thong Song", "Gold Digger", "A Little Less Conversation", and "Nice to Meet You, Have I Slept With You?"
While it was already pushing it for Will to allow his students to sing inappropriate songs in class, performing these songs himself pushed his incompetence to a whole new level. All another teacher had to do was pass by the choir room during one of Will's performances for him to get caught, yet he never faced any negative repercussions for his inappropriately provocative performances in front of a bunch of minors.
19 How Did His Relationship With Terrie Last So Long?
When Glee first started, Will Schuester was still married to Terrie, a truly horrible woman who manipulated Will and made his life completely miserable. While this added a certain level of conflict for the first two seasons of Glee, it begs the question, how did these two even last so long in the first place?
While Will seemed to look fondly on the early days of their relationship in season one, in later seasons, he stated that he was always miserable with Terrie, even when they were "high school sweethearts." If season four of Glee told us anything, it's that high school sweethearts don't last, even if they are perfect (which Will and Terrie certainly were not). How these two managed to stay together for almost two decades is an absolute mystery.
18 He Suddenly Becomes Great At Choreography
Throughout the first half of season one of Glee, the New Directions members started to doubt Mr. Schuester as a teacher when they realized he was horrible at choreography, barely being able to dance himself. This led the students to hire an outside choreographer behind Mr. Schuester's back, creating a bit of conflict between Will and his students.
However, in later seasons, this particular character flaw seemed to completely disappear. Not only was Mr. Schuester able to give proper choreography after this point in the show, but he was also able to throw down some rather impressive dance moves himself. Though it's possible he took some choreography classes, this was never acknowledged, making his improved dance abilities seem like they came out of nowhere just for plot convenience.
17 He Used Illegal Substances To Blackmail A Student
In the very first episode of Glee, Mr. Schuester was shown to be a truly awful high school teacher. While he certainly had a positive attitude and was dedicated to his students, he did something absolutely unforgivable as a teacher: framing one of his students and blackmailing him.
After learning that the student Finn Hudson was a decent singer, Will tried to recruit him to the New Directions. After his first attempt at asking Finn to join failed, Will acquired a small dosage of illegal substances. He then confronted Finn and faked finding the substances in his locker. Will then blackmailed Finn, threatening to have him expelled and to take away his scholarship unless he joined his singing club. That's pretty harsh and not a great ethic for a high school teacher to follow.
16 He Was Never Fired For His Constant Feuding With Sue
One of the most interesting conflicts throughout the series was the constant feuding between Mr. Schuester and Sue Sylvester. While the beginning of Glee featured their feuding as a one way street, with Sue constantly trying to sabotage Will, Will eventually started feuding back, going so far as to sabotage Sue a few times.
While their feuding was certainly entertaining, it had an incredibly negative impact on the students, worsening their school experience and making them feel like they couldn't speak up while the two staff members were fighting. While it makes sense why Sue wasn't fired for her actions, considering her impressive history as an award-winning coach, Will didn't have quite as strong of a résumé for the school to keep him. Typically in these types of aggressive conflicts, a school would let the least important of the teachers go, yet Will managed to stay at the school for several years.
15 How Did He Get His Job In The First Place?
During the first few seasons of Glee, Mr. Schuester worked at the school as a teacher of the language from Spain. However, it is never clarified why Mr. Schue came on board as a teacher in the first place, as he doesn't seem to have much experience with the language. Season three goes more in depth with his incompetence as a teacher, revealing that he really does not know how to speak the language and had been teaching it improperly the whole time.
While it would be understandable for an inexperienced language teacher like Mr. Schuester to get a job as a teacher at a middle school, or even an elementary school, his abilities to speak the language of Spain were well below the high school level, making us wonder why he was given a job in that department in the first place.
14 Allowing Students To Join His Personal A Capella Group Should've Been Against School Policy
Most schools tend to have rules against allowing teachers to spend time with their students outside of school activities, especially public high schools. With this in mind, it should've been completely against school policy for Mr. Schuester to recruit his students Puck and Finn to join his personal a Capella group. With his two students, outside of a school event, Will performed the song "I Wanna S*x You Up", which really doesn't make the situation look too great.
To make matters worse, one of the other members of Will's a Capella group was Sandy Ryserson, a former teacher at the high school who had just recently been fired for inappropriately touching another student. All in all, this a Capella group should have been a huge red flag for the school's administration.
13 His Brief Relationship With Shelby Corcoran
At the beginning of the second half of season one, things seemed to be looking up for Will Schuester. He was back to work with the Glee club, he was out of the worst relationship of his life, and he was finally dating Emma Pillsbury. However, in the very first episode after the hiatus, which was also the first episode Will was with Emma, Will went and was unfaithful to his new girlfriend with the coach of Vocal Adrenaline, Shelby Corcoran.
While Will and Shelby's time together was really only a brief make-out session, it was not a good moment for Will, and it really came out of nowhere. What really made this scene so unbearable, however, was the fact that this huge mistake made by Will had no consequences whatsoever.
12 He Didn't Handle The Conflict With Bryan Ryan Well
In the episode "Dream On", Will's old high school nemesis Bryan Ryan, played by Neil Patrick Harris, comes back into Will's life. Bryan reveals that he is now one of the top board members of the school and is strongly considering cutting the Glee club. With the New Directions now on the verge of being wiped out, Will takes it upon himself to convince Bryan otherwise by inviting him to a night out.
Will and Bryan first stop at a bar, but then Will gets the bright idea for them to both go audition for the local production of Les Misérables, which ends with Will being offered the lead role. In other words, Will's solution to stopping Bryan from getting rid of the Glee club was to embarrass him by beating him in an audition, and then being surprised when Bryan still wants to get rid of the Glee club. Overall, it's not a great plan.
11 His Morality Isn't Always Consistent
Some of Will's greatest moments as a teacher were when he witnessed a student being bullied or "slushied" in the hallway and then stepped in to stand up for the student, often disciplining the bullies. However, this evidently isn't something that Will always did, as there were a number of instances throughout the series where a student was being bullied in a hallway and Will chose to look the other way, or to watch without intervening.
While Will stepping up to stop bullying says something about his character, the times he didn't step up said something more about who he is as a person. While he doesn't like bullies, he isn't always willing to put himself in the middle in order to protect a student.
10 His "Friendship" With Sue
One of the best driving forces of Glee is the constant feuding between Sue Sylvester and Will Schuester. The two are seen as mortal enemies, particularly in the first few seasons, but as the series goes on, their relationship becomes a bit more confusing. While Sue and Will still regularly feud like they did in the first season, some episodes open up with Will and Sue being the best of friends, which really doesn't make much sense at all.
Essentially, the writers wanted to keep Sue as the antagonist, but at the same time, they wanted her to feel more human in a few episodes. Their solution was to completely rewrite her relationship with Will every few episodes, which in the end made both characters feel inconsistent.
9 He Faced No Negative Repercussions For Disobeying Figgins' Song List
During the first season of Glee, Principal Figgins, irritated by the musical numbers performed by the New Directions, gave Will a list of songs that they could perform, informing Will that they are not to sing any songs not on the list going forward. Considering that all of the songs on the list were, to put if frankly, horrible, the students of the New Directions were upset about the restrictions.
However, after this point, Figgins' song list was never really mentioned again. Will essentially threw the song list away and continued to choose risky songs for the New Directions going forward. While this was in character for Will, it's certainly strange that he never faced any negative repercussions for it. In fact, in season two, Figgins was actually overjoyed when the New Directions performed the incredibly raunchy song "Tik Tok" in front of the entire school.
8 He Rarely Acknowledged The Band
The singers of the New Directions certainly weren't the only important members of the Glee club. In nearly every episode, the New Directions were accompanied by a band, seemingly all of the band members being students who would sit silently in the background until one of the other students wanted to sing their heart out over whatever was bothering them in that episode.
While this seems like more of an issue with the show, it certainly seemed out of character for Will to completely ignore the students in the Glee club's band. Considering that the New Directions always needed an accompaniment, the mental state of the members of the band should have been just as important as the rest of the students, yet Will consistently ignored them just like everyone else in the Glee club.
7 He Was Teacher Of The Year Before Taking Over Glee Club
In the pilot episode of Glee, a brief shot showed a picture of Mr. Schuester accepting the "Teacher of the Year" award the year before. However, it doesn't really make sense that he received this award before becoming the coach of the Glee club, as he was not a good teacher of the Spanish language in the slightest. Will evidently did not know how to properly speak or teach the language, and there were surely a number of other teachers who were more deserving of that award at the time.
Will went on to win this award a second time during season Tthree, but that time, the award felt as though it was a little more deserved. The reason he received this award was due to his stellar coaching of the New Directions, rather than for his teaching abilities in an actual classroom.
6 Will's Abilities As A Teacher Diminished Each Season
While it's now common knowledge that Will Schuester is not a great teacher, that wasn't as apparent in the first season. In fact, a good portion of season one actually portrayed Will as a decent teacher, being the favorite teacher of a number of the school's students. Unfortunately, this did not last for Mr. Schue.
During the next two seasons, the writers of Glee decided to write Mr. Schuester as a struggling teacher, and eventually turned him into a truly awful teacher by mid-season three. In fact, season three even included a full episode dedicated to how awful Mr. Schue was at teaching the language of Spain, which went against a lot of what was established about his character two years earlier.
5 He Doesn't Know How To Properly Balance A Budget, Despite Almost Being An Accountant
Throughout the course of Glee, there have been an abundance of episodes featuring the New Directions struggling with budgetary issues. However, the budget was never an issue for any of their performances that required intense, perfectly fitted costumes and detailed props, or to presumably hire Brad the piano player full time as their accompanist.
All of this really falls on the shoulders of Will Schuester who, as the director of the New Directions, was more than likely put in charge of balancing the Glee club's budget. Why he put more financial importance on the countless costumes for pointless performances to the school's empty theater over the transportation to the actual show choir competitions remains to be seen. What we do know, however, is that it's a really good thing that he did not decide to become an accountant like he was initially planning on, because that job is evidently not right for him.
4 The Way He Handled The Glee Club's Drinking Problem Was Illegal
In the episode "Blame It On the Alcohol", a number of the New Directions members started drinking alcohols. Almost every member of the Glee club had taken on drinking recently, and it was having horrendously negative effects on each of them, which would make sense considering they were minors. Will's solution to this issue, however, not only broke school policy, but also was incredibly illegal. His responsibility as a public school teacher would be to report the students for their drinking problem to ensure that they get the proper help. Instead, he made all of the students sign a pledge stating that they wouldn't drink again until after Nationals.
To recap, his solution wasn't to make sure the students received help. Instead, it was to ask them to stop drinking for a few months, essentially giving them full approval to drink again after their competition. Not only is this illegal, but he was practically approving of them drinking as long as it didn't affect their performances.
3 He Dangerously Mishandled Kurt's Closeted Orientation
During the first several episodes of Glee, one of the most interesting arcs was Kurt's closeted orientation, as he was unwilling to tell anyone that he was gay. Like some of the other characters in the show, Mr. Schuester caught onto the fact that Kurt was gay and tried pushing him to open up about it. The way he did this, however, was not ideal.
In one episode, Mr. Schue gave everyone the assignment to find and perform a song that represented them. Kurt, trying to hide his orientation, performed "Pink Houses" by John Mellencamp. Will realized that Kurt was struggling to accept himself and, instead of meeting with him privately to discuss his struggles, confronted Kurt right after his performance in front of the entire class to tell him he had failed the assignment. If Will was trying to help Kurt raise his confidence, he did it in a horrible way and probably only ended up hurting Kurt's self-confidence.
2 He Doesn't Have The Degree To Be A Principal
The series finale of Glee opened with a heartwarming twist, with Mr. Schuester being offered the position of principal at William McKinley High School. The rest of the episode flashed forward between different points of time, showing how much better the school was under Mr. Schuester's leadership. While this was certainly great for long term Glee fans to see, it really didn't make much sense.
In order for a person to become a principal, especially a principal of a high school, they need to have a minimum of a Master's degree, whereas Will only had a Bachelor's. If the superintendent really wanted Will as a principal, he would've had to have funded Will to go back to college to get a Master's degree before giving him the position, which would've taken about 8 years. There were a lot of moments in the finale that seemed too good to be true, but this one would've been utterly impossible.
1 He Chose A Glee Club Over The Well-Being Of His Unborn Child
Alas, the most unforgivable moment for Will Schuester that really shows his true character was his decision at the end of the pilot episode. Faced with an impossible choice, Will would either have to leave the Glee club and become an accountant in order to provide for his (seemingly) pregnant wife or stay at the high school to coach the Glee club, but not be able to properly provide for his family.
Will ultimately chose to stay at the high school, which became the "good decision" when it was revealed that Terrie was faking her pregnancy. However, Will did not know that the pregnancy was fake. As far as Will knew, he was about to bring a child into the world and was unable to provide for it. Knowing this, Will not only chose to keep his current, underpaid job, but to actually take a pay decrease. Some call this noble, but the fact that he would be so careless toward his unborn child was certainly not a good move.
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Are there any other things about Glee's Mr. Schuester that don't add up? Let us know in the comments!
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