We all have experienced and enjoyed the beautiful student-teacher bond. While we always have looked to our teachers for help, these stories would definitely challenge the nerdy righteous image of them in our minds.
I am so sorry
In a high school history class our teacher showed us a painting of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus. One of the big mouthed popular girls in school said, “eww that baby has boobs.”
He was halfway across the room in the middle of his lecture. Suddenly stops, walks over to her and says, “Jealous?” Everyone busts out laughing. The next day we had all forgotten about it and then he starts off the class by apologizing to her and just ends up reminding us about it all over again.
She said later that she wasn’t embarrassed the first time but his apology made it much worse.
Physics burn
Once in my Physics class, the male teacher’s phone goes off with a very teenage pop type ringtone. Some dude in the front of the room goes “Why don’t you change your ringtone?”
And the teacher responds “Why don’t you tell your mom to stop calling me?”
This teacher was a gold mine of stuff like this.
Go get her!
In high school, my favorite teacher-burn happened to my buddy.
We were playing flag football one day and when we played you had two flags usually tucked into the waistband of your shorts. There happened to be a particularly hot set of girls playing on the opposite team and of course, they had them tucked in so the flags were essentially hanging right over their bums. The teacher started yelling at my friend because he wasn’t really trying all that hard whenever one of those girls would run by him.
Friend: “I don’t want to grab someone’s butt!” Teacher: “Shut up and do it! That’s about the best you’re ever going to get anyways!”
Extra credits for grandmother
My favorite teacher ever, assigned us to go see a movie.
He jokingly stated, “if you take your grandmother with you I’ll give you extra credit”. To which one of the smartypants kid in class replied “My grandma is dead”. My teacher responds, “…..well then I’ll give you DOUBLE extra credit”.
It is to this day the funniest thing I’ve ever heard a teacher say.
yo hablo español
1st week of basic Spanish. The teacher said, “Let’s get it over with. I know you just want to know how to curse in Spanish.” We all made a list of curses we wanted to know and she translated them for us!
Anonymous
Family teacher
All my sisters had the same teacher. Last day of senior year he looked at me and said please tell me you’re the last one.
How Am I So Smart
My teacher whispered something to himself and then laughed out loud saying, “yeah that was great”.
You’re gonne live forever
My teacher once said the prettier your look the shorter you’ll live, then said to the class: this lot will live forever.
You are what you are
Before a test, we had a teacher say I’m the test giver you are the test-ees. Everyone lost it.
I hate this teacher
The first day of gym class the teacher told all of us to stand on these numbered squares painted on the basketball court. This was a very old school and as the numbers on a lot of squares were worn out, I couldn’t find the number assigned to me and was delaying the class. Suddenly he said to me very loudly so everyone could hear, “I bet if there was a steak on it you’d find your square!” Everyone laughed and I still hate that teacher.
Anonymous
Everyone’s clean here
During a random drug check in my high school a few years ago when the police brought dogs in, my US History teacher gleefully said “Hope you left your stuff at home, like I did.”
Let’s be radical
The day we were going to learn radicals in math class, our math teacher came in with a turban on his head and said,”Today, we are going to be radicals.” The best thing I’ve heard in high school.
How to ignore 101
This was my old cheer coach who was a teacher at my high school. My dad passed away suddenly during my freshman year and I missed a week of school and cheer practice because of it.
When I came back to school the following week I went to talk to my cheer coach. I told her I was sorry that I missed practice, and that I needed some time at home as my dad had just passed away. Her response was to tell me that that was no excuse, I could have found time to call and that I couldn’t cheer any games for the rest of the school year.
The head cheer coach and principal of my school heard from my mom that night, and the cheer coach was fired the next day. She was probably the most ignorant person I’ve ever met in my life.
Five times two?
When I was in 3rd grade on my school and my teacher with the hand muppet asked the class “What is five times two?”
So, I raise my hand and answer “12” and he replies “OK. Now let’s try to get an answer from someone who’s not a complete retard.”
Heads or tails?
Our stats professor was from a different country.
This was him describing basic probability with his heavy accent:
“Say you flip coin and you get head. You do more experimenting and get more head. You get head a few more time and then you finally get some tail. Why is everyone laughing?”
What the dude!?
Not really something she said, but I had this french teacher who would kick me out of class whenever she overheard me say the word “dude”. Apparently, it means something bad somewhere in the world, but this is America.
It got to the point where she would send me to the office. The administrators just told me to take a lunch break.
Not Yet
We had a bald history teacher. He was once poking fun at a student. The student replies, “At least I have hair.” And instantly the teacher says, “Not where it counts kid.”
Anonymous
Come home after class?
One day, Mr. M we’ll call him, pulls me out of class for no good reason and then tells me his daughter just moved out and went off to college, so he has an extra room in his house now.
Then he said, “If you ever need a place to come to, you should know you have an extra room there.” and patted me on the shoulder.
I laughed it off, but looking back I think that was a creepy incident.
This is how life works buddy
In Grade 8 my science teacher took me out of class on day to talk about my failing grades.
He explained to me that he figured out why I was doing so poorly in his class. He said “Jason, the reason you are failing is because you are a loser, not very attractive, you don’t have any friends out and you’re a bit overweight.” I sat in stunned silence as he continued. “If I were you I would start hitting the gym, maybe 3 times a week, we cant do anything about your looks, but maybe if you are more active things could be better, OK Buddy.” I sat and nodded as he talked. On the way out he patted me and said “if you need some ideas on what exercise works best come to me.” Again, he was my science teacher.
We’re in the same boat
This happened in the second year of high school, right before lunch.
I walked into the bathroom and my history teacher was walking out. He says to me as he walks by, “Only two more periods before we get out of this stupid place.” and just continues on his way out.
Bottoms up
One of my friends told me that one day when he was out for a doctors appointment, he stopped at a local restaurant to get lunch before coming back to school.
While there, he sees one our teachers at the bar with two empty bottles of beer and working on a third one. This was around 11:30-12:00, his lunch break.
But honestly, he was probably one of the best and the coolest teachers I’ve ever had.
Now what are you doing with your hands?
I was in Spanish class last year, using my phone under my desk, when my teacher noticed.
She stopped her lecture, turned to me and said: “Bartholomoose, there are two things you could be doing with your hands underneath the table like that and neither one is appropriate for my class.” The class exploded.
Chill. Don’t be too ambitious now.
This was in our French class.
Teacher: Okay students, at the Getty Museum there is going to be an exhibition by a French artist. You can get extra credit if you visit it and write up a paper on the exhibition
Me: Does the paper have to be in French?
Teacher: Oh please, you can barely write in English.
Ouch.
It’s the last year in upper secondary school, and the class is about to take the final exam in the philosophy. In Sweden, at the time, there were only 3 available grades; G (pass), VG (passed in style), and MVG (outstanding), and in order to make the test more interesting our teacher had a plan.
Everyone gathered in the classroom, and the students aiming for G or VG were told to stay in the room and take the written exam – which couldn’t grant a grade higher than VG, even if every answer was spot on correct. The students who were aiming for MVG were to join the teacher in a nearby room for an oral exam – a group discussion, if you will, to properly assess those aiming for higher grades.
Fair enough. I wanted that higher grade, so me and 5-6 others went with the teacher. Half-way to the next room, one of the girls in the group noticed that the students left to take the written exam had no supervision (since the teacher was walking with us to the other room, and no other teacher was in there).
“So, are you just gonna leave them unattended?” she asks.
“Yup.”
“Don’t you think they’re gonna cheat?” And without missing a beat, our teacher drops the bomb.
“Come on, it’s the G and VG students. You could give them a month in there, what are they gonna accomplish?”
I will never forget what he said.
I was in fourth grade and we were sitting in a circle reading something with about 10 of us in the group. The teacher was reading aloud to us and someone said something that led to a light-hearted joke scenario, along the lines of, “Oh gee, what are we gonna do with you?” I had watched a Courage the Cowardly Dog episode the night before. Something happened in which one of the characters were contemplating what to do and ended up tar-and-feathering someone. This led to me replying, “First we get some tar” in a country accent, with the drawl and everything. Obviously I was trying to build on what we were joking about. The teacher immediately changed expressions and said, “Why’d you say that? It’s _no wonder why no one likes you and you don’t have any friends.” _Wow. Okay man. Everyone went silent. Because they were surprised and because it was true. The 4 years I spent at that school were some of the worst in my life and I will never forget what he said.
Why would they become a teacher?
When I was in grade five I had a friend who still believed in Santa. Now we all knew she was still a believer and we all knew that there was no Santa, but we all felt that we should just leave it be and let her believe. Our teacher (who was a horrible, horrible person), took it upon herself to tell my friend. During class, in front of everyone. It was pretty much like, “Autumn, can you come up here please?” And then she tells her there is no Santa. And there are tears. This teacher man… she was the WORST.
I still remember her kindness.
I was in special ed when I was in high school. I have learning disabilities. A teacher’s aide once told me that my math level were not that of a high school student and that I should have been held back. I threw my textbook in response to his remarks, I got suspended for that. I told my teacher about it but I don’t think she knew what to believe so she didn’t investigate.
A week after my 2 day suspension, I returned and the same teachers aide was helping me with math with everyone else around. He started to make the same remarks but this time I glanced at my teacher and she heard him. She had this certain look on her face, like that of a bird about to catch its prey. I excused myself from the classroom and she told him off.
Not exactly word by word but she said, “Why do you think they are here? We are here to guide them, to help them – we are not here to belittle them and you should be ashamed for making him feel inadequate.”
That was the last day I saw him.
She was a wonderful teacher, whenever we felt like we had no voice she did that for us and I miss her every day.
It’s not what it looks like!
I was always forgetting/losing my pencils in the 3rd grade. If I didn’t bring one to class I had to ask the teacher for one and she would chastise me for inconveniencing her (she would complain to me under the guise of teaching me to be less forgetful). One morning before school I remembered to bring a pencil but couldn’t find one, so I took one of my little sister’s. It had a heart-shaped eraser on the end (I’m male). The shape was more for the novelty, because those erasers didn’t do anything except rip your paper. I forgot all about it, until in the middle of class the teacher suddenly called my name while we were working on some assignment. She had another female classmate standing next to her with a smug look on her face. The teacher says, in front the ENTIRE class, that little Suzy here has had her pencils stolen from her desk the last few weeks. Suzy says that she had a pencil with a heart eraser stolen from her desk that looks EXACTLY like the one I’m using. Would I like to say anything to her? ….The entire classroom starts looking at me, all eyes glaring. I was a child but I knew the teacher was clearly accusing me of theft in front of everyone and it was my word against Suzy’s, it sure did look like I was a thief. I told the truth and stared back at the teacher. The teacher didn’t even respond and sat Suzy down, speaking to her comfortingly. I overheard, “I know, I know” and “but we can’t prove it, I’m sorry.” I never took that girl’s pencil and I hate that teacher for assuming I did.
This is why you should pay attention.
When I was in elementary school, there was a girl in my class that nobody liked. She did odd things, was not smart, and was one of the fat kids. In 4th grade she discovered lip gloss. She came into school every day wearing copious amounts of it. One day, the teacher called on her to answer a question while the girl was applying a thick coat of lip gloss. She shrugged in response to the question and the teacher responded with this, “Amanda! Wipe that bacon grease off your face and pay attention!” This detonated an explosion of laughter from most of the class. Amanda spent the rest of the week with her head on her desk with her arms folded around her head in an attempt to block out the jeering laughter.
It all started with an innocent prank call.
I was at my friend’s house and we were prank calling people on the phone. We managed to get my teacher’s number and we called him a few times. That was that. The next day, I went to school and the principal told me to come into her office. I did and she hands me the police report that my teacher filed. It was filled with vile lies, saying I said I wanted to “pop his family’s heads off.” I assure you, none of that stuff was ever said. I got expelled, no one believed me, and the friend I did it with went to another school. That moment in time is when I realized how messed up society is and how easy it is to get caught up in something if another person of power wants to lie.
Looks like someone’s gonna have to quit his job.
I had a teacher tell me that I had the look of a natural born loser, and if he ever found out that I stayed in school beyond the age of 15 he’d quit his job.
I graduated early, did my Bachelor’s degree in three years, and graduated law school a few months ago at age 26. The next time I’ve got a weekend free, I’m taking a trip up to the town I grew up in and paying my dear old teacher a little visit.
Well, THAT was unnecessary.
Teacher: “Do you have a girlfriend?”
Me: “No.”
Teacher: “Well if you continue acting like that you’ll never get one.”
Not a cool thing to say to a 15-year-old.
Do you have any such stories to share? Post them in the comment section below. Share these stories with your school/college buddies. Cheers!