Passing notes in class is one of the tried and true traditions of school life, like wedgies or skipping track and field day. Even in the age of texting, the tradition is alive and well.
This piece is based on AskReddit threads. Links on the last page.
1/17. I used to teach high school Spanish. One time, I confiscated a note from a 15-year-old sophomore.
I told the girl I was going to read it in front of the class, as I unfolded it and walked to the front of the room. She was begging me not to read it like her life depended on it. I had no intention of actually reading it to the class, but I wanted to make her sweat. I was going to make up some stuff like, “I have the best Spanish teacher in the world…blah blah blah.”
I was absolutely taken aback when I read the first sentence in my head: “Hey girl! You ain’t gonna believe this but I’m pregnant…again!”
I just stood there with a blank look on my face. She already had a 1-year-old. I locked eyes with her and she gave me this incredibly guilty look, but she was relieved that I wasn’t actually going to read it to the class. Ignorance is bliss.
-ayePALINDROMEeye
2/17. Back in high school, one of my friends (we’ll call him Jeff) was behind on the cell phone curve. He had one, but it didn’t have texting and was only supposed to be for “emergencies only.” Anyways, this led to him passing notes around class to communicate with friends that weren’t sitting directly near him.
He had started talking to this one girl he had liked forever but had no chance with. She wasn’t stuck-up or anything, she was just unbelievably beautiful so most guys knew they had no chance with her and Jeff, as well as much of our friend group, was more on the “average” level. This girl was one of those who actually make you stop and do a double-take. Simply gorgeous.
Anyways, my friend and I were sitting behind this girl in a class, when I receive a note passed from Jeff from across the classroom. I opened it, thinking it was to me, only to read that it was for the girl in front of me (the unbelievably gorgeous one).
It was some lame question about when would be good to get together to work on a group project. My friend and I said this would not fly. So, as Jeff sat there and looked on in horror from across the classroom, we crumpled up his note and started writing our own. (continued…)
Keep reading on the next page!
It was this sprawling love poem which started out as a joke, just a little way to mess with Jeff, but it actually started getting good. Really good. We didn’t really think anything more of it until, barely containing our laughter, we passed it forward to the girl in front of us. A poem not written by Jeff, but with his name on it.
Jeffs eyes declared death, while ours declared hilarity. After about five minutes of nothing, we figured the girl had just written it off as the joke it was or had declared Jeff a creep. Either way, we were going to explain that it was a joke to her after class. We were shocked when she reached backed and planted a note on my desk.
With shaking hands, I opened it. It said: “That is the single sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
That’s it. Just one simple sentence, and words could not explain the gold mine we had just struck for our friend who was ready to murder us the second the bell rang. Quietly, and slowly (we wanted to make it seem like the note had been passed all the way there, then a new one written and passed all the way back), my friend and I hatched the beginnings of a relationship through pen and paper for Jeff.
We kept up the poetic tone for a few notes, then asked if she would like to go to the Homecoming game/dance (all of this still under Jeffs name, of course).
She said yes, and explained that no one had ever asked her to a dance before (later, we would learn she was rarely asked anywhere, simply because 99% of guys thought they had no chance with her).
With class time running low, we sent a brief message to Jeff outlining what had just happened, to at least trust us until after we could explain more, and that if she comes up to him before we could talk to him to keep his stupid mouth as shut as possible, to not show her any of his handwriting, and to not try to refer to what was written in the notes as he had no clue what the hell they said.
Everything went well, they’re still dating and in a long-term, committed relationship, and she has no clue that those original notes were from us.
-[deleted]
3/17. Im a teacher. I found a note under the seat of an extremely talkative female student after class. I knew she was dating a student called “Ron.” It listed all of the things she was going to do to him after school, all of which were sexual in nature. (continued…)
Keep reading on the next page!
My favorite part was when she said she wanted to, “Taste the Ronbow.”
I was a second year teacher at the time and I really didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. So, I got a red pen and corrected all of the grammar and spelling mistakes. The next day before her class strolled in, I placed it on the seat of her desk.
She immediately knew I was the one who graded it. We never discussed it but I had very few problems with her talking the rest of the year.
-ccjrod
4/17. Not intercepted but I found it after lab where two guys would always sit. Pretty sure they both wrote it because it was on the back of one of their lab sheets that they left behind.
Person 1: “Boobs!”
Person 2: “Right?”
Such a simple exchange; almost poetic really.
-blow4everyone
5/17. Toward the end of eighth grade, my band class wanted to do something nice for our teacher. We were passing a note about it around during class and the teacher caught on and demanded to see it.
Of course, no one wanted the teacher to see this note, so someone told the kid who was holding it to eat it. Everyone joined in and the entire class chanted, “Eat it!”
So he shoved the paper into his mouth while looking the teacher right in the eyes. The teacher was so shocked he let it go and the surprise went off without any other problems.
-Sittingduck07
6/17. As a student, I was asked to take a note from my teacher to another teacher. This was before mobile phones were cheaper and affordable.
I was considered one of the more well-behaved students in the class and generally did the work assigned, so I think that was why my teacher entrusted me to pass this note to another teacher who was teaching in another room. She expressly told me to not read it. (continued…)
Keep reading on the next page!
Well, as I was walking to where the other teacher was, let’s say I conveniently forgot about her instruction and read it. Let me provide some context here, my teacher was a single woman, and the other teacher was a married man.
The note read: Need some place else. Not my classroom this time.
I didn’t understand at the time, and thought innocently of it. I think some students and my friends noticed how the two acted though, and one day, she accidentally arrived into our class with her top undone in a manner that exposed her bra.
-Frost_Faust
7/17. Teacher took a note from my friend, who was asking his other friend, if he also looked and compared how hairy other guys junk was in the locker room. Needless to say, we all erupted in laughter. This was in 8th grade.
-buttrice
8/17. In 6th grade, I had learned about sex from my parents. I thought that a vagina was just a perfect circle. So, I drew a a picture for my crush in 6th grade of a stereotypical penis going toward a circle, with a caption saying “I want to pee inside of you.” (My parents didn’t get too specific during “the talk.)
Like many other discovered notes, mine fell out of my backpack somehow and the teacher picked it up, laughed and threw it out. I didn’t know what she was chuckling about until I noticed that there was no note in my backpack.
In the long run, I’m so thankful that it was thrown out.
-QEDomelets
9/17. My chorus teacher sings the notes she catches. She usually just skims through it, but this time she just put the paper on the piano and started singing. It ended up being an entire story about a girl who found out she was dating her cousin. Very uncomfortable for the entire room.
-Jackson20bill
10/17. I teach middle school, and my kids don’t write a lot of traditional notes anymore it seems. There is one that stands out for me though, and it was a back and forth note being passed between two 7th grade girls.
They were talking about some boy and one was asking for the other’s advice on making some sort of “big decision.” (continued…)
Keep reading on the next page!
The whole time I am reading it, I am thinking that I am going to have to have a sex talk with her.
Finally, toward the end, she says something to the effect of, “No, I really like him. I am just not sure if I like him enough for him to be the first boy I hold hands with!” I thought it was hilarious that she was putting so much thought into that.
I was also very relieved, and my faith in their innocence was restored a bit.
-boringmom
11/17. I had a teacher confiscate a note I was passing to a friend. Only it wasn’t a note; it was a tampon. He turned fire truck red.
-GoWithItGirl
12/17. I had this eldery, mean, nosey teacher in middle school. She was the kind of woman who strode into the Nurse’s office, sneered at the kids and prodded the the Nurse to talk about them, especially a little girl with a weight problem. She taught health and some sort of reading class.
She was infamous for reading the notes she intercepted aloud to the class, so one day, after she intercepted a note of mine asking something trivial and belittled me, I wrote a note and very obviously passed it to the kid at the next table over, urging him to pass it along. It went to three kids before she caught it, snatching in out of a girl’s hands, striding back to her desk, and reading loudly in her typical condescending tone-
“I’m Sofa King, stupid.”
-Anonymous
13/17. Fifteen years ago when I was a new teacher, I confiscated a note that was a caricature of me with one hand down my pants and the other pushing a finger up my nose.
I still have it – it was really funny.
I wish I also had a picture of the absolute look of terror on the sixth grader’s face when I confiscated it. I gave him a dry eyebrow-raised look and we never spoke of it again. He was in my corner after that.
-Chanther
14/17. My friends and I were clandestinely doing a mad lib in AP English and our teacher confiscated it. She read the first sentence and couldn’t help but chortle. (continued…)
Keep reading on the next page!
It was something like “Dear Mom, Terri Schiavo won’t stop waxing my butthole.”
-JesusSaves
15/17. It was my first year of teaching. Halfway through class one day, I notice a folded piece of paper land on a guy’s desk. I practically ran to his desk to snatch it up, as intercepting your first high school note is a memorable experience for sure.
It was a blank piece of paper.
I got so excited to read it aloud, to frame it in my study, and to laugh about it at my evening dine with the colleagues. Why did it have to be blank? Do high schoolers take pride in ruining their teacher’s dreams?
-Natebladez
16/17. I had a teacher once who especially hated cellphones. So I made a paper cellphone. I folded it up and such to give it thickness, and drew buttons and a screen etc.
So I took it and pretended to text my buddy in the same class. She “saw” me texting, of course, and went to confiscate it. I handed it to her, and the entire class laughed at her. She stopped trying to take phones away from then on.
-Iconic_3D
17/17. We had a very disturbed student who consistently drew pictures of female teachers with their feet cut off and severed feet in high heels.
We had to confiscate them to hand over to the school counsellor. The student was frequently caught hiding in the hedges so he could be close to the feet of female teachers wearing heels or sandals.
He’s at least 20 now. I made a point of remembering his name in case I ever need to supply it to police. Seriously creepy.
-DangerCocktail