Teachers are supposed to be role models in the classroom and exhibit the utmost professional behavior. However, sometimes there are situations—and students—that make them completely lose their cool. As a result, they exhibit infantile behavior that is often worse than a student’s. Here, students and instructors recount some tales of immature payback by teachers that will have everyone reeling in their chairs.
1. A Cheater Never Wins
A student had climbed onto a neighboring student’s desk to see her answer. I called him out, and he looked at me like, "What? I was helping her". At the end of class, the student sitting at the desk came over to me to tell me he was copying her. I thanked her, and she left. What I did next had the potential to get me fired. I pulled out his test, erased his work, put random lines over his work, erased again, and stuck it back in the pile for the grader.
Needless to say, he wasn’t going to be in advanced math the next year.
2. He Didn’t Want History Repeating
My dad, who was a history teacher, was pretty laid back. He was popular with the students, who usually did well in his class. Because he taught at a school that dealt with students from some of the more disadvantaged and problematic areas of the city, he was experienced with pupils being difficult and calling him names. He could take it in the classroom and would tell the pupils off in the right way. He very rarely raised his voice.
However, one weekend, my dad was entering the house when one of his pupils saw him and called out, "Hello, Sir! You wanker"! My father lost it. He marched across the street, grabbed the boy by the lapels, slammed him against the wall and said, "You can't call me that in school. You certainly can't call me that in the street". Needless to say, the boy never called him that again.
3. The Ultimate Helicopter Parent
I once caught a student turning in papers that I knew her mother was writing for her. Then, her mother blatantly plagiarized an essay. As an opportunity to make up the assignment for a 50% grade, I made the student write a ten-page essay citing 15 academic sources. The original was a three-page essay with only three sources. I knew the mother would be slaving away at that thing, and she did. I can’t stand parents like her.
4. Enough Is Enough
I had been attending a journalism class that was held in a lecture hall. The teacher was an absolute immature nightmare and would spend the first thirty minutes of every class on a diatribe about the infantile students and their lack of turning in homework, arriving late, yadda, yadda. After sitting through that for about a month, one day I'd had my fill.
On that day there was a kid who rode public transportation—which was very unpredictable—and arrived five minutes late. It was a test day, and if you missed it, you were in trouble because it made up 50% of your grade for that class. This lecture hall had two doors to enter through, across the room from each other. This kid arrived and went to the door most of us entered through but the teacher had locked it.
He saw us looking at him and kept asking for someone to let him in. Meanwhile, the teacher was ignoring him while she was on her rant. Someone motioned for him to go to the other door, which wasn't locked. The teacher caught the hand signals and ran to the other door and locked it just as he arrived at it. He kept asking her to let him in while apologizing for being late.
Instead, she stood there yelling at him through the small lecture door window about how she was sick to death of people not respecting her classroom. Then, she turned around and ignored him while she yelled at the rest of us about her other classes and their disrespect towards her. She went to the chalkboard and started grabbing erasers and throwing them at random people.
The class sat there silent, afraid to move. Most of the students were around 18, but I was a graduate student. I'd had enough and thought to myself, this is crazy, and I wasn’t going to sit through it anymore. By now, she had her back to us, still screaming and scrawling on the board the things she felt were disrespectful to her in giant letters. So, I took my heaviest textbook and with all my force, slammed it as hard as I could on my desk.
I stood up and simultaneously yelled, "ENOUGH, STOP IT"!! She, and the entire lecture hall, jumped a mile high, startled. She spun around, almost possessed-like with her anger, to see who had had the gall to challenge her, and was shocked to see that it was me. I continued, "ENOUGH! THESE ARE KIDS, BUT I'M AN ADULT AND I'LL BE DARNED IF YOUR GOING TO WASTE MY MONEY SCREAMING AND YELLING ABOUT HOW IMMATURE THEY ARE WHEN YOU'RE BEHAVING WORSE!! ENOUGH. STOP IT, OR I'LL REPORT YOU"!
She grew very quiet and then said, "You're right. You're absolutely right, and I apologize to you for including you in my tantrum". I sat down and shook my head in a nod of acknowledgment, and the class proceeded as normal. Afterwards, all the kids came up to me to thank me for sticking up for them, and I told them they never have to accept bad behavior from anyone, least of all someone their money is paying for.
5. Give That Kid A Kazoo
I didn't mind the student, but his parents wouldn't return some forms that I needed to be signed. It was his Individualized Education Program (IEP), which was made at THEIR request. So, the fact that they wouldn't sign and return it—so he could receive the services that THEY were convinced he needed—drove me absolutely mad.
Then, I remembered that someone had donated some kazoos to be given as treasure box prizes. I had laughed at them and put them away. However, I decided this kid deserved to have a kazoo. I put yet another reminder slip in his homework folder and this time sent him home with the letter and the kazoo. The IEP was signed and returned the next day.
6. This Takes The Cake
My mom was a teacher and had this really difficult third grader. He would refuse to do his work, disrupt class, and cry when he didn't get his way. My mom allowed him to make his own choices, like do his work or miss out on a fun activity. He always chose to skip out on work and miss the fun stuff. One day, he decided not to do his work and missed out on snack time.
My mom took his snack so that he wouldn't get it during that time. At the end of the day, he came to ask for his snack, which was a chocolate cupcake. My mom told him he missed out and she had thrown it in the trash. I told her she should have eaten it in front of him at snack time.
7. I Soothed Her Infantile Behavior
I had a classmate in middle school who would never stop whining. It was starting to get really annoying, so the teacher said he had something for her. He casually went over to his desk, grabbed a tiny object, and flung it right into her lap. It was a baby's pacifier. The whole class lost it, and fortunately, she took it pretty well. The whining eased up for a while after that.
8. I Sacrificed The Good Of The Whole For Spite
I was a college professor and had two problem students. One would not stop emailing me every time she had a thought about anything. Once, she emailed me eight times in 24 hours. These were not back and forth emails but eight separate ones. She also asked if I could meet her on a Saturday to help with her term paper—I don’t think so—Saturdays are mine.
The other missed 75% of the class and sent me a long email demanding I give them extra credit to make it up. Both students missed class on a day we had completed half of one major assignment for the semester. I wanted to send a class-wide email clarifying the assignment and upcoming exam that would have been potentially helpful to the class. However, I wanted to spite those two even more.
9. I Wasn’t Going To Let The Cat Out Of The Bag
I worked at a nursery school and had this one child who irritated me. She was a big kid for a three-year-old and also tall. If she didn't get her own way, she would throw a tantrum and go stiff like a wooden pole when you tried to move her. One day, it was rainy outside, and it was time for the children to come inside for lunch. She wouldn't come in, so I told her I was going to take her toy cat away.
As soon as I said that, she took off her shoes and purposely made loads of runny snot come out of her nose. She laid on the floor real stiff—and she was heavy—so it was hard to pick her up. She annoyed me so much that I hid her toy cat from her. None of the staff could find it. She could only fall asleep if she had that thing. She threw a tantrum for the rest of the day because she didn't have it. Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with her anymore by then.
10. The Joke Was On Him
I was a teaching assistant, and we had a student who was a class A pain. He was being a scrawny nuisance and made some "yo momma" style joke. So, I turned to manipulation. I said my momma had passed, pretended to tear up, and walked out. I spent the whole day ignoring him, trying my hardest to look upset at every turn. Right at the end of the day, his friends came over and said that he was sorry and scared.
I told them I didn’t care. As I was leaving, I saw the student. He was clearly upset and came over and apologized to me in person.
11. Be Respectful Of Your Sensei
I was a self-defense instructor. I was running a class on defense versus knives. Each student was paired up with a partner, and they had to evade/block the wielder for two minutes. I jokingly said, "Anyone who makes it two minutes gets to teach the next class"! The drill went on, and at the end, I asked if anyone didn't get cut at all.
One younger guy—around 18 or 19—who was a kind of problem student raised his hand. This was a kid who always questioned everything. He was nice enough but kind of a jerk. His partner for the drill was an older guy who was slower. This kid was in good shape, so I could see where he might have been fast enough. I took the rubber blade and said, “Okay, let’s see”.
When he was ready, I came at him, and it took all of three seconds before I slashed him across the midsection. I handed him back the prop and said something like, "Not bad, but have your partner speed it up next time". I turned around and heard him say, "I bet you can't do better". I turned back, and he rushed me, which was pretty disrespectful.
I blocked and, on pure instinct, full force punched him in the neck. He dropped, coughing. Since they weren't actively working, my entire class saw this. I felt terrible, but most of my students started clapping. I helped him up and whispered, "Don't EVER pull that garbage again". He nodded and seemed embarrassed. I never had another problem with him.
12. Monkey See, Monkey Do
I worked in a Pre-K class. I was told that the students were usually fairly good. However, I didn’t know for sure as it was my first year teaching, and we had multiple students with severe behavioral issues. One of the students was throwing a giant tantrum. They were on the floor, kicking, screaming, biting—you name it.
After over an hour of it, I finally said, "That's how you think we act in the classroom? Fine. I get to act that way too". Before the student could respond, I dropped to the floor and started kicking and screaming. It stopped their tantrum, and I didn't have any issues with them the rest of the day.
13. I Just Lost It
I was a young teacher at the time. It was a Friday afternoon, and I was doing reading outside with my class. While we were quietly reading away, this kid—a huge brute—came up behind me and flicked my ear pretty hard. I let it slide. Then, about a minute later, he did it again, and I just lost it. I sprang up, seeing red, as he scampered off, clearly thinking it was a game.
I followed him as other helpful students pointed me in the right direction. I found him hiding out in the boys' bathroom. He was still cackling. As I entered, he tried to sidestep me and escape, but I caught him perfectly by his shirt and power slammed him to the ground. It wasn’t hard enough to injure him but enough to scare the wits out of him. He was squealing like a pig.
Seeing him lying there mewling brought me back to my senses. I didn't say another word. I just stood over him menacingly, then left. Afterward, I freaked out at my actions because I'm usually a very passive person, but that day I had just had enough. I was paranoid for a while that the kid's dad—who was also a thug—was going to come to have it out.
He never did and I've never done anything comparable since, but he had it coming.
14. Powder Princess Lost It
In my junior year of high school, I got the science teacher that all the students hated. She had strict rules about food and drinks in her class, as well as talking/behavior rules. She allowed drinks and food to be in the classroom, but food had to be kept sealed and in your bag. You had to step outside the classroom to consume any drinks. She also had a rule that you were not allowed to put makeup or even Chapstick on in class.
This all seemed a bit crazy, but she was a chemistry/biology teacher. We worked with chemicals, molds, and bacteria in the classroom. Tables were fully equipped lab stations that students did dissections on, and she didn't allow anyone to mess around and endanger themselves in ANY way. One day, this girl pulled out her makeup and sat there putting powder on her face. BIG MISTAKE.
I watched as this teacher waited for her to get powder on half her face, and then she stalked over, snatched the makeup thing up, and chucked it, hard, into the trash—totally destroying it. The girl pitched a royal fit, saying it was expensive. The teacher just informed her calmly that it had been contaminated by her opening it up in class, and for her own safety, it had to be disposed of.
The girl kept complaining and disrupting the class, so she was sent out and got detention.
15. The Lost Treasure
In my class, I was big on rewarding positive behavior and good grades. I for sure didn’t believe in rewarding the misbehaved students just because they were good for five minutes. I used class dollars and a treasure box. A-grades would get $20, Bs would receive $10, and anything between 75 and 79 would get $5. After a test, I would hand out the money and one day a week, I would call kids to pick something from the treasure box.
Items in the treasure box were $20. I had one student that was such a pain but would magically be an angel once he saw something he wanted from the treasure box. The kids knew I only called the quiet students who had been doing their work all day to go first. I heard him talking about this one item he really wanted. I gotta say, my dark side came out.
I purposely called him last so that item was taken. It felt good.
16. His Behavior Prompted His Removal
I was a high school teacher when I was right out of college. I had an 18-year-old in my tenth grade English class, who had flunked multiple times, and was just nasty. When I talked, he muttered under his breath. He was fond of saying that he didn't need to take orders from a girl. He was a big guy and had a bad reputation in town and all the kids in the class were scared of him.
I constantly wrote him up and called the vice-principal to class to pull him out. However, he hadn't done anything to get him removed for longer than a class period. The vice-principal told me that he would have to hurt something or someone in order to get taken out of my class for good. Therefore, one day, I basically instigated/irritated him into attacking me physically.
I called on him, knowing that he didn't know the answer. When he swore under his breath, I wrote him up, quoting him exactly and in an exaggerated way. When he stood up, I wrote that he "behaved in a threatening way" and continued on until I finally told him to go to the office. At that point, he walked behind the chair I was sitting in and shoved me into my desk.
He got suspended for a week, during which time he and another kid went to a local ski area and pilfered skis. As a result, he left for juvie and I never saw him again.
17. The Silent Treatment
I was teaching a class of three middle school boys in South Korea. It was one of my favorite classes, but they could be little pests sometimes. One day they wouldn't listen or work. They kept speaking Korean—which was not allowed in my class—and one kept throwing eraser bits at my face. So with 15 minutes left for the class, I gave them the silent treatment.
I opened up my schedule book and made random notes. At first, they just started drawing on the board and having fun, but soon, they were scared and tried to get my attention. When the bell rang, I grabbed my stuff and left. The next time I taught them, I walked into class, and they had written “Sorry Teacher” on the whiteboard and were all bowing to me.
18. He Was Brimming With Guilt
Several years ago, I had a student pilfer a stapler from my desk. I was pretty sure who did it but didn't have any proof at the time. Another kid came up to me later in the day and told me that my assumption of who took the stapler was correct. So, during my prep period, I simply looked up the kid's locker combination in the database.
I opened his locker, found my stapler, and stapled a post-it to the brim of his Chicago Bulls hat that said, "It's not nice to steal". I saw him wearing the hat a few days later, and the staple from the note was still embedded in the brim.
19. It Didn’t Take Much Understanding
My mom was a history teacher. She had a new student come in mid-year from Mexico. She tried giving him schoolwork assignments and called on him, but he always replied, "No se" which means "I don't know" in Spanish. Frustrated for weeks by that, my mom vented to the other teachers on her team about how the kid could possibly get a grade if he couldn't speak any English. The teachers were all stunned.
They informed her that the kid did indeed speak English and had just been fooling her. Embarrassed, my mom gave him an assignment the next day, and he pulled the same stunt, "No se". She took a giant red marker and drew a huge F on his paper that took up the whole page. She looked him in the eye and said, "Do you comprende now"? He was an A student the rest of the year.
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20. These Rules Were Not Meant To Be Broken
I was a teaching assistant at a large public university, teaching chemistry. I reminded my students several times each semester and put in the syllabus that you could email me 24/7, but I will only respond between the hours of 7:30 AM and 10 PM. If you email me at 10:15 PM and expect an answer on an assignment that is due the next day at 7:45 AM, tough luck. Your lack of planning is not my emergency.
Every semester I would have a handful of idiots who would throw fits and repeatedly email me after my cutoff hour as to why I wasn’t answering their emails. So, for any email that I got after 10 PM that was snitty, the question they asked would get read out loud in the next class period—which was often after the assignment was due. It would then get answered by the rest of the class.
After a few times of hearing their classmates ask why the question was even asked, usually, the impatient students in question would get the hint.
21. He Was Otter Line
My husband was helping to chaperone a first-grade field trip to the zoo since no parents had signed up. We were having a bathroom break. I was still with the girls, and the boys were waiting at the tables outside with my husband. One of the boys saw my husband's phone and demanded it from him. My husband refused, so the boy asked, “Why can't I see your phone”?
My husband replied, “Because it doesn't belong to you”. Then, the boy said, “My dad says if someone doesn't give me something, I should snatch it from them”. My husband's response was legendary. He said, “Your dad is an idiot”. At first, I was worried because I was the teacher, but part of me was like YEEEEESSSSS!!!! The boy was a brat to the max.
22. Football Francis
I taught middle school for seven years, and dealing with eighth-graders could be a bit trying. I had this one male student who whined about everything. Every assignment, project, and lecture involved some level of complaining from him. He was a good-looking football jock who was just lazy when it came to academics. At some point, while he was being particularly annoying, I looked at him and said, "Settle down, Francis".
This was not his real name but rather a line from the movie Stripes. It was immediately obvious that the name bugged the daylights out of him. From that moment forward, I used this knowledge in a devious way. I started calling him Francis on a daily basis just to irritate him, and he hated the name. I told my wife about it, who was his math teacher at the time.
Then, she started calling him Francis as well. Soon all of his peers at school started addressing him by Francis. I got such joy hearing people walking down the hall yelling out, "Hey Francis", and seeing the irritated look on his face every time he heard the name.
23. I Had A Hankering He Wouldn’t Be Prepared
I had a great student named Hank. He was a great kid but a bad student. It was presentation day and I already knew Hank didn’t prepare a single sentence. Before class, I told Hank, “Dude write something down. You HAVE to give a presentation”. He laughed it off. At the start of class, I told him again, “You will be presenting today, do something, I’ll let you go last”. I was giving him every chance I could.
When it came to Hank’s turn, he said, “Sorry, I have nothing”. I told him, “That’s OK, you can stand here for three minutes then”. He came up and gave his best shot at winging a presentation, which lasted all about 30 seconds. At that point, I moved to block him from leaving the “stage” and let him spend two and a half minutes standing up there, dying of embarrassment. He prepared all his presentations after that.
24. It Was Both A Blessing And A Curse
One year, I had a pain-in-the-neck girl in my class who was pure evil. One day, she had really gotten to me and close to the end of the class, I overheard her curse at another kid, telling them to get out of the classroom. Without thinking, I turned around and said, “Why don’t you get out” while cursing at her and pointing at the door. Her mouth dropped open, and the class went silent.
She got up and walked out. I started to freak out because I had never spoken like that to a student and didn’t want to get reported. So, I quickly walked into the hall and turned it into a learning experience for her. “Did you appreciate me saying that to you? Do you think other students appreciate it when you say it to them”? She said, “No, ma’am”.
I told her to go back inside, sit down, and that I never wanted to hear her speak like that again.
25. Disappearing Act
I was a volunteer assistant teacher for first graders. I had one student who was one of the smartest in the class but was also really mischievous and kind of mean. One day, since my desk was the table behind hers at the back of the room, I just started taking the pencils she was using and hiding them behind me whenever she would look away.
It went on for about an hour. She was digging through her pencil case in confusion and looking under her desk because she knew she had to have been writing with something, but her stuff was just magically disappearing. It didn't take her long to realize it was me, and she turned around and was absolutely livid. I just smiled and gave her back a bundle of about ten pencils.
26. I Had To Spell It Out
My dad was subbing for a special ed class. There was a student who was late for class. School policy was to give a tardy slip. The kid argued and refused to admit he was late. He continued to argue with my dad as he handed out that day's assignment to the point where my dad had to address the outbursts. Finally, he had no choice but to write him up, which made the student angrier. The kid pushed my dad to lose his cool.
He said to the kid, "Do you want me to write down on the referral you are being an idiot"? The kid, to his credit, came back instantly with, "I don't know, can you spell idiot"? My dad immediately responded, "Of course, I can spell idiot. I'm not the one in special ed".
27. We All Banded Together To Teach Him A Lesson
I had a student who, in the middle of his choir concert, started dancing and making an idiot of himself on the risers. He almost knocked another kid off the riser. During his band portion, he just repeatedly blasted his instrument, stood up, held it over his head, and dropped it on himself. I was amazed the band teacher didn't just stop and end it right there.
This kid was generally a goofy, lazy waste of space. He had no emotional issues, no social issues, no family problems—besides parents who enabled him—and was otherwise a C student. He would do the bare minimum on everything and whenever he could, he would disturb other people and would make everything a joke about himself.
We played the concert video in class, and all the kids in our room saw him messing around during their concert. These kids worked so hard to be pros at what they did and this kid was up there being a jerk. They ganged up on him. They criticized him, called him names, and said they weren't going to be his friend—all the worst things that happen to a kid in the sixth grade.
They then spent the day entirely ignoring everything to do with him. If he went to play kickball, they went to do chalk. If he went to get food from the lunch line, they all left the line to sit down. At the end of the day, the kids had to write about their day in their journals. I gave him 15 minutes to write and then had my co-teacher take over.
I took him to the office, put him on the speakerphone in the principal's office and watched him cry as he read about his terrible day to his mom. When his mom came to pick him up we had a team of teachers, administrators, other staff, and the students’ journals which all mentioned his poor behavior at the concert. The teachers and I all smiled while his mom cried as we read her those reflections.
Her end thought was to have him put in remedial classes and pulled from all clubs.
28. It Was Purely A Matter Of Principle
I had a student/parent duo that I couldn’t stand. The child was helpless because her mother babied her so much. All year everything I said was wrong. Once when she was in trouble, the kid literally told me that she didn’t care because her mom said it was OK to get in trouble in my class. She said that the behaviors I deemed bad weren’t actually bad.
On the last day of school, we had an awards ceremony. The mom was mad that her kid wasn’t getting an award, so she said she wasn’t going to send her to school that day. Therefore, I told all the kids that if they didn’t come to school that day they wouldn’t get the amazing gifts I was planning on giving out along with their memory books. There was no amazing gift; it was a bag of junk. I just wanted to force her hand as a matter of principle. She actually showed up!
29. When He Was Away, The Class Got To Play
There was a kid in my class who would purposefully do things to hurt other kids emotionally. He constantly lied—including to his mother—in front of my face. When he was called out on it, the mom laughed. She always defended his behavior. In my many years of teaching, he was the only child I had ever remotely come close to hating. And so I got a little petty.
After several months of his awfulness, I started waiting for the days when he was absent to do any extra special lessons and activities that were extremely fun, so that he would miss out on them. Then when he would come in the next day, I would have the kids write in their journals what they learned about, and what they enjoyed about the activity, just so he would know he missed it.
30. What A Dip!
I was teaching high school in the rural South. Chewing tobacco was a significant problem where I worked. School rules and a well-known class policy of mine prohibited beverages in the classroom. I taught a lab class, so it was also a safety issue. This kid was sitting in the back of my classroom and had a Gatorade bottle on the floor next to him.
Now, I wasn’t the brightest light on the Christmas tree, but I knew they didn’t make brown Gatorade. So, I did with his bottle what I did with any drink bottle—I unceremoniously chucked it in the trash without stopping my lecture. Drinks in the classroom would get taken away, but chewing tobacco got a referral to the office and I knew the bottle was for his chewing tobacco.
So the kid said, “That was my, uh, drink”. I told him drinks weren’t allowed in the classroom, so he asked if he could go to the bathroom. I told him, “We’ve only got ten minutes until the end of class”. He said he really needed to go. I told him, “If you’re not feeling well I can send you to the nurse so she can figure out what’s wrong”. He said he would be fine.
The next ten minutes dragged on while he got paler and paler. He left in a hurry when class ended.
31. Drumroll Please…
During my sophomore year in high school, I was in a steel drums class. We had a problem kid in the class who was an immature little pest, to say the least. One day, he brought a sub from Subway to class for lunch. When the teacher jokingly said, "Can I have some of it," this kid SHOVED THE WHOLE THING DOWN HIS PANTS. The teacher's response FLOORED me.
He said, "At least you have six inches in your pants for once".
32. No Comment
I worked as a teaching assistant at a very expensive private university. Most of the students I talked to were great and cared about learning, but a few were entitled. One such student demanded to know why she got a low grade on her paper and why there weren't more comments. I explained it was because we were in a big class, there was only one other TA, and we each spent about ten hours grading all the lab reports.
She got angry, sent me a nasty email about getting better feedback, then asked what the professor would have given her. It was extremely rude and really upset me. So, I had the professor regrade her paper, and he gave her the same grade. The second time around, with the follow-up lab report, I gave her an extreme amount of editing, picking out every wrong detail.
I didn't give her an unfair grade, but it was lower than the first one, as I found more mistakes than I would have if I had just skimmed it. Then, I had the professor grade it and send it to her directly. She had no choice but to say, "Thank you".
33. Evening The Score
I had one kid that I had to have switched out of my class, but it took forever. He was a high-functioning autistic kid who would pretend to be lower functioning in the social department for sympathy. My school was an ESE/autism choice school, which meant half of our classes were ESE classes. As a result, students were used to interacting with kids who had disabilities or were on the spectrum themselves, so there wasn’t much harassment unless a kid was a total jerk.
One of my female students was trying to be inclusive of this one kid. This boy began making "suggestions" to her about stuff. It was mostly harmless at first, but she became uncomfortable with his behavior and told him to stop. Every time she would tell him no, he would escalate his behavior until he was eventually stalking her. I would not put up with that.
So, I documented and reported every incident of him continually harassing her. My supervisor was having a hard time transferring him since his mom demanded he should be in a typical class even though he was on the spectrum enough for him to be in an ESE class. While his transfer was pending, I let the girl’s friends harass him back. I don't regret it; the poor girl had put up with six months of his tactics because of school politics.
34. I Stuck It To Him Good
I was a Pre-K teacher. There were so many terrible little demons I had to deal with, but one stands out from all the rest. He was a creep of a kid. He would inappropriately rub himself at both nap time and outside time. So, I told him if he kept doing it, the authorities would come. He was also obsessed with these certain building sticks, and if another kid played with them, he would smash their creations and hit the kids in the face.
One day, he had just finished smashing a kid’s work, which made him cry. So, I walked up to his table and bumped it with my behind, so his entire castle crumbled. It felt amazing.
35. Nothing Could Beatle This
My mother was a home economics teacher. She was in her room during breaktime when one of her students—who she didn’t dislike—came in and asked for a small container with holes in it. She found a suitable container and asked him why he wanted it. He lifted up his fist to show her. On his fist, sitting beside his thumb, was a big, black beetle.
My mom was not a big fan of creepy crawlies. She also didn't expect the boy to have a beetle resting on his hand. She proceeded to scream in front of him, then ran across the room and shouted, "Oh God, no"! The boy was immediately apologetic and was quite surprised to see his teacher turn into jelly in front of him. It turned out this boy had pet reptiles.
In order to feed his creatures, he raised his own beetles and presumably other insects. The night before, he had lost one of the beetle larvae/pupae. He found a beetle in his shoe at school the next morning. Apparently, the larva/pupa found its way into his shoe during the night and grew up. He wanted to take the beetle home and needed a suitable container to do so.
She directed him to the container, and he left with his beetle. After that, she refused to eat anything he made in class.
36. Right Back Atcha Kiddo!
As a camp counselor, I had this troublemaker in my cabin. He would constantly moan about having to brush his teeth, take a shower, and do activities—that he CHOSE AND SIGNED UP FOR—etc. I felt so bad because all I was doing was nagging him all the time. Then on the last night during dinner, he turned to me and said, "You know, you're not my favorite counselor".
To which I responded—with the cheeriest smile I could muster—"It's okay, you're not my favorite camper either"!
37. I Couldn’t Stomach It
I taught martial arts when I was 17. Most of the students were between the ages of seven and 12, but there was this one older kid who was about 15–16. He would always use his age to harass the younger students. Not outright, but he would always assert his dominance over them in class, instead of leading them by example. He never talked back to me or anything but would always look at me like he thought he could take me on.
In a sparring session, I tried to have him partner with a newer student and play a defensive role. I thought he could control himself better than a nine-year-old could and give the new student some confidence to fight. I was wrong, and he knocked the poor kid flat. I ended the match and told him his next partner would be me. Let the games begin.
I then told him he could fight however he wanted within the rules of an official tournament match, despite the fact I wasn't wearing any protective gear besides gloves. He didn't land a single hit and the fight ended with me hitting him in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of him. I talked to him after class to make sure the message got through, and it did.
38. Game On
One day when I was teaching, a disruptive kid got his PSP out during class. I naturally confiscated it until the end of class. Then he did it again and again. During this semester the kid had several written reprimands and was on thin ice with his parents. Around the fifth or sixth time he did it, I told him I was forced to write him up for it. He begged me not to, so I didn't.
Instead, I took the PSP home and played Lego Batman that night and the next. I kept it for about a week. He never took it out in class again.
39. Randy Wasn’t Going To Rune My Class
For four years, I taught third-grade elementary in South Korea at the same school. For three of those years, I heard horror stories about this one kid named Randy. Randy was definitely bipolar; he would be laughing one minute and biting kids until they bled—while screaming like a mountain lion—the next. His parents never even acknowledged it was a problem and refused to treat it for prideful reasons.
I spent the two years leading up to his entrance into my class creating a sort of mythology around myself. By using easy tricks, I would convince students that I was a dragon, and as such, could pull their spirits out through their hands and also bend metal. It got to a point where my students were telling the kids in younger grades, including Randy.
When this kid got to my class, I handed him a piece of wood covered with runes. I told him it was a cursed item that would stick his tongue to the roof of his mouth if he behaved poorly. I didn’t hear a peep from him after that.
40. I Took A Bite Out Of This Problem
I had a girl in my class who was just awful. She was mean, manipulative, and a huge antagonizer. She was always the first to accuse other kids of not being fair if they didn't do what she wanted. One day, we ended up with an extra snack, and she wanted it. She kept saying it wasn't fair not to give kids who wanted extra the leftovers.
So, I told her fine. I asked the whole class who wanted extra, and of course, everyone said yes. I divided it into tiny bites and made sure every kid got one. She was furious but it was worth the tantrum she threw when I gave her a single bite of that snack. No other kid complained.
41. Once, Twice, Three Times A Faily
My chemistry teacher resented the fact that I never did my homework and was overall apathetic, yet I aced my tests. She even accused me of cheating but could never provide evidence. Instead, she just said, “I know you cheat because you never participate or pay attention in class”. I had a project due. There was a reduction in your grade if you turned in the project late.
She waited a week after it was due to tell me she couldn't find my project, even though I turned it in on time. I hadn’t saved it on my computer, so I had to spend a whole night redoing a project that had taken me multiple days previously. This time, I saved it. I turned it in and directly handed it to her. Three days later, she told me she had lost it again.
I reprinted it and handed it in again, only for her to misplace it for the third time. At that point, the best I could get on the project was an F because of it being late, even though it was her fault. When everyone else received their papers back, I was the only one who didn't—and never did. I kept asking what my grade was, and she refused to tell me.
42. My Revenge Was A Smashing Success
I tutored a class after school and after many of the students would leave, I let the kids play Super Smash Flash on the computer. One day during the summer, one of the kids was being super annoying. He wasn't doing his work, distracting others, and he even threw a kid’s lunch on the ground. So, when it was time for Smash, I did the worst thing I could think of—I turned on high gravity and slow-mo—which made his game difficult to play.
He got so mad that I had to take him into another room just to calm him down.
43. Left In The Dust
I had a friend in elementary school who was not well-liked by the teacher. One day he was late, so my teacher took the opportunity to dump sawdust—that was used to clean vomit—all over his desk in front of the whole class. No one said a thing, and I was stumped as to why she would do that. Then, she motioned for the class to be quiet and started the lesson for that morning.
When my friend strolled in, he looked at his desk, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Well guess I'm going back home". He left and the teacher called the janitor to clean up the sawdust. I was in shock. I couldn’t understand why a teacher would do that. I never had the guts to tell my friend what she did because I was too scared of the teacher.
44. The Result Was Music To My Ears
I went to pick up my Kindergarteners from music class and saw five of them just lying on the ground while the rest of the class was participating. The music teacher told me that they had just decided they didn't want to do anything that day and didn't care about any consequences, which they were well aware of. I walked the class back to our classroom.
I took a chair and a sticker treasure box to the front of the room. I called up each student by name, one by one, and gave them a sticker for "acting like big kids during music and not baby preschoolers who needed a nap". I called up every student except for those five. It took a decent ten minutes of class time, but that was the last complaint I got from the music teacher.
45. I Let My Stress Slip Through My Fingers
I was dealing with the neediest and most obnoxious student for the thousandth time after school. She would sneak into programs that her parents didn’t pay for after school hours, and I was in the middle of booting her off the campus when she protested. She started trying to rationalize, then beg, then tried and manipulated her way into staying. The rules were clear and I had no problem enforcing them.
As she turned away to leave in a huff, she called me a name in a not so quiet voice. I, without thinking and almost reflexively, acted on instinct: I gave her the finger. She spun back around—I can only assume to see my reaction to her comment—only to see my finger straight up at her. She giggled and walked off and I sat in my classroom. I thought hard about stress and how to let it affect me less.
46. I Fleshed Out A Successful Plan
My friend was an art teacher and had a very problematic student. She tried to have a meeting with the parents, but they never went. The mother had seven children, was very religious, and she always said that she didn't have any time. She didn't seem very worried that her child was disrupting the classes. One day, the students were making a collage, and they had to use old magazines to make a poster.
My friend saw that some students were passing around a racy magazine in class and laughing about it. So, she waited until the magazine was in the hands of this student to bust him. The kid cried, saying that it wasn't his magazine and that it was unfair. My friend sent a message to the mother saying, "Your son is watching inappropriate racy material in class".
His mother went to speak with her immediately because being disruptive and a harasser is not a problem for the mother, but seeing some flesh at 14 was.
47. The Stroke Of A Pen
I had a student take my pen once. The kids at my grade level didn’t use pens yet, and the pen was the exact same brand, style, and color that I always used. The kid said that he "found it in the hallway". He knew that I couldn't prove that he took it, so I just ignored him and went on with the lesson. After about 10–15 minutes, I heard a shout from him. He had been chewing on the pen and it leaked all into his mouth.
He then tried to wipe it out using his brand new shirt. The shirt got completely ruined. I couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. His sister, who was a year younger than him, couldn't wait to tell me the next day that the boy got his rear end torn up for ruining his new shirt. For the next month or so, whenever he didn't have a pencil, I would offer to let him use one of my pens. He never took me up on the offer.
48. Stripped Of Her Duties
When I was in the sixth grade, my homeroom teacher wasn't a very laid-back person. She had a tendency to get stressed out easily. It wasn't very far into the school year, and by that time, whatever was stressing her out was starting to break her. One day, for whatever reason, she was in full-on stress mode and was fumbling a lot throughout the lesson.
This was causing the class to become fidgety and a couple of the boys that would harass classmates, as well as this teacher, were mocking her in stage whispers. At one point, as she was moving around in front of the chalkboard, a portion of her shirt got caught on something, and when she turned around it was showing some of her belly.
She didn't notice it right away, but it was brought to her attention when one of the boys started whispering to his friend that she was flashing us. From there, it all went wrong. Her response to hearing them joking among themselves, and realizing that she was having an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction, was to shout at them and pull her shirt almost off and really flash us. Her bra was completely visible.
She yelled, "IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED, YOU LITTLE FREAKS"?! She then replaced her shirt and stormed out of the classroom. The assistant principal came in and asked the class about it twenty minutes later and stayed to teach the class for the rest of the day. The next day one of the regular substitute teachers was there and he took over the class for the rest of the year.
49. ¡Dios Mio!
There was a kid who spoke Spanish in my sister’s class. He spoke English as well but refused to do so with her. He was also disruptive, and all the other students would get all ruffled and excited by his outbursts. Over a couple of months, it got so bad that she was having a hard time getting through a lesson without this kid acting like a fool.
He was calling other kids names and doing it all in Spanish because he assumed he could get away with it. So my sister came up with a serious revenge plot. She googled an inappropriate phrase full of profanity in Spanish. She called the kid’s home and in her sweetest voice, chatted her up with her normal teacher spiel. Then, she said the kid kept, “Shouting out this phrase in class and unfortunately, I don't speak Spanish".
She continued, “I'm worried he may be asking a question or trying to get help, and I'm not providing him with every tool he needs. I wrote it down from how it sounds. Sorry if I mispronounce this". Then, she read off the sentence, making sure to hesitate a bit like she was trying to get the pronunciation as correct as possible. The mom was silent.
She then stuttered, "I cannot repeat that to you. Do not worry. I'll take care of this. I am so very sorry. He speaks English and will no longer interrupt class". The kid came to school the next day, spoke nothing but perfect English, and never acted out in her class again.
50. He Mastered The Art Of Unprofessionalism
In ninth grade, I went to a weird art program that was in a block of buildings on the campus of a regular public high school. I had a drawing teacher that made my life a nightmare. My class started at 6:30 AM and every day was spent with the teacher laying into me. My friends in the program, as well as the life drawing teacher, noticed that he was unusually hard on me as well, but nothing was ever done.
The teacher would tell me my work was garbage. Any compliments about my work were backhanded. He would raise his voice and tell me that I should quit, so I did. It drove me to give up art. At the end of my senior year, I was a student at the regular public high school where the art program was held in. I got a message in my homeroom that I needed to go see that drawing teacher.
He took me into his office, sat me down, and started crying. He said, "I'm so sorry. My wife and I had a baby to save the marriage. Between the baby and the early morning class time, I was so tired and angry and I took it out on you. I don't know why it was you, but it was”. I just said "What's done is done" and went back to class. However, that was by FAR the most unprofessional thing I had ever encountered.
Sources: Reddit, .
