22 hours ago
4
For several years when I was younger, I thought I'd grow up to be a teacher. I loved arranging fake school 'open houses' in my grandparents' house on summer afternoons, and shopping for school supplies felt like Christmas morning.
After hearing the kind of nonsense teachers deal with nowadays, though, I'm glad my career aspirations changed. I couldn't stop laughing when I read the answers on this Reddit thread (and this one, too!) about the most unhinged things students have ever said. Some are hilarious, but others — I have no words!
1. "I was teaching a history lesson and asked about the group of people who moved to the American West in pursuit of the gold discoveries made in the mid 1800’s. I was looking for the '49’ers.' What I got was an enthusiastic reaction from a girl who usually showed zero interest in history. She confidently and triumphantly stated, 'Gold-diggers!'”
"She's not wrong."
2. "One of my 4th-grade boys submitted a poster today with waste-reducing tips. It recommends switching to a menstrual cup. Tell me you used ChatGPT without telling me you used ChatGPT."
3. "'I hate you whore-ass man.' My student had Googled 'Who invented school?' and didn’t know how to pronounce Horace Mann."
4. "Had a first grader named Takela, pronounced like Tequila. I told her she had a very unique and interesting name. Her response: 'That's what momma was drinking when she and Daddy made me.'"
5. "Chaperoning a school dance, and "Cotton Eye Joe" came on. One of my students looked at me and said, 'Miss, I know this song! Isn't it the one old white people like to dance to?'"
6. "A high school student saw my wedding ring and asked me why I don’t use Mrs. I’m a man."
7. "I used to have a mini fridge where I kept cans of sparkling water. A conversation with a kindergartener went like this: Him: 'Do you have a job?' Me: 'Yes. This is my job. I’m a teacher.' Him: 'Do you make money?' Me: 'Yes.' Him: 'Is that how you can afford that beer?' Me: …… holding a can of sparkling water.
"I pack Liquid Death in my kids' lunch. Students ask me all the time why I pack them beer."
8. "'I'm tired of this bloody shit show.' He was 6. Me too, little dude. Me too."
9. "Wished a kid luck with catching up on his homework. His response? 'I don’t need luck; I need a god.'"
10. "I have a kindergartener who’s Filipino, and the first week of school, she went around saying, 'Hi, I’m Phoebe. My family is Jalapeños.'”
"I had a student in a theater program whose second language was English. She said to me, 'When you look out at the audience, you will see Asians', meaning that their extended family was coming."
11. "Not mine, a colleague's: He was a student teacher talking about religious sects in a world history class. He asked if we still had sects today. One kid looked kinda sheepish and raised his hand: 'Mr. Smith, we wouldn't be here today if people didn't.'"
12. "When I was subbing: 'You're not going to leave a note for the teacher, are you?' after I called the administration because they lit a deck on fire with hand sanitizer...."
13. "I had a group of kids who kept calling each other their sons, like 'he's my son' or 'that's my son,' so I asked them why. 'It's cause we don't have Dads so we gotta be there for each other.'"
14. "A college student’s paper was straight-up copy-and-paste from Wikipedia. When I confronted him, he said, 'Oh no, Ms. — No, I would never do that! I would never plagiarize. My girlfriend wrote this paper for me! I can’t believe she did that. I’m gonna talk to her about plagiarism.'"
15. "Me: 'Where is someplace you'd want to go on a trip to? Anywhere in the world. Some place exciting!' Kid: 'Like Ohio?'"
16. "I had a girl tell me my face was tragic after she offered to get me collagen from her mom, who sells MLM products. I declined, and that was her response. My reply was, 'Girl, I earned this tragedy. Thanks for noticing.' She visits me all the time even though she goes to another school now. I adore her."
17. "'You don't look like you're 30, you look like a 24-year-old who dropped out of college and is trying to get his life back together.'"
18. "When discussing how musicians were playing during the Titanic sinking, one student said, 'Do you think it would have been a better vibe if they were playing 'WAP' while it was sinking?' and then started singing it... loudly."
19. "Student: 'Do you have a pencil I can have?' Me: 'Um, ok, but didn’t I give you one yesterday?' Student: 'Yes, but I’m too lazy to get it out of my backpack.'"
"I’m retiring, and in four days, I will never have to hear this again from the same kids every day who know where the pencils are and who leave them on the floor."
20. "When I was student teaching in a first-grade class, the kids were talking about their parents' jobs, and this one girl was like, 'I'm not allowed to talk about what my Dad does,' and I asked why, and she said, 'It's bad to talk about at school,' so I asked her to whisper it in my ear, and she whispered, 'he makes beer,' as if it were the most scandalous thing ever. Her dad worked at a local brewery that's very family-oriented (they even have a small playground on the property)."
21. "'I only cheated on this test question because I didn’t know it.' While holding his phone directly in front of the Chromebook screen."
"I had a student call me over to ask me for help with a question on an assignment because 'Google doesn’t know the answer to this one.'”
22. "Starting a social studies unit on Ancient China for a 6th-grade class, I introduced it by talking a little bit about modern-day China and mentioned that the population of China is 1.4 billion. A kid yelled out, 'Damn! Haven’t they ever heard of condoms?!"
23. "I briefly taught kindergarten a long time ago, and this little boy was super happy because it was his birthday that day. He said, 'You know what? I get to have a birthday EVERY YEAR... on the SAME DAY.' Adorable."
24. "One of the students walks in and reads the board, sees that we're learning about the Chernobyl disaster. 'Chernobyl? Isn't that a yogurt?'"
I'm pretty sure they were thinking of...
25. "'My grandma says you're not supposed to say f**k!' This is from a preschooler who misheard something a classmate said. They said the actual word. And repeated the phrase multiple times to make sure we all understood. Thanks, mate; I got the point the first time. Love that kid."
"A little kid called dump trucks 'dumb fucks'. I think about that when I'm stuck behind one in the left lane."
26. "'Yeah, that’s Elvis. Didn’t he die of a Cadillac arrest?'"
27. "'Can I take a pic of your dogs? I can make a lot of money on feetpics.com.' I stopped wearing open-toe shoes after that."
28. "I had a student who put lotion on every hour or more. Not a problem because it didn’t distract, but when I asked him why he did it so much, he replied, 'A brother be getting chalky.'
29. "Kindergarten teacher: 'Where does milk come from?' Student: 'The refrigerator.'"
30. "Asked a teacher if we could all go outside to laugh at our classmate who slid into a ditch outside the school as a tow truck came to get the car out. We did."
31. "Had a student point at all the ladies and tell each of them individually… 'You’re a virgin.' There were about 5fivw girls in the class, so it didn’t go on for long. Kid was high as a kite. Smelled like it too."
33. "'Isn’t the NCAA the anti-racist organization?'"
"To be fair, I used to get the NCAA and NAACP confused every once in a while as well."
34. "'Ms. ____, are we rushing the 'ho's?' (They were playing a piece with 'ho ho ho')."
Okay, maybe I've been missing out on something after all. Some of these kids are absolute icons.
Note: Responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
English (US) 