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Teaching is no small job—and it comes with a whole lot of responsibility. On top of making sure the curriculum is covered, teachers also have the tough task of keeping a room full of students engaged, well-behaved, and supported. Sure, there are the star students who make it all worthwhile (modest pay included). But then there are those who leave you with a whole lot more questions than answers.

You know the type: the ones who say or do something so baffling that it stops the whole class in its tracks. These moments tend to stick with you, so it’s no surprise that a Reddit thread asking teachers to share the moments that made them think, “Oh boy, that student definitely isn’t going places,” was met with some truly jaw-dropping stories.

#1

A university freshmen turned in a paper on the Treaty of Versailles that conformed to no known formatting system I had ever seen, there didn’t even seem to be paragraphs.

Assuming that his computer had jumbled it up somehow when he turned it in, I went to give it back to him in class one day so he could fix it.

He informed me it was intentional, the format meant the paper was to be read as a rap. Which he proceeded to do for me in the few minutes before class started, It was incredible. D+.

#2

One of the fellas in my university 1st year computer programming class stared at the wall, at the same spot. The whole class, Every class.

He’d walk in on time, sit down, open his folder, and stare at the wall, and didn’t ever take a note that I saw. At the end of the wall-staring duration of the class, he’d close his likely-still-blank folder, get up, and leave without a word.

I see him from time to time at the grocery store collecting up the carts. I feel a little bad for whoever funded his education, but am pleased that he has a steady job.

#3

My 8’th grade physical science lab partner took the top off one of those oil burners, poured the oil all over our desk and then lit it on fire. Like on purpose. Did you think it would be less flammable because it’s on the table now?

Hilariously, even though I was the one who put the fire out and had nothing to do with lighting it, I still got suspended too. I guess the lesson I was supposed to learn was never help put out a fire.

#4

Not a teacher but a fellow student.

A guy in my class was asked by the german teacher what kind of music he listens to. Trying to make a good impression, he said he liked classical music. The teacher asked him to name his favourite composer. He answered “Piano”.

#5

Not a teacher but someone in my class genuinely believed that the Great Wall of China was in Berlin.
Took everyone a couple minutes to realise she was being serious…

#6

Used to teach English in Japan.

Had a 12 year-old kid who would take off his socks and chew on his toenails in the middle of my lessons.

Had a 4 year-old kid who would run at top speed toward the wall, throw himself into it, stumble around going “ouch!” for a few seconds, then do it all again, for an hour straight if we would let him.

Had a seven year-old who stripped off down to his underpants, then skipped around the room singing the Pokemon theme song for the whole class. Finally got him dressed again just as the lesson ended. He looked up at me, and said in complete seriousness, “Sensei, I did a good job!”

Kids, man. They’re weird.

#7

Asked my student (7th grade life science) why he has F’s in all of his classes and why he doesn’t bother to care about it. He proceeds to tell me with the most confident smile that he’s making it into the NBA.

#8

Been a history teacher for 3 months and was teaching about the middle colonies and how it was the “Bread Basket” of America. The next day as a warm up I ask what the bread basket is. She rose her hand and without her even skipping a beat starts going off about how I’m so dumb because it’s called the chicken basket where you get your tenders two sides and it also comes with bread but that isn’t what it’s called. This poor girl has a lot more stories this one is the one that stands out to me the most.

Edit: sorry guys took a nap because I’m trying to enjoy my vacation.

Other stories include wondering how Obama was the first black president because she thought Abraham Lincoln was black. Her reasoning behind it was that was really tall. Granted she’s also black yeah…

Along with that I’ve had to explain that we did have color back them she couldn’t believe that people before the 1950s still had color as only the Tv’s and photos were black and white.

She constantly calls people cockatoos.

3 weeks ago she asked which history I’m teaching.

I honestly don’t know if I really suck as a teacher or it’s her.

Mind you guys i do teach 8th grade US history. I wanted to believe all kids are smart but I’m just slowly not going to hold on to that belief anymore. These are the highlites. Ask again next year and ill have a stories from multiple kids I want to reap in that sweet sweet karma.

#9

My mom was a substitute for 5th grade teachers. She told me how this one kid had so many anger issues.

This kid would be sitting in his desk playing legos or something, then out of nowhere flip the desk, start punching the other kids while screaming at the top of his lungs. He also wasn’t a small kid, and my mom isn’t a big person, so when my mom tried to calm him down, he only got more angry and ripped a necklace off of her and tackled her to the floor, which was when 3 other grown men pulled the kid off of her. She got to go home early and get paid for the necklace that was broken.

You think someone would find out that this kid was mentally handicapped before 5th grade.

#10

Not a teacher, but in one of my health ed classes, a girl in my class said she wasn’t afraid of getting AIDS, because if she got it she’d just give it to someone else… and therefore not have it….

Yeah that was an interesting day once we realized she was serious…

#11

I work with three year olds.

One was crying and pointing at another kid so I asked what happened. She mostly speaks Spanish, but understands English so I started asking her, “Are you hurt?” Yes “Did she hit you?” Yes “Did she kick you?” Yes

Then the other child chimes in, “NUH UH!! I didn’t kick her! I just punched her in the face!”.

#12

On the first day, after going over the syllabus, I had a little “intro to college” talk I would give first semester students. I know how boring a syllabus is, so I would touch some of the most important aspects of it, like attendance and late work, in a less formal discussion to help grab the students attention.

Part of this was something along the lines of, “You are now in college and you are an adult. I don’t know your parents phone number and I will not call them if you miss a day, or don’t turn in your work. You are now responsible for your own future.”

Right when I said that, a few students would get up and leave, never to be seen again.

#13

Had a high school senior girl who didn’t know how to add fractions tell me that it was “a waste of time.” This was a month before she had to take her SAT so she could apply to colleges. Side note: her mother would come in talking about getting her into top tier schools and how bright she was.

#14

I had a middle school student, not even old enough to drive himself, bring a dog to class – in his coat pocket. (I think the parents had to come get it after 3rd period. It went potty.)

Same child also tried to save ice cream for after school in his locker. He was NOT special ed, either.

#15

One chick in my class (in France) when I was in 10th grade said she “did not get all the fuss about Obama being president, it’s not like if it was the first black US president, there was Martin Luther King before him”.

#16

When she spelled her name, Angel, Angle. At 14 yo.

#17

Not a teacher but a student. In eighth grade history me and my two friends answered every question we could because every other student did not care. One day this girl gets fed up and complained to the teacher that we were answering too many questions. The teacher decided to be fair and let her answer questions first then have us answer us she got it wrong. The first question she was asked was “what was the mother country of America?” Without missing a beat she instantly says “ the Statue of Liberty.”.

#18

“Woah Miss I just realised that the numbers after 10 are just made up of the numbers between 1-9.”

Somehow he’s one of my best maths students.

#19

“How many legs does a chicken have?”
“Three, no, wait, chicken the bird or chicken you eat?” She was a high school junior.
.
“On the map, find the border between Georgia and South Carolina.”
“I don’t know where that’s at.”
“Okay, find Georgia.”
(embarassed)”I don’t know where that’s at.” He was a high school senior…IN GEORGIA!

#20

Not me but a fellow student in college.

Sit down for out statistics final exam.. multiple choice answers but you’re doomed if you don’t know the formulas.

Guy one row over and two seats down sits.. pulls out a single six sided dice and rolls it for every question.

The guy passed the exam. I did too.. but wow that guy was brave (not to mention lucky).
Guess if you figure you’re gonna fail might as well try something new right?

#21

As a getting to know you activity I asked students “If you could be anyone in history, who would you be and why?”

One student’s answer: “Eleanor Roosevelt, because I’ve always wanted to be black.”.

#22

In the last few weeks before the AP exam I give my classes a series of practice tests (written by College Board) to take in class under a time constraint to give them practice. One student, lets call him Bill, always tried to cheat in my class. I had gotten sick of putting in the effort to catch him, and it didn’t matter because the entire point of the class was to prepare for the AP Exam.

Bill started off each test by staring at the page and answering one or two questions. Then, as always, he asked to go to the bathroom during the test. I let him go and he took his phone (of course). He returns and frantically bubbles in the rest of the test and turns it in early. I have to hand it to him, Bill was great at memorizing letters for the answers of the practice tests, but he failed the AP Exam.

#23

Okay…so I had a student in middle school that couldn’t read. That wasn’t a huge deal. Kid had issues. Once he got angry at me and told me he was going to “rip off my buttons”. It may have been literal or figurative. Didn’t matter. Remember, issues. It was my job to teach him to read. He should have already been in high school. He was 14 and in middle school. I worked individually with this kid. Everyday. Finally I just asked him what he was going to do for a living if he couldn’t read and wouldn’t try. He gave me a pretty standard answer. “I’ll play basketball”. I should mention he was barely over five foot tall. I worried about him. He was my student for two years. Eventually he moved on and I switched to high school. So twenty years later I get curious. I remember most of my students and this kid had a name that stood out a bit. I Google his name hoping he won’t be in prison. A lot of my former students are. I find him right away. He’s a professional basketball player. For Ukraine. Retired now but still…So good for him. Made himself proud.

Quick edit: He turned 15 in middle school. He did learn how to read. He graduated and went to college. Apparently he struggled for awhile, but he’s human. His history was not ideal. I’m concerned about naming him because of his privacy. He played from 2006-2010…

#24

I’m late to the thread, but I have a winner. The class was an applied math course for high schoolers, and we held a paper airplane design contest. The rule was that you could use anything on the table to make your airplane, and that the person who threw theirs the farthest down the hallway would win. The table had all manner of things on it, printer paper, construction paper, tape, rulers, compasses, toothpicks, duct tape, paper clips, masking tape, a stapler, and even elmer’s glue. Well, the class went to work and for an hour designed some very interesting airplanes. Except for Tim. Tim sat quietly and chatted with his friends until about thirty seconds were left to build. Then he went up to the table, grabbed a few things, and sat back down to wait. When it came time to throw, it turned out that his “airplane” was a piece of paper wrapped around the stapler. While the lighter (and more complex) planes drifted to the side and landed early or hit the hallway walls, Tim’s “plane” slammed straight into the door on the other end of the hall, with a satisfying clunk. Tim’s ridiculous creation beat everyone else out and won the contest easily, while technically obeying the rules of the competition. I hope that guy ends up working for NASA.

Edit:

My other favorite student was a kid who ate a glue stick for five dollars. He figured it was edible because it said “non-toxic”. Technically correct, but so, so, wrong. He had to go home, due to the uncontrollable vomiting. I’m not sure if he was ever paid the five dollars.

My third favorite was a middle-schooler whose mom was dissed by another student in class. His reaction, not having any decent weapons on him, was to rip out the three-ring part of a three-ring binder and use the prongs to attack the other student’s forearm. Unfortunately, that kid isn’t going anywhere but juvie unless he can get help with his anger issues. Too bad, because it was an ingenious improvised weapon, and he could probably use that creativity some other way.

#25

I had my students write “two truths and a lie” so the class could get to know one another better. One student writes: “I had four concussions” “I play hockey” “I have gold”. He said that the lie is that he has gold….I told our phys ed teacher about it at lunch and she says “what does he mean he has gold” I said, “well, that was the lie” “well then he lied twice, because he’s had seven concussions” no wonder he’s so slow….

#26

Three 3rd grade boys stole a answer book from me for their reading test which consisted of 18 multiple choice questions and 2 essay questions. They all aced the multiple choice questions but had the exact same answers on the essay questions. “Student answers may vary”.

#27

This isn’t really the kid’s fault, more the parents, but my sister teaches in Hong Kong, generally 3-4 year olds.

And she had this one kid, called Enzo if I remember right, kept acting out, completely ignoring my sister & her TA when they spoke to him, and doing badly in the class work they’re given. He also didn’t speak, like, at all, tended to play by himself.

So my sister called in his parents in to discuss it, voiced her concerns that there might be behavioural problems, maybe something deeper seated.

His parents then confided in her that it’s probably not that, more that the kid didn’t speak a lick of English or Cantonese, I.E, the two languages used in the school, and most of Hong Kong.

They were both relatively affluent Italians, so they’d raised the kid speaking Italian, and lied that he spoke English fluently so he could get admitted into the school, as it was a requirement that they have a basic understanding (IIRC.)

My sister raised her concerns with the Principal after she had the meeting, and they responded to just moving the kid to another class. She said she still sees him sitting alone during lunch breaks.

I really feel for the kid though, he’s only young, and he’s pretty much been alienated, and won’t learn properly because his parents are so set on shoving him into the most expensive school, assuming he’ll learn well.

#28

My sister is a teacher for a local school. Like a great many teachers, she’s also responsible for a form group – in this case, a rowdy and rambunctious group of fifteen year olds she’d inherited from a newly-retired teacher.

Some kids stand out more than others, and not always for the right reasons; the epitome of that rule existed in my sister’s form group. She had the misfortune to be called ‘Xena’ by her Tumblr-feminist mother, and Xena herself had followed firmly in her mother’s footsteps – she was considered unpopular, and certainly the other kids were unfair and cruel, but she didn’t help matters herself.

My sister has told many stories of Xena, up to and including;

* The time she spontaneously began speaking in an accent, which sounded like the child of a Pakistani accent, Irish, and a speech impediment. The accent vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared over the course of the lunch hour.

* The time she claimed powers of clairvoyance in chemistry. The kid torching pencils with a Bunsen burner apparently never particularly cared if their great-aunt Doreen wanted to warn them of misfortune

* The time she shaved her head, and refused to wear her uniform because it was ‘stifling her creativity’

The John Cena meme was in full swing, and Xena had earned the nickname ‘John Xena’, owing to her buzzcut and unfortunate head shape. Kids would hum his theme tune upon seeing Xena in the school. A memo was sent around the faculty concerning the matter, but half of the staff were convinced that John Cena was a politician.

My sister was running improvisation drills when Xena broke in with one of her prime stories; She was the daughter of a Mauritian man named Johnathan, she said (Her skin was the colour of milk, smooth and pale) a man of great importance. She’d been born in Mauritius and swiftly smuggled over to the UK with her mother (Born and raised in England) as a newborn. There was a beat of stunned, awkward silence, until a particular a child screeched;

*’Joooooohn Cena!’* and slammed his mate’s head into the desk.

#29

Blatant and obvious low-effort plagiarism. Like, it’s literally the first Google result if you search “topic: example essay” but they added their name, in a different font and size, which should make it obvious at a glance as if the use of capitalization and punctuation wasn’t a clear give-away that they didn’t write it. I had a student pull that last year, while his even dumber buddy didn’t even put his name in it. In fact it wasn’t even an essay, it was a selection of *question prompts*. Basically two Kevins in one class.

I also had a kid at the very end of the day continually mess around with his skateboard and became very hostile when I insisted on holding it until the last bell. He ran out the door, jumped on it and promptly fell and broke his jaw. His parents then threatened to sue the school because he got hurt there doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.

EDIT: This is a great one, TWICE this week the same student has brought a popsicle in to have as a snack for lunch. Needless to say he was very disappointed. (His mom might actually pack his lunch).

#30

I was subbing in a third grade class and, as a reward, I was told I could draw a quiz card and ask a question to a student. The student could earn points (to be used in the class store) by answering the question. So I asked this very sweet little girl how many states of the US she could name, worth one point each. She sat there thinking with a big smile on her face for about 15 seconds before emphatically stating, “Wednesday!”.

#31

I teach freshman-in-college-level writing. Every semester I have one (so far, always male) student like this:

He tells me that he’s excellent at writing, and that this class is pretty much a formality for him. He tells me not to worry, he’ll do me a favor and play nice in the class unless “it gets ridiculous” because he likes me as a teacher. He tells me about the book he’s writing, and he tells me that he’ll “let me” edit it for him when he gets finished. The other students hate him because he’s always one-upping them in discussion.

The papers he turns in never follow instructions, and, on top of that, they’re barely comprehensible. He’s among the weakest writers in the class. His formatting is bizarre. He’s then offended by any and all feedback. When I try to offer help, he assures me that it’s actually a mistake that he’s even taking my class, and that he was “supposed” to test out of it. He gets the grades he deserves and moves down the line to the next teacher.

TL;DR: The Dunning-Kruger effect is real.

#32

Hell class. It was the ultimate test for if I really wanted to be a teacher or not, in my final year of teacher’s college.

Second grade. There were the usual few trouble-makers, some suck-ups, some sad stories, but mostly just average kids. Except THOSE TWO. THOSE TWO made it hell class.

Both boys. Boy 1 was hyperactive, stubborn as hell, violent to both students and teachers (once punched my mentor teacher in the face while I was there, breaking her glasses), and just generally a handful. Both boys were given special schedules which meant they were on the iPads most of the day. If you told Boy 1 it was time to do work instead of playing on the iPad, he lost it. Every Time. Every single time. This happened about 5-10 times a day, depending on how much we wanted to fight him.

Boy 2 was almost worse. No emotion. No impulse control. Nothing. Just a blank slate of anger and venom. He screamed, he destroyed school property, he forced the whole class to evacuate on two occasions. He was no longer allowed on field trips because he would run away, forcing the teacher to chase him (he thought it was funny). He did a lot of things he thought was funny – hint: it never was. I thank God he was never physically violent because he was such a huge kid that he would have seriously hurt someone.

It’s not that these kids were going nowhere. They were going to jail. Probably sooner rather than later.

#33

This happened to me just yesterday….

My hair is usually strawberry blonde in the summer, but I dye it a darker red in the fall. When my kindergarten students came to class yesterday, they were all a bit unsure of the new color. Here’s a real conversation (the broken English is because they’re Korean children)…..

Kid – Teacher, head is why red?

Me – Why is my hair red? I’m like a tree. I change colors in the fall.

Kid – So…… winter and no hair?

I about passed out laughing! That’s some logic for you!

#34

Fellow classmate story: a girl in my geography class was convinced that the U.S. was a continent, and that each state was a country. We discovered this because she listed her favorite foreign nation as “Colorado”.

#35

When I was in high school a girl (who wasn’t exactly known for academic excellence) in my world history class gave a presentation on concentration camps. It was going pretty smoothly until she was showing pictures of the crematioria and said “and this is where the prisoners made their bread for the day.” It was so stunningly awkward that my teacher had to make her stay after class for what I’m sure was the most painful conversation of his career. I still think about that a lot.

#36

I’m not a teacher, but in 9th grade, in my world geography class we would do this thing on the smart board where it would say the name of a country/ocean/city, and we would have to click on it on the map as fast as possible. Well, this one girl went up there, and the first country it said was USA, she stood there for a solid minute before finally clicking on the Arctic ocean. The teacher was speechless.

#37

I am not a teacher, but my high school senior class had its very own “Kevin.” And I’m pretty sure if the teacher of that class Reddited she’d be posting all over here about this kid. I’m going to call him “Junpei” after Junpei from Persona 3.

Junpei was one of those wannabe “hood rat” type kids, in spite of the fact that we all live in a white-bread suburb that has no equivalent of a “hood” whatsoever. He’d come to school dressed in the same oversized Elmo hoodie every day and spout off hood talk and rap lyrics. Yes, Elmo. From Sesame Street.

This kid would get up and walk out of class frequently and for no real reason at all. He’d legit just decide he didn’t want to do class today and run out of class. Or he’d see someone he didn’t like outside the door and get up and run after him. Or he’d see someone he DID like outside the door and just walk out of class to go hang with them.

He did this during TESTS, and oftentimes just plain did not show up for the tests. How he even passed enough to graduate at all is a mystery. You could commonly find him wandering around the halls during any given class.

Junpei would regularly interrupt the lessons to spew out completely random and irrelevant rap lyrics, while bobbing his head around, and then go completely silent until the next impromptu rap or irrelevant comment.

I’m sure I don’t even need to tell you Junpei never did the assignments or the homework. And when he bothered to show up for tests at all, he tried to cheat.

Junpei would go up and steal pens off my desk. When I gave him no reaction and took out one of my spare pens (I always carried a whole box full of them to school because I dropped them a lot), he’d go back and silently slip it back onto my desk. I guess he expected me to chase after him or something???

Junpei won *prom king* at the senior prom, and when I found that out (I did not go to the senior prom, only the junior) I actually asked what everyone was smoking when they made that pick. Turns out? They did it as a joke. And everyone told him the next day, “You know, we voted you prom king because we thought it would be funny because you’re such a jerk.” That sobered him up quite a bit. Junpei used to talk tough and start fights but he was a weak little thing who was VERY easily put in his place. One of the greatest things that ever happened involving Junpei was when he went up to this girl and started harassing her, and she pushed him into a desk, causing him to tuck his tail between his legs and leave. She did NOT get in trouble for this, purely because the teacher saw that he was harassing her.

I don’t know how Junpei managed to graduate high school, or where he is now, and I do not care.

#38

Test asked for a South American country and they put Jaguar.

#39

Had an older college student (28 or so years old) turn in 4 papers in a row that were directly copy/pasted from well-known academic articles.

First one, he said he uploaded the wrong paper. Gave him 24 hours to turn in the “right” one. No new paper was submitted.

Second one, he thinks he’s cracked the code – this time he only turned in a hard copy and “forgot” to upload the assignment so it didn’t go through the plagiarism scanner. I told him he could go ahead and submit it now, no problem!

Third one, he copy/pasted yet another article, format and all, and only replaced the author’s name. During the plagiarism hearing, he tripled down and claimed he was the actual author of the paper but had just changed his last name – he pointed to the fact that he and the author had the same first names as evidence of his authorship.

The fourth one I saved as a memento since he’d just been removed from the program.

#40

In my first grade class I asked my students what they wanted to be when they grow up one boy put his hand up and said “a cat burglar, because I’m good at climbing things and I like cats.”.

#41

I was introducing myself to an elementary class (I’m a sub for now) and I always tell them fun facts about myself and I usually say I have a cat and this little boy shouts “IS IT A YELLOW LAB?”.

#42

Not a teacher but a fellow classmate. The least intelligent member of my geography class stole my homework assignment from my bag and tried to hand it in as his own. I told the teacher after class and she looked through the pile and said don’t worry. He didn’t even attempt to remove my name from the paper. He basically just handed my homework in for me.

#43

I’m not a teacher, but once in 8th grade, one of the students didn’t know what country Alaska was in. Even the teacher face palmed.

#44

I had a student that fell asleep while I was sitting next to him and instructed him in something on screen. Last time I saw him he was stacking shelves part time at a small convenience store.

#45

Teaching at a university you might be surprised how many students get pissy over basic math. Freshman use to shock me with comments like “I didn’t sign up for a math course”, “I don’t think I signed up for calculus”, and “I am just going to drop.” Now it is almost common place. A couple each semester in 100 level courses.

I am talking basic math; addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. It is pathetic and most students that make comments like that do terrible in class. It may be really harsh to say but if you think basic math is something to cause you to drop a class… You should not be taking university classes.

#46

I teach English in Mexico. A student once asked how to say “jacket” in past tense. After 5 seconds of silence I said “No” and continued.

#47

Student had been taking notes furiously in my class (an honors math class) constantly for an entire semester. But she had been failing all the tests. I wanted to know why because she had been taking so many notes throughout my class. I asked to look at her notes before the final in my class. She tried to dodge but I finally got them.
She hadn’t been taking notes…She had written Piercing the Fold (Venessa Kimball). I bought that book the following year…pretty good even though she failed the class.

#48

I teach special needs kids (mostly learning disabilities and behavioral issues) so there are lots of those moments. This one happened today:

Me: Tell me a political party in Germany?

Student: New York!

Me: Huh? That’s a city in the USA.

Student: That doesn’t make sense!

That’s my best student by the way…

Edit: I love my job and seriously wouldn’t want to do anything else! Just to state that clearly.

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