Classrooms are spaces in which twenty or more adolescents are held together for prolonged periods of time. As a result, embarrassing situations are bound to arise. Here, 26 students share the most awkward and humiliating moment they've ever witnessed in a classroom.
1/26. A really awkward kid keeps asking to use bathroom and is continually refused. Eventually he jumps from his seat, runs, and with every step audibly farts while crapping his pants.
2/26. I once went to my social studies teacher to turn in a paper during lunch. He and the math teacher were making out on his desk...
The math teacher was "Mrs. Not-My-Social-Studies-Teacher's-Last-Name."
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3/26. In 8th grade health class, my teacher was demonstrating how to properly strap someone into a stretcher. She was a smoke show. The dude being strapped in popped an erection as she was leaning over him.
This was a class of around 50 immature middle school students all staring at him. He just laid there strapped in unable to move with an awkward boner. He apologized over and over as even our sexy teacher tried not to laugh as she unstrapped him. I still get secondhand embarrassment thinking about it.
4/26. I remember a substitute teacher that we had for a few days when I was in middle school. One day she grabbed a chair from an empty desk to help someone out with their assignment, when suddenly we heard a loud crash. One of the legs on the chair had broken and she was flat on her back. It was hard not to laugh, but what made it even worse is as she was getting up, she ended up farting very loudly. The entire class erupted in a fit of laughter and she had to leave the classroom because she was so embarrassed.
5/26. In the middle of teaching seven and eight-year-olds, a kid comes back in from going to the toilet, sits down and about a minute later shouts, "Oh no! I forgot to wipe!" and asks to go sort himself out.
6/26. We had a classroom that was basically featureless because the school wing was brand new and it was the beginning of the year. No decorations or posters on the walls or anything, just blackboards on both the front and back walls, and a door on the back one. This is important for later.
Anyway, I had a classmate, whom I shall call "O", who often fell asleep in class. He sat in the back row, presumably to facilitate this habit.
Middle of a lecture and we hear a loud snore; O is fast asleep at his desk. After we all chuckle about this, the teacher decides to play a good natured prank. (continued)
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He has us all turn our desks around and starts writing on the blackboard at the back of the room. Since he is now talking from five feet away, presumably O will wake up from the noise, notice he is now at the "head" of the class with everyone facing him, and be embarrassed enough to stay alert from now on.
A couple of minutes pass and sure enough O begins to stir. He opens his eyes, sees the teacher right next to him and all his classmates grinning at him, and panics. I can only assume that in his half awake state he somehow thought he had actually been moved to the front of the (featureless, remember) room. He jumps out of his desk, and I think tried to bolt out of the room, but because he doesn't know what side of the room he's on, he doesn't realize the door is behind him. He runs to the front of the class and for a few seconds is staring at where the door would be, while we all laugh. Eventually he turns around and figures it out, his face turning bright red.
7/26. I was sitting in 6th grade biology, and my stomach started to hurt pretty badly. Thinking I just needed to go to the restroom, I stood up and walked from my rear-row seat to the teacher's desk to request the bathroom pass.
When I got to the bathroom, it turned out I had started my period for the first time, and it had soaked through my yellow sweatpants. It was apparently all over the seat and everyone had seen it.
8/26. A kid in my 8th grade health class asked if his mother would get pregnant if he masturbated in the bathtub.
9/26. I remember one of my middle school teachers had a strict policy where anybody who talked when she turned the lights out got an immediate detention. One time as we were about to leave the classroom my teacher turned the lights off and another kid in my class deemed it a bright idea to sock me in the nuts. I let out the noise that one makes when being punched in the groin and as I lay on the ground, cringing in pain, my teacher gave me detention for 'talking' while the lights were out and 'disrespecting her authority'. The other kid suffered no consequences.
10/26. In 10th grade social studies, we were talking about Imperial Russia, and of course, Rasputin. I interrupted whatever my teacher was saying with, "Hey, I heard that Rasputin had a 12-inch penis." I could tell I said something completely inappropriate and totally weird when she just stared back at me.
My classmates had gone completely silent, too. How was I to cover this up and play it cool? I started to panic. "Y-yeah.. I hear that they keep it in a jar somewhere in a museum." Oh God. WHY.
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11/26. I went to high school in an "open concept" high school, where there are no walls separating the classrooms and all the hallways are made up by lockers. It was open enough to hear the other classrooms and throw stuff over the dividers (much like those that make up cubicle walls of offices).
Skip to last period of the day, Spanish class. Teacher was new, so she was trying to be strict on bathroom privileges. A freshman girl who was too timid to ask needed to go to the bathroom to throw up because she wasn't feeling well. She was sweating, turning green, and shivering. (continued)
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Instead of just running out, she decided to wait it out until it was time to leave. In no time, she got up, in front of the whole class and threw up in the trash can. Then she apologized and ran out continuing to puke all down the hallway where all other students could see from their classrooms.
12/26. I knew a girl who was convinced zebras were like unicorns and didn't exist. She was a freshman in high school. An entire class was spent looking up pictures and videos of zebras online to prove it to her. The teacher and the class tried everything but she just kept saying, "Well there are pictures and videos of dragons online too." And using arguments like that.
Everyone lost all respect for her in that hour. She was too thick-headed to be embarrassed, but everyone there was embarrassed enough for her to make it cringeworthy as hell.
13/26. I was student-teaching in a 5th grade class, and the classroom teacher SCREAMED at one student for doing his homework in class..the student she screamed at has an emotional/behavior disorder and I thought he was going to freak out/cry like he often does. Instead, he looked at her and calmly said, "Well you didn't have to yell at me."
The poor kid was 100% right and 100% humiliated by the teacher.
14/26. In private school, my math teacher made a slight mistake and corrected himself. A girl in our class shouted, "Our parents don't pay you to get it wrong." She got completely humiliated by the teacher, telling her what was and wasn't appropriate to say to a teacher.
15/26. First day of classes freshman year of college, I pick a seat in the middle of the lecture hall. Guy comes in, sits in front of me, whips out his laptop and headphones and watches porn the entire class. In the middle of the lecture hall. At least 40 people behind him.
16/26. Teacher here. I was planning on showing a video clip to my class of high school seniors, but my computer for some reason wasn't displaying the video. So, as my students were trickling in, I noticed one of them had his computer on him. I asked if I could use it really quickly, and he said yes.
At this point, my entire class of 20 or so kids were in. I hooked up his laptop to the projector, and go to download the video from my email. It finished downloading and the computer's video player automatically starts up. (continued)
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Instead of playing the video clip I just downloaded, the entire screen (a monstrosity that took up the entire classroom wall) showed very graphic porn.
I felt like everything was in slo-mo, but one student later told me I jumped to close the laptop with such quick desperation that it was like watching someone leap on top of a grenade. The owner of the laptop turned bright red, but both he and the whole class started laughing.
I think in the end, I was the person who was most embarrassed. The kid even had the courage to say, "Miss Dracling, I know that's not the first time you've seen that before." And then he winked.
Speechless.
17/26. My freshman year of high school, there was a girl in my biology class that never ever talked. No one knew anything about her. Well finals come around and the teacher hands out the tests. This girl takes one look at the test and projectile vomits all over the entire front row. Most excruciatingly awkward thing I've ever seen.
Poor girl.
18/26. Called a substitute teacher a prostitute teacher by accident.
19/26. "Ok so just to clarify, everyone in this lecture hall of about 200 students is studying [subject], if not, then you're in the wrong room."
One person stands up and does the walk of shame. Horrible feeling.
20/26. In 9th grade, there was a girl in the class that had brass buttons that went down one side of her blue jeans. One afternoon, she sneezed violently, and every single goddamn button popped off, and they all shot off like bullets in every direction. She was sitting there stunned, with her pants hanging off on one side, and the buttons went on rolling around the floor for about another 30-45 seconds before they all finally settled. The only sound in the room was all the buttons rolling around on the floor, and she ran sobbing from the room trying to hold her pants together. Hard to forget something like that.
21/26. Probably my own sad, sorry situation. I was in 6th grade in the 1980s, when everyone wore sweatpants and they were the coolest thing ever. I didn't have any but found a pair at the bottom of my sister's closet. I'm a guy but I figured gray sweats are gray sweats. I guess I should have checked them out more carefully, especially around the crotch area. Damn it.
Anyway, I was sitting at my desk, chilling in my new-found sweats and my teacher, a giant of a man looks over at me and says, "Borderrat? Are you bleeding?" (continued)
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I looked down and right then I understood all the rumors and innuendo about girls and their periods. I also now understood very clearly why my sister had hidden those sweats. Blood stain big as a roll of duct tape for the world to see. Nervous and flustered, I said: "No, Mr. D, I borrowed these from my sister." The whole class laughed and laughed and laughed.
22/26. In high school I was at the board trying to do a geometry problem. I was bad at math, especially geometry, and the teacher (and the rest of the class) knew this. I was struggling when the rest of the students had returned to their seats. I continued to struggle as the teacher went through thee other problems.
He tried to talk me through it. He was being very kind and patient but I was not getting it. Finally I burst into tears and left the room. Later that day I was called to the Dean's office where the teacher was waiting. He actually apologized and said he wouldn't send me to the board anymore. He tutored me for the rest of the year so I would pass.
23/26. I was in junior high in the 90's. A kid named Jason, who wasn't very popular, had a long rat tail that he was proud to have grown. One kid, Tom, took scissors and cut it off when he sat behind him. Poor Jason looked stunned as he reached back and felt the back of his head. He tried to play it off and stammered, "I don't care, I was gonna cut it soon anyway." He had tears in his eyes and his face was bright red.
24/26. In Spanish class, we would do presentations every so often. One presentation had everyone start with saying, "This is my journal:" or "Esto es mi diario" (dee-ar-ee-oh).
One kid messed up the beginning and said, "Esto es mi diarrhea."
Class erupted, he never lived it down.
25/26. My 4th grade teacher was the worst teacher I've ever had. She wasn't just a bad teacher, she was a bad human being. There was one boy who was kind of "the weird kid," but he was funny and I liked him. One day we were reading about bugs and she called on him to read aloud a section about antennae.
I knew the word antennae, knew how it was pronounced, so when he started reading it was obvious he'd never seen/heard the word before. He pronounced it an-te-nay, and instead of correcting him, our teacher just let him read a full page with this word repeating. I started watching her as he read, and she was smirking and trying to hold back laughter.
When he finished reading, she said, "It's pronounced antennae, by the way," and the whole class, her included, just started laughing uproariously.
He was a good sport and kind of laughed along with them, but I could tell he was really embarrassed.
It's almost 20 years later and that memory is still so vivid to me.
26/26. One time, in science class in middle school, we were doing our end-of-semester presentations. Everyone was presenting their science experiments that we had all spent weeks on and counted for a significant portion of our grade.
One girl got up to present. She was very excited about her breakthrough results. She went on about her hypothesis for several minutes: that light affected the vitamin c levels in different kinds of juices. She launched into detail about her experiment, which involved her testing different types of juices' vitamin C levels over a week or so period, by putting them in the fridge in both clear containers and opaque containers. That way, she explained excitedly, she could test which ones had more light from the fridge affecting their levels.
You know where this is going.
When she finally asked for questions and the silence was deafening, someone finally said, "You know the light goes out when you shut the door, right?"
It was my favorite science class.