Dig if you will this picture; it's high school, chorus class, early 2000's. On Fridays, the students are allowed time for "free presentations."
One student asked the teacher if he could sing "The Pony Song." Yes, that pony song.
If you're not a fan of 2000's r&b you might, as the chorus teacher did, believe "The Pony Song" had anything to do with ponies. It does not.
It absolutely, positively, does not.
It does, however, feature a chorus that starts with the plead "If you're horny, let's do it. Ride it, my pony."
Thing is, this student was developmentally delayed and didn't understand why the song he selected, got approved, and performed with vigor and enthusiasm (he sang and danced, fam. passionately. he was lord of the dance for the briefest and most glorious of moments) was suddenly not appropriate.
His performance was cringey not just for the content, but for how poorly the teacher handled the meltdown that came from his legitimate inability to understand. She wasn't prepared to handle his needs. She wasn't ready with any tools or understanding of his condition or the way his mind worked.
The whole thing was such a "please stop" moment that one of the seniors who was a close neighbor and understood how to manage the students meltdowns had to step in. The teacher was obviously in way above her head, her lack of training caused some serious missteps, and unneeded stress on the student.
This story has a happy ending, though.
The teacher was so upset about unintentionally hurting that student by not understanding his needs that she went out of her way to study up and gather resources - way more than the school would provide. Fast forward a few years and she has left public education and is now one of the most successful and well-loved music therapists in her state.
All because of a love of Ginuwine, a love of education, and some "passionate" dance moves.
So when one reddit user asked:
What was the "please stop" school presentation that you witnessed?
That's what immediately came to mind. Digging through the responses had us cracking up, so we figured we would share a few with you.
Sorry to say, but none of them have as awesomely wholesome an ending as mine. There are, however, several songs. So we're thinking maybe it's best to just avoid singing in presentations. It's awkward for everyone.
Gatorade What?
Was in a video/film making class in high school. One group of guys did a parody of those Gatorade commercials where the athletes sweat is colored like Gatorade but it was a sweaty guy masturbating. Apparently there was a Gatorade money shot but the teacher just turned it off immediately before it got that far.
An Invented Example
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In high school a student died in a car accident where she was driving. There was no record that stated she was distracted by her phone or anything, but the school decided to have an assembly shortly after talking about distracted driving and using her as an example. They told the whole school she'd be alive if she was doing what she was supposed to.
- Orsus7
Hey Mister
For 8th grade talent show, 2 girls sang the "Mr. Bledel" song (Mr. Bledel was a good looking, recently college graduated teacher) that basically was about how cute they thought he was.
Even then, it was incredibly uncomfortable and I remember looking at the teachers face and he didn't seem very amused.
Porn Is Good
For a Public Speaking class in college, we had to give a persuasive speech. One kid did his speech about porn.
If he had had a legitimate argument, like "sex work is real work," or "porn has a negative affect on a person's self-image," the speech would have been fine - we were all mature adults. But all he did was list the different kinds of porn he liked - in detail, with visual aids.
I remember that he was into cartoon porn (but not hentai - I remember that his example was a Scooby Doo porn parody) and Asian porn (I remember that he showed a bunch of Tweets from Asa Akira).
The professor stopped him after a few minutes, and asked him to explain what he wanted to persuade the audience about. He answered: "Porn is good."
The Fear Boner
Once in college I was in my Spanish class and our desks were in a "U" shape, I was on the very end of the "U".
So some guy is giving a presentation, he is standing behind a podium. Gets a boner. I'm on the side and no one is opposite so I can see it.... dude just kept going on and on and on, I think he was trying to outlast the fear boner but his nerves just made it worse. He ended up getting it down before he had to sit down. Was like a 10 min presentation that only needed to be like 3 min though. In Spanish.
Poor guy.
They Heart Hitler
Presentation on WWII. Student had just discovered all the neat transitions you can use between slides and decided to use a different one each slide.
They used the flashing heart transition between a photo slide of a mass grave and a photo slide of Hitler.
In Blackface
In 1984, when I was in 6th grade, each class did a winter concert. The 8th grade football team sang "I'm dreaming of a black Christmas"
In. Blackface.
The teachers didn't stop them because the teachers were the ones who organized it as part of the holiday show. Green Bay Wisconsin, Bay View Middle School.
Tractors
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Grade 12 advanced placement English. We were assigned books then had to do a presentation on a topic somehow related to it. The book I was assigned was "the Stranger" by Camus, so I presented on existentialism in literature.
One girl was assigned Animal Farm. She started her presentation on...
Kinds of tractors used in farming.
She hadn't read the book and assumed it was about actual animal husbandry.
It was a very long presentation. The teacher had to actually hide her face.
I Am The Cringe
It's me. I did this. I cringe about it to this day, nearly 20 years later.
I was 16 and in high school. My high school was going to do a spring talent show. I wanted to be in the talent show and show off my talents. The problem was, my actual talents are not ones that I could show off at a talent show. So I decided to try singing.
I have never sung in my life. I have never had voice lessons.
I was in my prime weeb stage and chose an anime song to sing. I didn't know any actual Japanese, I had just memorized the lyrics from hearing the song so many times.
Luckily I didn't make it past auditions, but several people saw an overweight girl in a Sailor Moon shirt try to sing 'Butterfly' despite having never done any singing or voice training ever in her life.
Nearly 20 years later, and remembering it keeps me awake at night.
Never Stop Praying
My elementary/primary school was a religious school. So one day when we had an assembly by the religious members of our school, they were explaining the importance of praying and all the discipline issues. While one of the members were saying stuff about faith or whatnot one of the other members interrupted him and started to say to never lose focus while praying.
She then went on to say that even if there is a house fire to not stop praying, the most "yikes" thing was when she said that even if your parents are dying and asking for help to not stop your prayer. I was completely shocked by this and couldn't believe what she said to the whole school of children ranging from (4th grade- 8th grade). I looked around to see the reaction of everyone but everyone seemed normal.
Coming out of the whole presentation. I told one of my friends how messed up that particular message was. Basically someone heard me saying that and like a little snitch went to tell that lady what I had said. I was called to meet her and she confronted me about saying bad stuff about her speech.
I told her that yes, I did because one of things she said didn't stick to me well and told her which one I disagreed on. She said "well that's how we are suppose to be when praying." I was lucky she didn't take my words too seriously and let me off the hook.
I thought it might've been a slip of the tongue kind of thing she must've said in the presentation, But by the end of the confrontation I was proved otherwise.
The Applause
One day a group of highschool girls wearing really...uh appealing clothes went to the stage at my school's talent show and started twerking thinking they were nailing it. Everyone cringed so much, and the people with the middle schoolers were super uncomfortable. When they finished the teacher presenting the show went to the microphone and said "Congratulations! You got the whole audience clapping!"
But no one was clapping.
The BEST Best Friend
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When I was in tenth grade, the english honors teacher made us present projects in front of all of her classes. There was like 100 of us gather in the auditorium to watch this. One of the popular people connects her USB drive to the laptop, which is connected to a projector where a bunch of her nudes appear on the screen. It took them a couple of minutes to realize this happens and one of her friends had to jump in front of the projector.
Another Invented Example
My principal in high schools biggest beef with us kids, was that we all constantly skipped class. He held an assembly in which he told us that we wouldn't get anywhere if we kept skipping class and that we'd be stuck in a minimum wage job forever. Sounds like a normal, hardass principal speech, right?
Well the example he used to show this to us was a former student. She worked at McDonalds, was the oldest of 6 kids, and her single mother was an alcoholic. She had to drop out of school to take care of those kids. He said that she was to blame because she skipped school to go to work. She did what she had to to take care of her siblings, that shouldn't be ridiculed.
A Passion For Pokemon
Did a presentaion with a friend about Pokemon. We made a page for every gen (4th was new at the time) every Pokeball, type, a few selected Pokemon and other stuff that is important in the Pokemon games. In the middle of the presentation my friend took over and started to rush through. He told me that he realized that nobody (including the teacher) wanted to listen to that many details or Pokemon in generel. My teacher was happy that he finished fast and we didn't use up the whole time. Now I cringe thinking about me being so oblivious xD
- Domitaku
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