Kids are an entirely different breed when they're at school. Most teachers are quick with a horror story of talking to a parent, trying to explain what Jennifer did today, but the parent is shocked because, "Jennifer never does that at home." Of course she doesn't! That honor is saved special, for her teacher. Now that crazy behavior can be taken to the internet where we can all horrifically marvel at it for forever.
Reddit user, u/nostalgic_joey, wanted teachers to tell it all when they asked:
Teachers of reddit, what is the craziest thing you have seen on a students social media?
Stupidly Breaking The Law
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A few years ago a school near where I teach had an epidemic of kids exchanging nudes. From stories that I heard, the kids were trading them like baseball cards and students that didn't participate were harassed until they did.
If I remember correctly, I think the almost the entire football team was kicked off the team
They Started A Whole Page?
These teachers at my school found a kids meme page and keep in mind was a preppy stuck up school. Anyway the meme account had the usually slightly edgy kind of content but the school acted as if it were a hate crime.
Parents were called in. There was a whole school assembly on social media and the appropriate content that should be posted. The school went as far as suspending the kids behind the account for 1 week and giving detentions to every kid who liked the memes. The whole ordeal was just stupid and left me wondering if teachers even cared about the kids who were very clearly smashed on drugs.
Boy Fights: Part 2
Fighting videos. Like I'm talking FIGHTING and teachers in the background watching the whole thing happen without doing a thing to separate it.
Some kids were so ecstatic to show me too what a weird world
A Report Well Done
So, in my school district, teachers can lose their jobs for following students on social media.
That being said, sometimes a student will get worried about something that they see posted and will bring me a screenshot of it. So, due to that, the craziest thing I've ever seen was one of our students pointing a gun at the camera and threatening to turn the walls of the school red with blood.
I took the student who reported it to the front office and made a full report to administration. Never saw the kid who posted that again.
FakeBook
One student created multiple fake facebooks with the names of their classmates. They started a group chat between these fake profiles and would act out dramatic things (someone confessing a crush, someone saying they hated their best friend).
They'd screen shot clips of these fake chats and send it to real people. Real life drama based on the fake drama would erupt in school.
Never Use Work Equipment For Personal Purposes
Not me, but my Fiance used to work the IT department of a school. Sometimes they got reports from students or teachers that suspect there's something on a student's school iPad. All I can say is students, for the love of god please stop taking nudes on school equipment....
We're Just Really Big Fans
I found a fan page for one of the teachers. It included pictures that you could tell were taken without their knowledge (they weren't posed or looking at the camera.) And then the inappropriate comments.
It was so creepy.
Luckily, administration was able to do a little creeping themselves and get to the bottom of it pretty quickly. Within an hour, they had the student and the account was taken down.
It's Always The Quiet Ones
A kid who was calm and was never to loud or anything made a story on his Instagram saying he was gonna kill himself cause me and another teacher where (explective) and so I reported it to the Dean simply because of his health and we'll being factoring in before his other rights. But I was shocked. The dude was never violent or rude just kinda awkward but we were always cool...
Just Something To Take The Edge Off, Man
I'm a high school science teacher and don't usually add my students on social media but this kid was one of my favorite students so I added him. He is my favorite student because he is always chill and doesn't usually talk in class.
I viewed his story and the reason he was always chill is because he was smoking weed before school, FML
Get That Kindergarten Hustle On
A student showed us a video of another student smoking weed. Both kids were in the 5th grade. Luckily I looped so I was able to give that particular student a little extra support.
Also that same student in Kindergarten brought in little baggies to recess, filled them with grass, and tried selling them to peers on the playground.
"No, I Promise, I'm Totally This Person." - Fake Teacher Account, Probably
Teacher here, I don't follow my students on social media. I don't feel that it is appropriate for teachers and students to have that familiar of a relationship.
We had students creating fake teacher accounts. With outrageous bios. Students would respond with inappropriate comments. It was a mess and took far too long to get those pages removed.
I guess 7th and 8th graders don't have the maturity be on social media.
Wait...Why Is The Teacher Checking Twitter In Class?
Not a teacher, but a girl in my class snuck a picture of a test and posted it on Twitter. It said something like "omg dis test is so hard!!"
And she got called out in front of the class by our teacher for having a phone out during the test
What Else Are You Going To Use A Trophy For?
Am a teacher, was just a volunteer coach for this though.
I saw a student take a shot out something of a small trophy they had won at a speaking competition.
Posted it to snapchat
"Let's Define 'Stalking' Everyone..."
The school I work at had a whole phase where kids made "fan pages" for teachers. On the page was everything from pictures of me teaching to what my car looked like.
After all 20 pages were investigated and taken down, we had an assembly on when it is appropriate to take pictures and what stalking is.
...This Actually Sounds Hilarious
I'm a toddler teacher and recently found out one of my girls has an Instagram.
A two year old girl, posing on top of sports cars, surrounded by jewelry and money. Shes like a mini Instagram model.
Fan Fiction Counts!
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Not exactly social media originally but it definitely ended up there. I teach high school and the students were talking about a middle school student who wrote a novel. It turned out to be an extremely graphic fan fiction of two of the male middle school teachers. The girl that wrote it was in seventh grade. We are talking about full on novel, around 200 pages and 13 chapters. Supposedly it is only book one in the series.
The crazy thing is, my students showed me one paragraph before I knew what it was and it was hands down the best technical writing of any student I have ever had. Again, I teach high school. She was in the seventh grade. Unbelievably well written, and unbelievable a seventh grader was able to describe things with such disturbing detail.
It Can Be Useful To Save Lives
Not me but my wife.
A student posted a suicide note on snap chat. Another student showed it to my wife. She ran to the front office and called 911. Kid was home with his mom and had overdosed in his room. Kid was taken to a hospital and survived. Saved his life.
A Depressing End And Slow Finish
I was teaching 8th grade English in a low income/high crime area. We had one student who was really hard- he was loud, obnoxious, rude and downright mean to most of the staff and other students. For some reason I really liked him and he felt the same. Always respectful to me and often helped me keep the class in line.
The other teachers/students would always make comments about how we will see him up for murder one day and I would stick up for him (he came from a really bad home life most were not fully aware of). Anyway, he friended me on Facebook at the end of the school year and I accepted.
About 4 years later I see an update posted by him (he posted quite a bit) from a couple nights before that simply showed a gun and bullets with the caption "some b-tches are going to pay. Getting my turf back" or something like that. Anyway, long story short he was involved in a drive by and killed a 17 year old kid who was at a rivals party- he was not the intended victim.
Anyway, when the news ran the story and showed his Facebook post as what helped the police find him my blood ran cold. I wish I would have seen the post earlier or could have done something.
He was sentenced to 20 years (since they couldn't prove who pulled the trigger). Still makes me sad- I really thought he would break the cycle of poverty and prison that has run through his family line forever.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/