Teachers are here to support all of our students... and trust us when we say that we believe most of them do.
But just wait until they get to the teacher's lounge and all the stories come out.
Not all students are created equal, as we were reminded once Redditor HeyHeyHeywow asked the online community,
"Teachers of Reddit, what is your "this student is so dumb its scary" story?"
Every. Single. Lesson.
britney spears wink GIFGiphy"I'm a flight instructor. Had a student who really wasn't cut out for flying. Before each lesson he job was to do a preflight on the airplane and make sure everything was working. One of the items you check during the preflight are the flaps. Basically, they are a flap of metal that extends from the aft section of the wing and drops down into the airstream during landings."
"Well, we fly a Cessna 172 where the wings are on top of the cockpit (above the pilot) and the flaps are situated just behind the door. Without fail, this guy opens the door, moves the switch to deploy the flaps, and turns around to run face first into the flaps he just lowered. It's funny the first, concerning the second time, and expected after the tenth time."
"Every. Single. Lesson."
packing it in....
"I work with kids 12-18 and the amount of middle schoolers who do all of their work and pack it around in their bag without ever putting it in the homework box or handing it to the teacher is astounding. If anyone figures out why they do this, please help me lol"
"Edit: thanks to everyone who shared their stories. I think I gave some better insight now. Hopefully I can help my kiddos more with some starting points."
V-Day Questions...
"I was a former college recruiter who used to set up a booth at low-income schools to help guide first generation students into college. Had a high school girl come up to me and tell me she wants to be a gynecologist. So I start talking about which schools have good pre-med programs, the kind of classes she would need to take, broaching the idea of med school. She says hold up, a gynecologist is a doctor?"
"I say yes. She says Well I do NOT want to go to medical school. I just want a job where I can look at vaginas all day. We ended up talking about possibly cosmetology school or esthetician school. Also, she was not kidding. I got many, many dumb questions like this. When you don't know, you don't know."
Name Drop
"I'm not a teacher, but I used to volunteer in my daughter's classrooms when they were in elementary school. One day while I was helping grade papers, it became quite apparent that one little girl had copied from the boy sitting next to her - not only were the answers the same, she also had written his name on top of her paper!"
Dear Emily....
Giphy"I don't usually wear glasses when I teach. Except for one day. And it was subsequently a big deal among all my fifth graders."
"The next day, at the start of class, I noticed a girl in the front row wearing glasses for the first time. Something seemed a little off so I finally decided to chime in."
"Emily... what's the deal with the glasses?"
"These? I need them to see."
"But they don't have any lenses."
"She appeared befuddled and said, "They don't?" before lifting her finger up to one of the eye frames and poking herself in the eye."
"? spelling"
"History/gym teacher was telling us about catching people cheating. He said he was always for people who thought up creative ways. On the other hand, when you get a paper that's the same as another, word for word, including one particular misspelled word, with a "? spelling" written above it, well..."
Chompers.
"Told to me by a friend, written in his words."
""The other day I had a student bite into a bar of deodorant. Just... chomped right into it, as if it were a coconut-and-palm-tree-scented ice cream bar. This, after making like he was going to "lick" it and accidentally getting the taste of the deodorant and his own residual pit sweat. Half a second later he just went whole-hog on it and took a chunk out of it, then spat it out. I didn't know whether to call poison control or the principal."
It's my $$$
"When I was a professor I had a student submit a paper she clearly hadn't written. I called her out on it and she complained by email to me and CC'd the dean of the school. Her argument was that it *was* hers because she had paid *her own* money to have it written."
being 21....
children GIFGiphy""Teaching laboratory skills. Asked a student to mix a tube by turning it upside down gently a few times. Immediately turned it upside down without putting the cap on first...
"Edit: student was a senior undergraduate, so maybe 21 years old?"
Plate Issues
"I thought I would be teaching about plate tectonics today."
"Ended up having to do a lesson on why the earth isn't flat. 4th graders."
this fool....
"This one moron currently in my master's program makes me question if I'm actually in a mental institution. How someone like him managed to get into what is generally considered a top tier program is beyond understanding."
"From contributing zero to group projects, to bring an active detriment to group effort, it seems like he is trying to be difficult."
"His "final, ready to be submitted" portion of one class's big final project had 30+ spelling errors, including but not limited to: "revanew", "develuped", "Acers" instead of acres (this one repeated 6 times), "constrans" instead of constraints, "pencells", "skool", "accel", "hite" instead of height. It goes on and on. This was just the errors in one project in one class. I happened to have him in all 3 classes and I happened to have him in all 3 group projects."
"In one group, we collectively sent him 33 emails and text messages with highlights, bullet points, step by step corrections, and he completely ignored them all, only to blow up at us in a group meeting about how we were all bullying him and he didn't understand what he was doing wrong."
"He would argue with us about whether he was right or not, whether his abysmal work needed to be edited or not. He never spell checked a damn thing. He never reviewed his own work once. He is the biggest piece of crap mentally challenged student I have ever met. Yet somehow he got into this program."
"I hate this dumb fool."
is it real?
canadian what GIF by CBCGiphy"Not from when I was teaching, but a buddy's classmate."
"HS Class was discussing the number of stars in the galaxy. My buddy jokingly says 20. Kid next to him (notably not the sharpest kid I've known) goes, "are you stupid? There's gotta be 100 of them. Maybe even a thousand." Serious as can be."
"Honestly not sure what's dumber; him thinking the guess of 20 was real. Or him thinking that 1000 might be too high."
Steal Correctly.
"I'm a professor grading papers now and I have a few contenders right here. This one student blatantly plagiarized in his first paper, I mean just cutting and pasting from webpages - he didn't even steal form the primary sources and they weren't even scholarly webpages."
"I was so surprised at how badly he plagiarized, that I gave him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he didn't understand what it really was. I just gave him a 0 along with an email describing the issue in detail with some additional links for whole sites that do the FAQs really well."
"We met, and I explained it to him. He was abjectly apologetic and explained that he had missed the nuances before."
"Grading the final paper, same crap all over again. And I test this stuff using a free website I found just on Google and it takes like 2 minutes to check. What the hell is he thinking? (Also the non-plagiarized part it so poorly written I don't know how even got in, much less made it to be a junior at, a selective school. The guys is also premed, WTF?)"
The Book Fair
"I volunteered to do the "book fair" for my old middle school (my mom was the assistant librarian). I had a 7th grader come up to purchase a poster of a car. The price was $3. He pulled out two $1 dollar bills and set it on the desk in front of me. He then pulled out a handful of change and set it on the table. He asked "is this enough?" I said, "well, you need one more dollar." He then picked out 2 quarters and 2 dimes. "Now?" he asked. I said, "that's 70 cents, you need 30 more." He picked out 3 nickels and added them to the pile."
"There you go," he said. I then proceeded to ask him what he thought the denominations for each coin were, and he legit did not know. I had to give him a quick lesson in the value of each coin and helped him count out $1 in change. To me, this situation is ridiculous. We will all have to deal with money throughout our lives. You have to learn to know the value of each coin and know how to add money."
Aquatic Problems
"Not a schoolteacher, but I've taught swim lessons in the past. I was once teaching the adult learn-to-swim class and had an incredibly dumb dude (let's call him Rusty) sign up. Rusty was a 100-pound guy with an absolute fear of water, he wouldn't even shower, but he decided that swimming lessons were gonna cure him."
"It was the first day, when we were just getting accustomed to the water and helping people with a phobia start to get over it. The first few people are puttering around in the shallow end (1 meter deep) and getting a feel for the water."
"Some of them were immigrants from someplace very dry and had never been in a pool before, so it was quite the experience for them and things were getting loud."
"All of a sudden, I hear Rusty give his best bald-eagle-screech attempt, sprint down the deck, and launch himself into the deep end (4 meters deep). He immediately starts drowning (no fat, no float) and is going down fast. My assistant, the lifeguard, got in, got him holding on to the rescue tube, and pushed him to the shallow end, still screaming and flailing."
"He hauled himself up the stairs and started sprinting for the deep end again and chucked himself back in. I went in after him since my assistant was still in the water and dragged him out again. He tried to do it a third time but I was able to stop him until security showed up to hold him back for his own safety."
"I never saw him again after that day, but I'll never know why he, an aquaphobic nonswimmer, would think jumping in the deep end was a good idea."
"wait, then what's a state?"
"I've had kids turn in papers that were clearly plagiarized, but one kid didn't bother to change the font color on his paper. It was a pretty clear case."
"I had another who was supposed to be researching a technological innovation, the history and impacts of it. One kid chose the telephone. His paper was not only obviously plagiarized, but it was literally an ad for telephones.com. The kid had clearly not even bothered to do anything other than just go to telephones.com and copy and paste."
"But my all time favorite is the kid who stopped me and said, "Is Chicago a city or a country?"
"I told him it was a city."
"He considered that for a minute and then said, "wait, then what's a state?"
England's Best...
"I'm not a teacher This was in my 11th grade world history class. We were going over WW2 at the time, when this girl raised her hand and asked completely serious, "Wait England isn't a state in the US?" The teacher just looked at her in shock while the rest of the class burst into laughter. I am sure she was serious because she got really embarrassed and after class I heard her ask her friends at lunch if they knew about England. They also started laughing at her too."
Page 82
how i met your mother spell GIFGiphy"Student got access to my Masters thesis and lifted a section out verbatim and turned it in to me as their own work. It truly was an experience. My Master's thesis is around 200 pages so if they had picked some info from say pg. 82 then I might not have caught it as I wasn't using Turnitin. However this student copied the very beginning section which I had spent a ridiculous amount of time on."
Be Optomistic.
"Had some students come up to me the other day to ask if they could go see a teacher during their lunch break."
"I asked why, and one of them said. "We're in trouble because we accidentally made fun of someone with optimism."
"I then asked her to repeat herself, hoping she would correct herself, but said "optimism" instead of "autism" again."
"I let them go see that teacher, because I did not have time to think about how to approach that conversation."
FOR THE CHILDREN!!
"In my design class, i had this girl who had placed a garage beside the house, but couldn't, for the life of god, figure out why her 90cm by 200cm door was not appropriate for a car to enter through. Same girl planned a small space for children in a library. Said space was only 1.5 meters high, and no matter what the teacher said, she kept going back to "but this space is for children, they are not tall!" "But they will suffocate!" "But it is a space FOR CHILDREN!"
Hey John
"this happened in high school maths: lets call him john"
"Teacher: So john, how do you find an average?"
"John: Kilometer."
"the pain in the teachers eyes was immeasurable."
Seriously?
Bbc Three Comedy GIF by BBCGiphy"11th grader spelled his last name wrong. Like multiple letters wrong. I literally sat and stared completely dumbfounded for a few minutes."
So Many Kids.
"I work in IT at schools, so not a teacher. My favorite one is kids bringing their laptop in complaining the internet doesn't work. Turns out the have all but ripped off the top cover and it is held together with just a cable. I show them all the torn cables and ask if they could guess why their laptop doesn't work properly."
"This has been multiple kids between multiple schools."
Mr. President.
"Okay so I used to be a teacher, and then I went in to teacher education. So I supervised student teachers in the field, meaning I'd go out and observe them teaching their classes. As an observer, one's job is ONLY to observe, not to offer comments during the observation, so you literally say nothing."
"It was a 5th grade social studies class and they were discussing Ben Franklin. One student asked "What number president was he?" And the teacher was like, I don't know. Followed by like a 10-15 minute debate in the class and with the teacher about which number president he was. :("
"Obviously the 5th graders aren't so dumb it's scary ... but ... thank goodness the student teacher finally decided to use the google to answer their question.""
It BURNS!!!
"Not a teacher but a student."
"I was in a geology class and the teacher was talking about lava and this one kid stops the teacher to ask "does lava burn? Like would anything bad happen if I put my finger in it?" Naturally the teacher and the rest of us assumed he was joking and the teacher just kinda laughed. The kid then says that that he's actually serious. The teacher just kinda looks at him like "wtf" and he says yes and carries on not wanting to waste time. I was still convinced the kid was joking so I ask him after class if was just joking and trying to hell with the teacher when he said he was serious. He then tells me that he really was serious."
"That's not the first time he's said something that dumb so I don't find it very hard to believe that he might have been serious."
Sometimes the boss is dumb....
"Kid clearly had autism, and rather low functioning at that. I was his key worker and could only get him to respond to textures or music. He was only 2, but wouldn't answer when called and would just sit vacant in the room while all of the other children got up and moved into the other room. Just not 'there' in the here and now unless, like I said, I played a song and he'd come to life. He'd sit at the table vacant unless I put his hands into something that felt different (water, sand etc). I told my boss that I thought he had autism and she replied 'autism is nonsense, he's just lazy'. So I continued teaching him as though he was autistic because that's the only way I could get him to learn. Fast forward and yep, he's autistic."
Good Boy
"I had an 8th grader today who was surprised to learn that when he calls his teachers Mr./Mrs. ______, that is their last name, not their first name."
"I go by Mr. Good. He thought my first name was "Good".
The Bad Peaker...
"So I am lecturing on population (15 year olds 9/10 grade). I tell the students that most likely human population will PEAK at 10.5 billion... a hand goes up and says, "Uh what does peak mean?" I'm stunned as well as the class but he is serious so I answer. I have another teacher in the room and when we are alone asked what I had thought when I heard the question. I thought if your father hadn't peaked I would've been spared that question."
"Same kid. Teaching patriarchal and matriarchal society which has nothing to do with sex/intercourse but a hand goes up and he asks, "So if matriarchal is women and patriarchal is men... then who's in charge of the lesbos?" But before I could respond his friend says, "You're a moron. The lesbos take care of the lesbos." My class took awhile to recover."
The 4th Grade
"Student here, and I was in fourth grade at the time. Well, there was this kid that like to mess with people all the time. One day teacher left the room for a little bit so it was just a bunch of kids in the room suppose to be doing a test. Well this kid hoes in front of the class, and puts a stapler to his ear threatening he would staple his ear if we didn't help him so another kid goes up and hits the stapler stapling his ear. I'm not sure if this is what you mean but its pretty damn funny."
Middle Name?
"Had a test on the three states of matter. Student response:"
"First Name = Liquid
"Last Name = Gas""
""That's what we called her the remainder of the year!"
tangled....
Duct Tape GIF by A Black Lady Sketch ShowGiphy"My wife is a teacher and she said some kids literally don't know how to rip a piece of tape off a roll. They just keep pulling it until it gets all twisted and stuck on itself and ask for help."
Legless....
"So I'm going to keep this short. I was teaching my kids how to spot the difference in things. I started out with a group of boys with blue shirts and boys with white shirts and asked them if they could spot the difference. Cool. So I asked a girl to spot the difference between a whale, a dog, a cat, and a mouse. Like the genius she is, she said, "one doesn't have any legs." Awesome. Now I ask this boy who just doesn't have "it" mentally lol to spot the difference between himself and the students who wore glasses. This boy said, "I don't got no legs." I was in SHAMBLES. I had to leave so I could laugh properly smh."
Hold Please.
"Mom has been a teacher for 42 years (8th grade the whole time) and there was one student in particular who did an array of unintelligent things. The one that put the nail in his being expelled coffin was when he didn't want to go to school one day and instead of being sick, it went like this:"
"Reception: insert school name how may direct your call?"
"Student: my name is insert students name and this is a bomb threat."
"Reception: Please hold"
"Student: ok thank you"
"Parents called after police, expulsion and charges processed."
Denier....
no way eye roll GIF by BounceGiphy"I had a student completely plagiarize a research paper. He just lifted it from a website, which I found immediately due to the fact that he left the URL at the top. Still denied it!"
Oh Avraham....
"Not a teacher myself, but my teacher told us this story, I should mention that i live in Israel and ofc the lessons are in hebrew, so we had an essay we had to write in English about people who influenced on our lives, and there was one student who used a lot of Google translate he probably just ran the whole text through it, our teacher's last name is "Ben Avraham", and yes he ran it through the translator, so he called her son of Abraham."
Silly Freshmen.
"I taught a freshman English class and an 18 year old wrote a persuasive essay arguing that homicide is a good way to keep population down."
The Freeze
cold game of thrones GIFGiphy"Teaching grade 10 history. I cracked a bad joke one day about how the Cold War happened every winter for about 50 years. One of the questions on the test was to list 8-10 important facts about the Cold War. Guess what fact appeared in several student's responses to that question?"
Space Camp
"I worked as a Substitute for a while. The first question the kids always asked me was why their teacher wasn't there. They never tell the substitutes this but they expected that I would know. So I'd just start making stuff up and the kids would totally fall for about anything. I had a high school class get very upset that their English teacher didn't tell them she was going to Space Camp."
"I also had a habit of telling the elementary kids that their teacher had to go to the ocean because they were really a mermaid and needed to go to the ocean regularly or they would't be able to change back. They always thought that was a good reason to be absent."
Utter silence.
"I was a substitute teacher for a 6th-grade science class, one in a school that I frequently substituted in. I knew most of the students fairly well and had subbed for this particular class of students quite a few times. There was one particular kid, let's call him Mason. Mason wasn't the brightest bulb of the bunch, but I never expected such a spectacularly idiotic question."
"We were talking about the strongest metals, the densest ones, and we were on the topic of diamonds. Mason raised his hand, and I think the entire class could already sense the loss of brain cells incoming."
"If diamonds are so unbreakable, why don't they just make schools and banks out of diamonds?"
"Utter silence."
Fish Polish
weird fish omg GIFGiphy"Gonna get buried but had a kid in high school where they were doing a lab with nail polish and the teacher had pet fish. This man dumps the polish in the fish tank and the teacher flipped her lid. He got suspended for 2 days. Btw he was a sophomore in high school."
Swimming Relief...
"This was before I was a teacher. I took my wife white water rafting for her birthday. We got to a point where people could jump in the pools and float a few meters down river."
"Well one person starts and several follow."
"Suddenly a commotion."
"This one got jumped in. Apparently he couldn't swim. So his girlfriend jumped in after, she could swim."
""Thankfully it wasn't a crazy section and they were wearing like jackets. A few of us grabbed our throw bags and got them to shore."
"Relief.
"Until he did it again! Seriously WTF!""
"I had to explain to a student..."
"I teach 5th grade. I had to explain to a student walking in line. He would never walk in line correctly. Finally after correcting him for the 1000th time, he snapped. "What do you mean? What do you mean get in line? What's the line? Why do teachers always say that?" It never occurred to me he didn't understand after being in school for years. He was the best though. One of my favorites."
"I work in student accommodation..."
"I work in student accommodation at a fairly large UK university, and jesus christ the things I've seen. Even if you don't count the things they do while drunk, you still end up being concerned for the future of humanity."
"Things I've seen students learn the hard way:"
- "Plastic bowls are not an adequate substitute for saucepans, and will melt if you put them on the hob. Likewise, you should take the polystyrene foam out from under your frozen pizza before you put it in the oven."
- "If your packet of sausages says 'to oven cook: 15 - 20 minutes", that does not mean you can put it in the microwave for the same amount of time. You should also not go and have a nap after doing this, or you'll wake up to panicked flatmates and a corridor full of smoke."
- "To boil pasta, water is required. Again, panicked flatmates and corridor full of smoke."
- "Most people know they shouldn't microwave metal. Some people still try to heat unopened cans in one."
- "If you forget your keys, call security. Don't try to climb in through the 10" x 12" bathroom window because you'll get stuck, and we'll need the fire brigade to come and rescue you."
- "Dumping the contents of the kitchen bins over the warden's car is a bad idea at the best of times. It's worse if you are already facing disciplinary action for something else (which was actually quite minor, iirc) and the warden already knows who you are. Doing this in front of a CCTV camera, in full view of a security patroller, while the warden watches you from his balcony, and then trying to blame someone else will not improve things."
"I've probably got more, but I'll have to think of some that don't involve alcohol. We'll be here all day if I start typing those up!
"I had a classmate..."
"I had a classmate put a thermometer into the middle of a bunsen burner to "see how hot the fire was".
"As glass and mercury promptly exploded everywhere, I'm pretty sure I saw the teachers soul leave her body. Never saw her look so horrified or pissed before."
"On a number of occasions..."
"On a number of occasions, around five or six, I have had to explain to students that you can still get pregnant even if you don't orgasm. Apparently, it's an old wives tale in a bunch of cultures. And when i corrected them, they fought back."
"So he refused to turn it in..."
"When I was student teaching, I had one who was JUST on the verge of passing (thanks to the incredible mercy of the primary teacher). All he needed to do was turn in a worksheet that he finished in class. I know that he finished it because I watched him and helped him do it. All he had to do was give it to the teacher. But, in his mind, that would mean that she had won. So he refused to turn it in. I left the school before the end of the semester, but I would bet money that he failed the class."
"I had a little boy..."
"I had a little boy (first grade) who always got 14 as his answer to every problem no matter what. On the second day of school I sat down to do 3+2 with him using counters. We set out a pile of 3 and a pile of 2. I told him to count and watched in horror as he pushed the counters into a line and then counted back and forth and back and forth re-counting them until he got to 14. That was the biggest number he knew, he would have just kept going on."
"One girl gasped..."
"Kids asked me, "Are you from Detroit or (some other city I forget)?"
"I said "Neither, I moved here from Pennsylvania."
"One girl gasped and asked, "Do they have slaves there?"
"One of my 10th graders..."
"One of my 10th graders said she saw a crime being committed (bike being stolen in neighbor's yard) and she wanted to call 911 but she didn't know the number."
Educators all need raises across the board. Do you have similar stories to share? Let us know in the comment section below.
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People Confess Dreaming Of Doing Something All Their Life Then Hating It Once They Did It
Reddit user buzzkill007 asked: 'Have you ever dreamed of doing something your whole life only to find out, once you did it, that you hated it? What was it?'
They say "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
You know, the notion that we shouldn't fear things we haven't tried and that getting out of our comfort zone could lead to a wealth of wonderful discoveries.
Most times, fear isn't preventing us from trying the things we've been wanting to try–whether it's a new career or a hobby. We just haven't gotten there yet.
But take note, it's not always what it seems once we get there.
Curious to hear from strangers, Redditor buzzkill007 asked:
"Have you ever dreamed of doing something your whole life only to find out, once you did it, that you hated it? What was it?"
The stress level in medical professions is not for everyone.
Helping Saving Lives
"Being an EMT"
"I had planned on it being my lifelong career since middle school. I loved the medical field and wanted to save lives but knew I wouldn’t have the stamina to get through medical school."
"I got into training as soon as I graduated high school and I was top of my class in the educational sense, but as soon as I started doing ride-alongs everything just kind of fell apart on me."
"I didn’t fit in well with the firefighters, which sounds stupid but I think I really needed that brotherhood if I was going to survive in that field. The real problem, however, was my empathy. I knew quickly that I would not be able to see people on their worst days everyday. I could deal with broken bones and blood, but I hadn’t prepared myself for the screams."
"I work for a museum now lol."
– Livingroxets
The Young Widower
"I met quite a few paramedics whilst doing work in the vaccination centres last year. One of them had recently quit, and I asked why. She told me she had been on a call out with a young couple and a baby. The mum had a headache, and the baby was crying in bed so the dad went to soothe the baby whilst the mum laid down on the sofa. When the dad came back to the mum, she had passed away. I wasn't told what she died of but the girl telling the story was getting upset over it. She hated the idea of this child no longer having a mother, and the dad having lost his partner with absolutely no warning, and so young. So it wasn't even a gruesome one, just an upsetting one that made her give it up."
– Isgortio
The Guilt Complex
"My brother was an EMT because he wanted to help people. Started to blame himself for the people he couldn’t save, we almost lost him. Thank God he had some pretty stellar friends who went looking for him at 2am. EMTs are a different breed man, I don’t know how they do it."
– Lonely-Ninja
The Thing About Empathy
"The empathy thing is very interesting. My medical friends and family would always tell me I'd be great in the medical field because I'm so caring. That is precisely why I would be awful in the medical field. I hate seeing people suffering."
– Tim3-Rainbow
At first, these seemed desirable until they learned it was anything but.
Weightlessness
"I couldn't wait to 'pull g's' in an airplane. Then I did. It sucked."
– papafrog
"I cannot stress enough how fast pulling Gs gets old. The first couple turns are fun but then it’s like, 'I don’t feel good.' Fun times getting picked up from training sites by helicopter pilots on flight training and you’re just looking out the side of the Blackhawk at nothing but ground and you’re like are helicopters supposed to turn like this?"
– anon
Career As An Animator
"All my life I wanted to make cartoons."
"I fought with tooth and nail to reach the top."
"Then I interned for an old studio in Burbank specializing in cartoons about a certain yellow family."
"Then, after college, I became a mechanic and never looked back."
– DreyfusBlue
Formerly Aspiring Craftsman
"Blacksmithing. I watched a ton of blacksmithing content on youtube, got SUPER intrigued and wanted to build my own setup in the backyard. My Father talked me into trying a class before jumping in headfirst, and I am glad I did. My Father and I were the only two in the class that day so we got all the attention from the instructor which was awesome, he really helped us both perfect our techniques and corrected any mistakes quickly so we didn't form any bad habits, it was the best instructor I have ever had for anything, guy was an amazing teacher. He even offered to let us stay for a couple more hours to make another piece, which we took him up on. After all that, an amazing class, 3 metal pieces that I worked on and created by myself by hand, I walked away... dissatisfied. I think metal as a medium just felt very hard to work with, everything is super hot and dangerous, and I just didn't see myself wanting to ever do it again. I really recommend taking a class to try something out rather than spending time and money to build your own setup for something you may hate. I spent 75$ to save thousands."
– Roadronner
It Takes A Different Breed To Lead
"Being the boss of people. Boss is a title, but being an effective leader of people is an emotionally draining, often thankless roller coaster."
– DingbatDarrel
People who tried their hand at becoming lawyers found it to be extremely unpleasant.
Fighting For The Environment
"'I want to be an environmental lawyer when I grow up! I'm going to help save the world!' F'king kill me dude, I don't even have the energy to save myself anymore."
–Superseriouslyguys
"Interned at an environmental nonprofit over the summer while I was in law school."
"It was the worst parts of legal work and the worst parts of nonprofit work all mashed together."
"Edit: Ok this is getting a lot more eyeballs than I expected so I feel the need to clarify that it actually was not as bad as other non-legal nonprofits I'd later work at in terms of toxicity but it was intensely difficult work with very long hours and a lot of pressure - all of which made me realize I prob wasn't cut out for law much less environmental law."
– krylonultraflat
My Name Is Not Sharon
"I remember a girl in law school who had a similar experience, like they just had her getting coffee and cleaning out the office fridge all summer. Then at the end of the internship one of the directors of the program was like 'oh Sharon, you were our best intern this summer!' Susan. Her name was Susan."
– Superseriouslyguys
The Alternative
"Fellow lawyer here."
"Dip out and get yourself a cushy government job, easy 9-5 work hours, never take work home, plus you get a pension after it's all said and done."
"And then start living life outside of work. Focus on yourself."
– Pitiful-Reaction9534
Life is about taking chances.
You never know what you're capable of until you try different experiences.
And even if you don't succeed or found that whatever it is you tried wasn't for you, it's all a learning experience about how you deal in stressful or unfamiliar situations and overcome them.
The key is in finding your strengths, which you'll never find unless you put yourself out there and do the work. If it's not for you, something else will present itself.
At least that's what I'd like to think.
Everyone has a memory from their school days that always makes them laugh when it crosses their minds.
Be it someone passing gas at a very inopportune moment, an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction during a school play or sporting event, or, perhaps most of all, a spectacular prank.
Of course, while every single member of the student body likely finds these incidents and occurrences hilarious, the faculty and staff often find little to nothing funny about them.
Mainly because they often have to deal with the consequences and pandemonium caused by these dubiously hilarious events.
"What funny thing happened at school that caused utter chaos for the faculty?
Holy Sh*t
"2000"
"Teachers trying to stop kids smoking in the bathroom so they locked the bathroom doors."
"Kid took a sh*t on the carpet in front of the bathroom door, like right in the main hallway."
"Chaos ensued."
"Today, that kid is a pastor."
"Lol."- Jimmycapped
Cheaters Almost Always Get Caught
"It wasn't funny, but when I was in high school, there were two teachers in the school that were married."
"I was sitting in the husbands classroom waiting for the class to start when another kid ran in and said 'Hey Mr B, your wife is making out with Mr H in his classroom'."
"Turns out they'd locked the door, but about a dozen kids were looking through the skinny door window watching them."
"The guy didn't even say anything."
"He just looked crushed."
"He just walked out of the class and never came back...I mean we never saw him again."
"Turned out his wife and the other teacher had been having an affair and he'd might have suspected, but having it confirmed by one of his students in front of the whole class was too much."
"The school didn't discipline the two cheaters, but the students sure as hell did."
"Both of them had to listen to 'cheating' puns and jokes every day."
"'Hey Ms S, I'm going to copy off Joe's test, cheating is cool with you right?'" kind of stuff."
"Neither came back the next school year."- McFeely_Smackup
Cartoons Button GIF by NickelodeonGiphyWhere He Went, Music Followed...
"Hired a mariachi band to follow around our principal for our senior class prank."
"It was hysterical."- JulieFromJerz
Complicated Role Model...
"In middle school, a staff (not a teacher, he watched lunch and was a basketball coach for a high school) got arrested for selling weed to the kids."
"He won an award for 'best staff of the year' that year which had an entire yearbook page dedicated to him, but he was arrested after the yearbooks were printed."
"They had to go into each yearbook and cover that page with purple duct tape (to match the color scheme)."
"Prior to him being arrested, I was getting bullied horribly."
"None of the teachers or other staff could get the kids to stop, but once the staff who was arrested said 'leave Spencer alone'," the kids would immediately stop."
"I later realized he was threatening to take their weed away if they bullied me, and that's why he was the only one who could get them to stop."- Spencer2091
Funny Might Not Be The Best Word...
"Someone had a baby in the bathroom stall."
"I wish I was making this up."- JacobCStowe
baby GIFGiphyLegs Are Legs!
"They banned shorts because they were not professional enough."
"So all the boys wore skirts as a protest."- Haboobalub·
Or Did They Just Have A Time-Turner In Their Pocket?
"One of the classrooms at my school was a prefab hut, and over time it developed a hole in the floor at the back of the room (developed, or was helped, unsure)."
"Every lesson I had in there for a good few months before they fixed it, someone would arrive, greet the teacher, and sit down."
"Then after a few minutes they'd arrive again, straight-faced 'sorry I'm late sir', and sit down."
"Then again a few minutes later they'd arrive again... etc."
"The fun part was watching the teacher playing the memory game of figuring out who'd arrived too many times."- telnorp
Depends On How Short We're Talking...
"Freshman year one of my friends wanted to me run for student body vice president as a part of his counterculture party."
"He insisted on having me be his VP, to the point where he got all the necessary signatures for me to run without my knowledge and just went ahead and signed me up."
"We had to write speeches to get other kids to vote for us, and those speeches had to be approved beforehand by some faculty member."
"So I wrote a very disparaging speech about the validity and purpose of student council, laden with curse words and personal attacks towards our administration, thinking it would get screened ahead of time and they would disqualify me."
"I guess no one actually read my speech and just rubber stamped it, so on that morning they pulled me aside and handed me a printed out copy of my speech."
homer simpson drinking GIFGiphy"I went ahead and gave my speech and I guess none of the faculty knew what to do because no one stopped me but they were clearly panicked and furious."
"I got a lot of laughs and applause."
"I assume it was too late to print all new ballots because when we went to vote my name was crossed out with a sharpie."
"I also got suspended for 5 days despite my explanation that I did not want to run and submitted my speech for approval, on time, fully intending to be disqualified."
"I was also told by some older student council members involved in the ballot counting process that I won by a landslide due to write ins and people just circling the black line of my name, but I have no idea if that's true."- pieonthedonkey
Ladders Must Have Been In Short Supply...
"A student got ahold of a LOT of explicit pictures and taped them to all of the school clocks, suspended from the ceiling. None of the teachers were tall enough to pull them down, so they were up there for a bit."- Unlikely_Use
A Hard One To Erase From Memory (...Pun Intended...)
"My wife is a school teacher, and a couple years ago the senior prank was them sticking a bunch of those suction cupsex toys to the windows."
"And let's just say that the school has a lot of windows."
"It was the brain child of some douche bag architect who thought building a high school with no walls just windows was good idea."
"Any way, they managed to get the largest of the them stuck to the 3rd floor outside window, of one of the classrooms."
"So the male assistant principal gets a ladder, but its not quite long enough so he's teetering on the top of this ladder trying knock a 2-foot long purple d*ck of the side of the school with a broom handle."
"She said he was beating that thing as it owed him money, and it was just bouncing around, flopping and banging against the window."
"While everyone watched through tears of laughter."- Nutesatchel
What The Hell Comedy GIF by Paramount+GiphyDid ANYONE Find This Funny?
"Someone in my high school sent letters to everyone they deemed 'virgins' parents saying their son or daughter was tested for and found to have an STD by the school nurse and that they needed to come to the school immediately."
"Used the school letterhead etc so they got charged with mail fraud lol."- B__Malz
When In Doubt, Follow Moses...
"In my HS, there was a solid week where somebody set a trash can on fire daily."
"Nobody knew if it was one person or a group of people, but I think after day five everyone got pretty tired of having to stand out in the football field while the fire department inspected the area.
"It stopped after that week with no explanation and no word from the culprit."
"Second best was definitely the senior prank performed by the class two years ahead of mine."
"They bought crickets from our local PetSmart and set them free on our school’s main staircase."
"It took forever to get rid of them and I can remember sitting in class and hearing faint chirping coming from seemingly every direction."- Livingroxets
"A boy in my class brought some locusts in to show and tell."
"They escaped and got into the air vents."
"This was just before summer break."
"School came back to a full-on plague."- Big_Explanation_8803
Bugs Insects GIF by The GuardianGiphyNeedless to say, one has little doubt that any of the planned occurrences in these stories were ever meant to be found funny by the faculty or staff.
Even so, one also has little doubt that they've all looked back and laughed about some of these with the passage of time...
I embarrass myself in the search for love constantly.
Or in the need to try and impress.
I can't help it.
And I know I'm not alone.
Every time I come face to face with a crush or someone that intimidates me, all of my wit, wisdom, and self-respect flies out the window. Suddenly words are just sounds that make no sense. I also laugh at the most inappropriate moments.
Trying to impress someone should be easy.
Well, maybe not easy, it can be a challenge but it shouldn't land anyone in the ER.
When did trying to gain someone's attention become a sporting event?
Thank God for Xanax.
I have found a little calm goes a long way.
A deleted Redditor wanted everyone to share about the times we've been left red in the face, so they asked:
"What is the most embarrassing thing you've ever said to someone you were trying to impress?"
I once fell off of a treadmill trying to flirt with my high school crush.
I was running way too fast to show my "stamina."
I destroyed my Discman and my dignity.
Oh My
Licking Ice Cream GIF by MLB NetworkGiphy"Crush in High School worked at an ice cream store. When she asked for toppings I said 'I’ll have Reese’s penises please.' The store laughed."
WhaleyWino235
Tom Morello's Hometown
"I worked at the local guitar shop in town in high school. It happens to be Tom Morello's hometown (of rage against the machine fame). The owner used to babysit him when Tom was little and he'd always stop by to say hi when they were in town on tour. This was around the time of the evil empire and they were at peak popularity."
"He came in one day while I was there and asked if John was in. 16-year-old me just looked at him and asked 'Do you know who you are?!?!' He just laughed and said yes. Humiliated I went and got the owner and then tried to hide and die from shame."
matthewmichael
Echoes
"I was around 15, going through the receiving line at my cousin's wedding. This was my first 'grown-up' wedding and I wanted to act it. As I hugged my cousin I blurted out 'I'm so excited to be here! The last wedding I was at was your first one!'"
"That has echoed in my head for 30 years."
"E: This was my cousin's second wedding. The groom's first."
LGBecca
No Tip
"A server trying to get a tip: I went to clear a shared dessert dish from a table of 4 - mom, dad, and 2 sons. One son jokingly pointed at his mom and said 'She ate most of it.' I, the braindead server who was/is terrible at banter, but trying to get a tip said the first reply that came to mind: 'I can tell.' No idea why. Terrible reaction, as expected. No tip."
1nd1anaCroft
Snap
Buffering Back To School GIF by Rodney DangerfieldGiphy"I can do a Kickflip, then proceed to elegantly snap my ankle."
Mrlightyboy
Why do we risk our lives?
Have we really lost the ability for a simple flirt?
Where?
The Beautiful Game Thumbs Up GIF by World CupGiphy"I did once (truthfully) tell a girl from Austria that I didn't know what the capital of Austria was - which wouldn't be too embarrassing, except that I was wearing a t-shirt which said 'Vienna Rocks' on it at the time. She thought I was joking."
Ok-Fudge8848
The Red Lights
"I told everyone I knew about my plan to go on a trip to Europe. I had planned to tour different countries by train with a special visit to… Amsterdam. My intention was to visit a marijuana cafe, but in my ignorance, I thought that these were all located in the red lights district. I would tell people I was going to the red light district and they would understandably pause and ask me… why?"
"Trying to be sly I would say something like 'to do what the locals do of course,' believing that this meant smoking marijuana in a cafe… I was actually telling everyone I knew, friends, teachers, relatives, coworkers, that I was going to cross the Atlantic so I could hire a sex worker."
Virtual-Elderberry31
How Far You'll Go
"Was on an airplane years ago with my girlfriend and her parents. My girlfriend couldn't get a seat next to me and sat directly behind me. During the flight, I thought I would surprise her and reached my hand back onto her knee. Slowly I kept extending it up her thigh until I heard giggling."
"Looked behind through the seats and saw that my hand was on the leg of the guy next to her. He saw my face and said, 'I just wanted to see how far you'd go.' Of course, my girlfriend was in on it and started laughing along with the rest of the row. Was so embarrassed."
Ladon1949
Not Cool
"I was skating at a school and my girlfriend calls me and says she wants to hang out. Tell her I'm skating but she can meet me at the school and we can figure out what we're doing from there. She shows up looking cute AF, so clearly I need to impress her. There was a little two stair where she was waiting for me and I went to do a BS 180 down it. Instead of just landing normally, I thought I would look more bada** if I stomped the landing."
"As I landed my lead foot came off the board and I landed with all of my weight on that ankle... Immediate excruciating pain ensued and I'm on the ground rolling in pain. My sad attempt to look cool skating had turned into one of the worst injuries I received and an extremely embarrassing moment. The pain was so bad I could barely drive my car back home because I severely injured my right ankle."
"Didn't break my ankle but I did have a severe ankle sprain. I've had surgery on it and it's much better, but it just has never been quite the same. As far as the girlfriend goes, we're still together and have been married for 10 years."
DJAXL
Listen Again
Go Away Beyonce GIFGiphy"I told a musician I like that I liked a specific song. It was not his song."
Naca-7
We are so silly.
Why can't we just say 'Hey' and get on with it?
Such drama.
We've all had to learn something the hard way or at a super inconvenient time.
But because we're always learning new things, of course there will have to be some things that we learn later, rather than sooner, no matter the consequences of learning it too late.
Redditor IndianaC0NES asked:
"What's an important lesson you learned the hard way?"
Money Management
"Do not spend like there’s no tomorrow. Tomorrow will come and it won’t be pretty."
- cpu5555
Permanent Partner
"Never have kids with someone you don’t want in your life forever."
- pntszrn74
Make It Official First
"Money doesn’t exist until the deposit hits your bank account, and business promises mean nothing until legal documents are signed."
- FriscoFrank98
Know Your Limits
"Learn when to stop drinking and call it a night."
- Gadrilor
Trust Your Gut
"If something feels wrong, it likely is."
- drzed47
"This is closely related to, 'If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.'"
- remag_nation
The Importance of Dental Health
"Dental care is expensive!! Never be lazy with oral hygiene."
- the_rice_life
"And dental problems are EXTREMELY PAINFUL."
- Next-Confection3261
Be Careful Who You Share It With
"Not everyone has the same heart as you do."
- Accomplished_Hat2770
Be Wary of Bullies
"Not everyone is a good person. Some people actually want to see you fail. Stop oversharing. These nasty people will use it against you."
- Ko_ogs72
"My brain still can't comprehend someone being a d**k for no reason."
- Arny520
Recognize the Red Flags
"Don't let love blind your eyes, red flags are real."
- Fxk07
"And: No one is worth sacrificing your self-respect for."
- Waltzing_Methusalah
"It sucks when you’re halfway to learning this lesson before you even realize it. It’s so important to know your boundaries and respect yourself with the diligence required to walk away from people creating toxic patterns in your life, even or ESPECIALLY before you have the full picture to work with."
"We all know it’s heading south long before these things have terrible consequences on oneself/life. At a certain point, it’s too late to escape unscathed. Self-respect and what amounts to the ‘sunken-cost dilemma’ NEVER go together in relationships."
- brashbabu
The Likelihood of Success
"It's possible to make no wrong moves and still lose."
- Tropicsenshi
Family Ties
"Your family doesn't always have your best interest at heart."
- OhMyGodBearIsDriving
"Sometimes, family are just a bunch of bad people who are biologically related to you."
- noorofmyeye24
Wear the Helmet
"WEAR A HELMET."
"It's an easy safety precaution you can take when rollerblading, biking, skateboarding, scootering, etc. And it can literally save your life."
"I went all through the 90s thinking helmets were lame... I Fell while rollerblading in my 30s and got a subdural hematoma. I wasn't going fast but the momentum from how I fell just slammed my head into the concrete."
"HELMETS SAVE LIVES."
- Shortiie5115
Proper Eye and Ear Care
"Here is my PSA about eye protection. You only have two eyes and many injuries are not repairable. I have a completely s**t vision in one eye because of an injury and I'm constantly paranoid about something happening to the good eye. Wear safety glasses folk, it's important."
- ipsok
"And ear protection. You do not want Tinnitus."
- farmerofstrawberries
Love Your Loved Ones
"Always take a chance to tell someone you love them. To give them a hug."
"Never end a conversation with a harsh word."
"Both for the same reason. You never know if you will get to see that person alive again."
"I learned both those lessons from each of my parents."
- Edgezg
Self Advocate
"Stand up for yourself. If you get in the habit of letting people walk all over you, it'll be extremely difficult to reverse. Even if you're not confident, just fake it till you make it!"
- MISTERDIEABETIC
As humans, we will never stop learning and taking in new information, but there are, of course, some things that we wish we could have learned sooner or through an easier path.
But at least now that we've learned these lessons, we can share them with others, so they might not have to take the same path we did.