Teachers. Often they are stand-ins for parents, and what they have to handle can be overwhelming. Some of these stories are jarring - like first graders knowing what meth smells like, or faking autism for years on end.
LultimaNotte asked educators: Teachers of Reddit, what is the biggest holy-sh*t-red-flag of any kind you've seen from a student? [NSFW]
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
This is messed up.
I teach in an area that has been very, very affected by the opioid epidemic. I taught a student who was well-known to be addicted to heroin. He was also the person who gave his mother her first dose of the drug. His mother died of an overdose. The last time I saw him he had self-tattooed on his arm "I killed my mom" in huge letters.
Not cute, not funny.
I had a student last week tell me to hold out my hand because he had a surprise for me. I did it out of curiosity and he placed a 9mm round in my hand. This is two months after I had a student tell everyone via SnapChat he was gonna shoot me and another teacher up. I just shook my head and called administration to deal with that BS.
Imagine being so dark and troubled so young.
I had a student earlier this year who came to me because he was "kicked out" of his last school (according to him). He was covered in tattoos as a freshman in high school. On the second day of having him in my class, I looked up from my desk while students were supposed to be taking a test to see him miming cutting off my head with something shiny. When I went back to see what it was and he laughed and hid it, swearing he had nothing. I looked up to see him doing it again. Same thing happened... I let it go.
After he left the room, I found the pen he had been writing with under his desk with two small incisions in the cap. I immediately reported it to admin.
He was moved to another teacher a few days later for an unrelated scheduling issue. He threatened to kill her. He was moved to another teacher because of this. In the third teacher's class, he drew pictures of rifles all over his essays.
So. Many. Red. Flags. He was finally sent to the alternative school a few months back. But he'll likely be back.
EDIT: To clarify, the incisions on the pen indicated that he was using some kind of sharp object (a thumbtack, I suspect) to mime cutting my head off. And yes, I/we have documented and reported these things every step of the way.
This is both impressive and unnerving.
It happened a few years ago, when I was an intern at a big school in my town. My job was simple: follow the teacher wherever she went to and complete 100 hours of unpaid work, that's it. Sh*tty, but I had to do that in order to get my diploma.
So, there was this boy, around 14, who was always alongside his personal therapist. I don't usually ask questions, but since that same teacher was my high school teacher years ago, I felt comfortable in asking her what was wrong with him. She said he had autism, and sometimes he would get aggressive towards his classmates, so his therapist had to be with him at all times while he was at school to help calm him down if something or someone triggers him.
Days later I went to the teacher's room to ask for signatures for my internship documents. Everyone is helpful and starts signing until the coordinator walks in and asks for our attention.
"Guys, I have some news to tell you all about [boy]. You'd better sit down. You too, SpiritSong. You gotta listen to this," she said.
Turns out the kid had been pretending to be autistic for years. He looked up on the internet for the "symptoms" of autism and just started using his acting skills to fool even a psychologist and his whole family. His therapist had empty eyes, his mother looked like her son died in front of her. I don't know the details, but it seems a different psychologist did something to him and caught him off guard, discovering his ruse.
And people have the gall to say that a teacher's life has no thrill. I've been in the teaching career for only about 7 years and I've already had this and some other similar kinds of stuff happening, I can't wait for what the future holds for me!
No warning sign here, nope.
Had them producing a book report with a few sentences and some pictures. Kid had an abridged version of some Penguin classic, and everything was good barring one question:
'What did you enjoy most about this story?'
"He gets mad and kills his family." Followed by a scrawling image of mutilation.
Completely unrelated to the story and just slipped in there with some good work.
And it's said kids can't be sociopaths...
When I first began teaching, we had a student who seemed to get a lot of satisfaction out of manipulating or hurting others. Her behavior escalated, leading to a brief hospital stint after killing her puppy. When she returned to school, she bragged gleefully about it and shortly thereafter began writing death threats in blood on the walls of bathroom stalls. As much as I hate to say it, she's one I wouldn't be surprised to see in the news in a few years.
*Steps away slowly...*
A (university) freshman tried to add my class late, but all the slots allotted by admin had been filled. He approached me after the first day of class and asked to be added anyway. Very flat affect. No emotion at all.
I told him that I couldn't add him, and he replied, "If you don't add me, I'll follow you everywhere. Even to the bathroom."
Huh?
I'm not a huge guy, but I easily doubled his body weight. Not the situation to try to make a threat, I'd say.
I was nonplussed for a moment, so I asked him to repeat what he'd just said. And he did. Word for word. He did. I could tell this guy was a nut case, and in hindsight I probably should have reported the incident. Instead, I just kind of laughed it off and walked away.
Never saw him again, to my knowledge. Kinda doubt that he made a smooth transition into adulthood, tho.
Stalls are superior anyway.
I may have set off a red flag for teachers when I was in 3rd grade.
I would always pull my pants all the way down to my ankles when I peed in the urinal, and obviously, would constantly get made fun of for it.
Well, it got very tiring and hurtful so one day when I dropped my drawers to pee, the boy that walked up in the urinal beside me (who pees side by side anyway?) popped his mouth off and I just non-chalantly pivoted and piss all up and down his leg.
The principal called my mom, and I was tactfully talked to at home about how it's good to stand up for yourself but that wasn't an appropriate reaction. Then my dad took over and explained how I really needed to not get basically butt naked to pee standing up at a urinal.
Things six-year-olds shouldn't say.
A student walked in the classroom and said "it smells like crystal meth in here."
I teach six-year-olds.
Old English.
Student skipped the week or two that he had pool time at PE. Counseled his parents at conferences he was exhibiting some gang tendencies (oddly so were the parents). Found out later that year he skipped pool PE class because he had his last name tattooed across his back in old English. This was a 14 year old. UpDownABAB
The Deepest Cut.
This year I had a female student (middle school) who had cut her arm so many times you couldn't really see the skin, just a bunch of bloody, scabby cuts. She hid it well at school as it was winter and the students were all wearing sweaters. We only found out because one of her friends started crying and told me I needed to talk to her immediately. ZeeFishy
Sad Family Line.
My friend runs a swim club for kids, she once got a complaint from some mothers that one 8 year old boy was performing fellatio on some 6 year old boys in the changing room. The kid wasn't allowed to come back, and it turns out that his grandfather molested him, that's where he learned the whole thing. Ilbutters
Call the Team.
There was a kid I knew in second grade he was wild. When we were in the same class together, the teacher would regularly have to call the "assistance team" (a group of teachers that would restrain unruly kids and were trained on how to do so) he would throw desks, chairs, scissors once if remember correctly.
The following year (we weren't in the same classroom but it was a small school so you'd still hear about things) he tripped a very pregnant teacher causing her to go into labor no idea how he didn't get expelled for that but the final straw was when he found a rusty pocket knife on the playground during recess and stabbed the student sitting next to him in the stomach with it for no reason. Still wonder what happened to him. Oh oh and he sucked his thumb regularly. jimshwarts
Problem Child.
College professor. Guy just a little bit older than me wrote a paper in which he shared a fantasy about beating the crap out of a younger female therapist for not listening to him about his problems. He was constantly distracting in class, cheated in every way imaginable, and just struck me as off. I repeatedly put in student of concern notices about him, because I really thought something was going to go wrong. Shortly after the class ended he took his newborn kid and ran away to a different state. :/ phoenix-corn
First Grade Crazy.
My cousin (currently in 1st grade) had a girl in his class throw a computer tower in their classroom and slapped and punched the teacher as she tired to gain control.
To my knowledge, nothing ever happen to the girl because the teacher and the girl's mother are good friends. They don't want to ruin her time at school by reporting the incident. smaltowngrl
I See You Kid.
A buddy of mine teaches the special needs class in a high school. For him it was the kid who he'd been told liked to throw things. That wasn't entirely uncommon for his class, but when he noticed the kid was wearing adult diapers, he went straight to the office to review the kid's file. His "red flag" sense was right, the kid liked to throw poop.
My buddy went to OHAS and has managed to keep the kid out of his class. That was last week. This week he's been told that the school is still trying to get the kid put in his class anyway. (they make money for taking these kids). He's fighting it, but lord know which way it will land. Never_Been_Missed
Let's Call Dad.
I was in charge of an after school program for Jr. High and High school students (13-18 years old). One time I was waiting for a 13 year old girl to get picked up with her friend, and this is the conversation I hear from across the room while they were messing with the whiteboard.
Girl 1: draws swastika
Girl 2: "You can't do that, that's bad."
Girl 1: "Why?"
Girl 2: "I don't know, I just know bad."
Girl 1: " It's OK, my dad has it tattooed on his chest."
Me: 👀
Edit 1: I was working in a semi-rural part of the US, and dad was a white guy who lived in a trailer park. I'm not one for stereotypes but I'm pretty sure the guy wasn't Hindu. Or Buddhist. But I appreciate this sub's ability to always look for a silver lining. sweeetkiwi
Call CPS!!
There's a kid in this preschool class, aged 5, that says the most off the wall stuff.
So far this school year, she has said that her dad is going to come to the school and kill kids and their families, that she has a doll that will come to this other little girl's house and cut her heart out, eat it and cut her legs off, and finally that her dad shoots kittens.
At this point, I'm thinking of calling CPS or at least pushing the issue with the school district because there is no reasonable explanation as to why a 5 year old would be saying these disturbing things. HeyBlenderhead
It's highly believed that it is important to learn history as a means to improve our future.
What is often overlooked is that what is taught in history class is going to be very different depending on where you went to school.
And this isn't just internationally, even different regions of the United states will likely have very different lessons on American history.
This frequently results in our learning fascinating, heartbreaking and horrifying historical facts which our middle or high school history teachers neglected to teach us.
Redditor Acherontia_atropos91 was curious to learn things people either wished they had learned, or believe they should have learned, in their school history class, leading them to ask:
What isn’t taught in history class but should be?
The Irish Troubles
"The troubles."
"Too many people in America do not understand why a wall straight through Ireland would be a BAD idea."
"I’m referring to the Brexit referendum and possible outcomes."
"If people were wondering why we were talking about walls through Ireland in the first place."- CLCVS.
Forgotten elements of World War II
"What the Japanese did to the Chinese during WW2."
"Unit 731."- CaptainMcBoogerJew.
"Japan gets off easy for their war crimes in WW2."
"They killed an estimated 16mil Chinese civilians and another 8mil soldiers"
"Also, Pol Pot."
"Didn't know who he was until I was like 25."
"Worst dictator all time (in terms of percentage of population he decimated)".
The truth about the American Revolution
"That the American Revolution was part of a wider cold war type of conflict with France."
"The American Revolution was basically the UK's equivalent of the US version of Vietnam."- vinsant7.
The Dark side of Swedish history.
"As a Swede, I'd like to know more of all the horrible sh*t my country has done throughout history."
"It's a damn shame we're trying to hide our history."
"For example, Swedes killed a metric sh*t ton of all Polish people when we were at our strongest."
"That's the kinda sh*t we don't get to learn."- mogwandayy.
Colonization
"Basically what Belgium did to the Congo."
"A lot of people are telling me that they are taught about this actually."
"I'm glad to hear it because I wasn't taught about this in the USA during my public school days (1995-2008)."- EconArch.
The truth about "heroes".
"While teaching about historical Heroes they should also tell students about the unspeakable things some of them did."
"Many famous figures throughout history who are pillars of morality actually did many terrible things." - User Deleted
Intolerance for Mental Illness
"The dark history of mental illness treatments."
"I think it's worth learning about."- 7dayexcerpt.
Slavic Mythology
"Slavic mythology in Slavic countries."
"Don't get me wrong, I love both Greek & Roman mythology and as a person from the Balkans both of those cultures are part of my country's history and had great influence over not only my region but the entirety of the continent & the western world but I wouldn't mind knowing more about Slavic mythology as well."- ShorsShezzarine.
The truth about the CIA
"How the CIA was made and all the shady things they did over the years."- ALargeChip.
There is a lot about the history of our world, not to mention our own country which shouldn't be ignored.
And it's from learning from our mistakes that we really improve our future.
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So apparently we are in the endemic phase of this nonsense.
We have light at the end of the tunnel.
So what now?
Where do we go from here?
Normal seems like an outdated word.
How do we get back to normal though?
Is it even possible?
What are reaching back to?
Life pre-Covid.
Those were the days.
If only we could bring them back.
Redditor hetravelingsong wanted to discuss our new normal in this hopeful "endemic" phase. So they asked:
"What’s something random you miss about pre-COVID times?"
I miss people being sane. Though that maybe election cycle issues not COVID. We'll never know.
I thought I was Alone...
"Being able to grocery shop after 11 pm."
Reading_Rainboner
"Hell yes. I miss the days where the Walmart across the street was open 24 hours."
Small_Tax_9432
let's just go...
"I miss spontaneity... everything now seems to have a barrier of difficulty."
iidosee
"I live very close to Disneyland so I have an annual pass. My friends and I would just go there after work and hang out and grab a bite to eat."
"Now, we have to reserve a day to go. And most of the time, the days are at 'full' capacity so we couldn't even reserve. I don't want to schedule to hang out at Disneyland for a couple hours for July. So yeah, I definitely miss the 'lets go eat at Disneyland tonight?' texts."
mymymissmai
Not til 24-25
"Functioning global supply chains. Ah, the product you want has got microchips in it? 9 month wait."
richard-king
"Minimum, I'd been saying for a while now that I wouldn't expect a true return to normalcy in terms of electronics prices till 2024-2025. Although Crypto crashing through the floor really took some of the pressure off graphics cards which I really appreciate."
statiiic
WTF?!?!
"How affordable everything was!"
Disastrous_Hour_6776
"Yep. Today I was bagging up my things at the grocery store and I heard the cashier say to the lady behind me 'thats $78.12.' She had -- 2 boxes of Kellogg's corn flakes, a carton of 12 eggs, milk, strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, a small cheese cake, English muffins, coffee, and a small whole frozen chicken that could maybe feed 3 people if the meat portioning was small."
SnowyInuk
Sushi
"My favorite sushi place. It was good quality, close by, kid-friendly, and not too expensive."
InannasPocket
All of this... it was a simpler time.
NASTY
"As a retail worker, just how f**king NASTY some people have gotten."
DmitriPetrov*itch
"They applauded you for being an essential worker but won’t vote for policies that’ll raise minimum wage while insisting a wage cap for heavily paid employees."
sketchysketchist
CHANGES your DNA...
"Some of the people closest to me became very bitter and petty over the last 2 years. So many people have the 'crazy eyes' now."
__--__7
"So true and holidays with the family is like who has the biggest tinfoil hat building contest. How many jumps does your brain have to go through to think that the Covid vaccine CHANGES your DNA into the patented DNA so that the government now controls your body."
"So like vaccinated people now have a singular DNA set. I feel like I still have a chunk of my brain just broken off due to that comment alone. I was also told by same family member that I could never donate blood again due to the vaccine. I guess it is so my patented DNA doesn't affect people?? FYI my vaccinated butt just donated today fine and multiple other times after the vaccine."
tyreka13
Homeward Bound
"House prices."
adrianinked
"I'm resigned to never thinking I have a chance on owning property where I live. I'm 30 and just can't imagine it anymore. And I don't want to live anywhere else so, whatever."
Osdab2daf
"That didn’t happen because of the pandemic. That was already happening regardless."
CH11DW
Oh Mickey
"All Day Breakfast at McDonalds."
hutch2522
"It was honestly hell to do, and not very popular. ITs margins aren't anywhere dinner and lunch specials. ON top of that, the temperatures are such that They require its own grill, meaning that if you have 2 grills in shop, you are down 50% of lunch capacity."
Freyas_Follower
Way back when...
"Hanging out with friends. And I mean waaaaaay before Covid. Like 2006 back when I had some friends."
LoocsinatasYT
I miss the old days. Maybe we'll get back there.
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What do you believe?
Is there a GOD in the sky?
Is he guiding us and helping us?
Life is really hard. Why is that is a big entity is up there loving us?
Atheists have taken a lot of heat for what feels like shunning GOD.
What if they've been right all along?
Maybe let's take a listen and see what they really think.
Redditor __Jacob______ wanted to hear from the people who don't really believe all that "God" stuff. They asked:
"Atheists, what do you believe in?"
I'm waffling between G-O-D and nothing. So please give me some education.
911
"We need to look out for each other because help isn't coming."
cknipe
Peace Out
"More than 2 decades ago, a priest was giving a sermon in my church and he said 'our faith requires you to believe without question. Why call it faith if you have to ask questions?' I haven't returned to church. Not until my wedding day but you know what I mean."
asiangontear
Delusion
"When I was young I used to think that after death you would have access to a PC that you could see absolutely anything about your life. Stats, any question you had no matter how obscure, replays of moments, perspectives of others in relation to you. No matter what you wanted to know, if it was relatable to you, you could see it. I know it's silly, but as time goes on I just want it to be real, and I don't think I'd have any issue allowing myself to fall into that delusion."
eggwardpenisglands
I think nothing happens...
"Realistically, I think nothing happens. We literally experience nothing after death. Same thing that we experience before birth. We don't exist, so it's nothing. I think the tenant that we should follow while living is to try to be happy and healthy while minimizing the damage we do to each other."
"What I would LIKE to happen after death is whatever you believe in, exists. I think Christians should get to go to heaven if they truly believe in it, Hindus and Buddhists get reincarnated, and everyone else also gets to experience what they believe they will experience."
"'I would still experience Nothing. Maybe it's one of those things where at the moment of death their brain makes them experience what feels like an infinitely long moment in time where they experience their afterlife. I just think it would be neat for everybody."
Better_Meat_
Shrug
"Best advice I received from a dear senior on their way out. 'You win some, you lose some' shrug. Nothing divine, life is that simple and wonderful, accept it and move on."
Tune_Kindly
It all sounds pretty simple. Why are people so up in arms about Atheists?
Whatever
"I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do."
imCIK
Cool with Empty
"Nothing. [Serious]."
rumblingtummy29
"I feel this way about death. When I was 5, my grandfather died and my cousin simple said, he is dead, that means you are gone forever. Everything ends up dying, even plants and animals. I'm now in my 40's and still have this simplistic view of life and death. People think I'm ambivalent to life and death but it's just what it is."
thepigfish82
puppet-masters...
"I think a lot of religious people struggle with the fact that we are all just swirling units of chaos. There is no grand plan or great orchestrator. I think that’s why people who are prone to religion are also susceptible to things like Q anon and the Cabal and all that. They REALLY want to believe that there is some almighty puppet-master who determines all of humanity’s fate."
Lngtmelrker
“we’re living in a society!”
"Just be a kind and empathetic person not because you’re worried about some cosmic justice, but because it’s the right thing to do. If there is some being that created us there’s no way they actually care about believing in it or adhering to some rules from over 2000 years ago."
"Also a big thing for me is that I find the idea that you need religion or the Bible in order to have morals and ethics pretty dumb. It’s pretty f**king clear that most evangelicals have neither. But my main thing is being a good person simply because, as George Costanza once said we’re living in a society!' If you’re only a good person in order to make it to heaven you probably aren’t actually a good and moral person."
conservative_genius
That's All
"You're born. You live. You die. That's it. After you die you cease to exist, the same as before you were born."
serefina
Believe what you want. We're all here together. So let's focus there.
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The list of what irritates me is endless.
I mean... breathing too loud or dust can set me off.
I'm a bit unstable, yes.
But I'm not alone.
So let's discuss.
Redditor Aburntbagel6 wanted to hear about all the times many of us just couldn't control our disdain. They asked:
"What never fails to piss you off?"
I feel like this article can go on forever. Let's get some highlights.
Wasted Time
"Meetings that could and should have been an email."
Sirena609
Lotto People
"Getting stuck behind people playing the lottery at a corner store."
thenuggetlover
"I also used to work in a gas station and you’re SO right. I f**king hated the lottery people. Especially since my store had a small staff and there was usually only one of us working at a time, which meant that I couldn’t get any of my other work done as long as they were there."
"And you’re right, it’s also pretty sad to watch. I had one lady who used to come in every day and spent hundreds and HUNDREDS of dollars on scratch tickets. One day, she won $200 after spending probably around $600 and she was so excited and saying she can 'finally pay her bills.'"
i-am-your-god-now
Aware...
"No situational awareness. Job, home, shopping, driving. Think for one minute and go about. OBSERVE!!"
Dizzy-Foundation8122
"My mom is one of those people who leave the shopping cart in the middle of the damn aisle and proceed to walk twenty feet away. After correcting her a million times to no effect I just walk away now so people don’t know I’m with her."
OutrageousEvent
Shut Up!
"Endless barking in the middle of the night, I love animals but that sh*t I can't stand."
Acceptable-Lemon2924
"Endless barking in general drives me up a wall. One of my friends dogs was barking almost an entire gaming session the other day. I wanted to reach through the computer and smack him for letting it go on."
bangersnmash13
Kindness
"People being mean to service workers, especially if the workers are very young."'
scaryboilednoodles
All of these things. I hate them all.
Admit It
"People who never accept fault when they mess something up. Like, why blame a million people when it was clearly you who did it???"
Quirky-Area-8978
From Above
"My upstairs neighbors."
lutzow89
"I had terrible neighbors at my previous apartment. It was a one person studio for students, but her boyfriend was clearly living with her illegally and he was loud."
"One night we knocked n the door at 3 AM because of the loud music and an unknown girl opened the door. I just thought they were having a little party. But the next door I saw the girl living there come home with a suitcase after having been away for the weekend... Her BF was cheating on her in her own apartment."
Th3_Accountant
Move Away
"People who sit directly next to me at the airport, movie theater, any other place where you can choose a seat when there is PLENTY of other seating."
BacardiPardy33
"I can’t YES this enough and the ones who can’t park for crap so they park so close you can’t open doors on one side of the car or the ones who park directly behind when you pulled through so the door won’t open to load groceries."
BacardiPardy33
It's Over
"People who try to restart old drama. Like I'm done with you, just leave me alone."
Tired_Potatos
"Yep, half the reason I've basically quit playing one of my favorite online video games. People keep bringing old crap up or sh*tting on on someone who used to be our friend. I got tired of it so I just ejected the game out of me."
CaucasianHumus
AHHHHH!!!
"People walking too slow in front of me with no way to get around them. It’s even worse if it’s a couple or group taking up the whole sidewalk. HAVE SOME SPATIAL AWARENESS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!"
_-v0x-_
Life in general pisses me off. I'm easy.
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