Teachers Share The Worst Assignments Students Have Turned In Unironically

Teachers Share The Worst Assignments Students Have Turned In Unironically
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mid-adult-teacher-at-desk-paper-airplane-flying-royalty-free-image/sb10065208bb-001

Teachers don't get the proper respect they most likely deserve, compared to, say, lawyer or a doctor. Educating the future of our world can be difficult, the pay isn't great, and let's face it, kids aren't necessarily our best citizens. Yet they strive on. Many do their absolute best with minuscule resources, and fortunately, most are willing to rat their kids out when they mess up big time.


Reddit user, Trev0r_P, wanted to hear what's the worst of the worst when they asked:

Teachers/professors of Reddit: Whats the worst thing you have ever had a student unironically turn in?

How Did They Put The Berets On?

Giphy

My favorite was a research paper about black panthers - literal, four-legged black panthers - for a paper about The Color of Water, a book that touches on family, education, and race, including the Black Panther political group. Apparently the student did not read the book or pay much attention to the classroom discussions.

I also especially like it when they copy and paste from different websites without changing the fonts.

U4RiiA

This Looks Strangely Famili-HEY WAIT A MINUTE

Student literally plagiarized about two pages of a book I had written, as if I wouldn't notice...

LaDebacle

When You Catch Them In The Act

An essay completed by his mom (who had done his written work for years, according to other teachers)...

It the parent-teacher interview I told her I believe the essay was likely plagiarized as it did not match the level of work that her son completed in class, however, the essay itself was so poorly written that there was no point in pursuing a lower grade than he had already received...

Her husband gave her an all-knowing side-eye grimace and she turned bright red...

Kid went on to fail my exam with a 4%.... It takes a lot of f-cking work to get a 4% on an exam...

Snuffy1717

That's What They Call Karma

During student presentations once, I had to stop class to pull aside one of the students for mocking a dyslexic classmate for his spelling errors. Then, my random-name-picker selected Rude Student next. He plugs his computer into the projector and starts presenting, and the rest of the class immediately starts snickering. Rude Student hadn't done the assignment at all-- he had copied another student's file off of the lab computers and hoped I wouldn't notice.

He had copied his dyslexic classmate's file, spelling errors and all.

He got a 0 and a discipline referral.

melbytoes

Forgot To Edit It Out

I had a kid turn in a Wikipedia article as a research paper. He wrote the intro and conclusion, but the rest of it still had footnote numbers and, somehow, a slightly shaded background.

Orcapa

English =/= Technology

I taught technical drawing. One of the kids was getting suspended for a week. He asked me for work he could take home. Since he couldn't do work using the software at home, because he didn't have a computer, I gave him a stack of worksheets pertaining to the AutoCAD software and told him to take a book off the shelf. The guy came back later after his suspension was over and turned in some of the craziest worksheets I'd ever seen. I told him , not one of these answers is right. The kid got all upset. He said, they all came straight out of the book.

Then he showed me the book. It was Norton's anthology of English literature.

sketner2018

...There's Just So Much Wrong Here

I was grading anatomy papers once and a male college student mislabeled the vagina as a penis. I had someone else call the pectoralis major muscle that goes over the chest area the "titimus major". That same kid also called the quadriceps the quadricicle.

I had one male student mislabel appendix as the "clitoris". So many good jokes came from this one.

Also I should point out that all of these were on accurate anatomical models, so these were especially bad mistakes.

Alittlestitious1

At Least They Do Science? Right?

Giphy

This is on me and I know it.

I teach 6th grade and had taught about citing sources but not about reliability. Had a student turn in a science paper whose entire source list was Phineas and Ferb episodes.

estrogyn

Well, were the episodes properly sourced?

antlear

Take This Advice: Anything Is Better Than A Zero

I'll always remember the time students had the assignment to write something creative - we'd covered poems, short stories, stuff like that. Even a diary or journal entry would have worked, it was a real softball of a homework assignment.

A couple kids clearly phoned it in and that's annoying, but one kid decided to plagiarize Bob Marley lyrics as an original poem.

Dude, you could have written two paragraphs about how you liked that song, and we're all good. Now I have to drag you out in the hall because plagiarizing is a Big Deal and can get him in trouble with administration that's over my head.

Just felt bad all around, and I was a new teacher at the time and had never had to deal with it before.

Seriously people, just half ass your homework or take the zero, if you don't want to do it. Don't cheat. Once you cheat, stuff is out of my hands, and there's no way it's worth it on a dumb one off assignment.

IJourden

Wait, So You're Telling Me Finland Isn't France?

A student handed in an assignment for French class that he had used google translate for. Except he made a mistake when selecting the language to translate from English. The assignment he handed in was in Finnish.

snardles

black iphone 5 on red table
Photo by Shiwa ID on Unsplash

CW: Suicide.

When it comes to cell phone wallpaper, it can be a very personal choice.

Sometimes, your wallpaper is silly, like a funny picture of your and your friends. Other times, it's simple, like a monochromatic background.

Sometimes, it's the way you show your love for a particular fandom. As a huge Potterhead, it's no surprise that my wallpaper is a still image of the floating candles in the Great Hall from the first Harry Potter movie.

Sometimes, your phone's wallpaper is unique, and there's a story behind it. Those stories are what Redditors shared.

Keep reading...Show less

Rules. Rules. Rules.

I get that we have to have rules and order.

Without all rules, we have anarchy and chaos.

But it feels like some schools just go overboard.

I mean, a principal is the head administrator, not a warden.

Especially when there are so many do's and donts that make absolutely so sense.

Keep reading...Show less
Toddler crying at beach birthday party
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Anyone who doesn't have children yet will be told by someone how magical and beautiful being a parent is. Some will even argue that a person's life has not begun until they have kids.

But as some parents will point out, life as a parent is not made up of all unicorns and rainbows, and it certainly doesn't always smell like roses.

Keep reading...Show less
Male flight passenger looking through his bag
Bambi Corro/Unsplash

The best of traveling is getting to see the world, escape from the trappings of our everyday lives, and be exposed to different cultures.

No one talks about the worst part of traveling–which is the actual travel part.

Especially where flights are concerned, you could be sitting for hours, feeling claustrophobic, and discovering the nuissance that is having restless leg syndrome.

All of these can be exacerbated by the type of passenger you have sitting next to you. Because if you're not on a journey with a travel companion, the stranger beside you could completely ruin your long-anticipated trip.

Keep reading...Show less