Your entire childhood, you're told, "High school is going to be the best time of your life." Then, for a lot of us, we arrived and quickly realized the grim truth: High school is a nightmare. Students know it, teachers know it, and the people below DEFINITELY know it.
1. Essay Or Manifesto?
I had a student once write a very terrifying and unsettling personal narrative essay. I forget exactly what the prompt was, but it was about an educational experience. It started off with the student talking about how he had always felt alone and isolated and out of place as a student, and it quickly disintegrated into how he was coveting his pretty female teachers.
He said that he felt overly protective toward them, and that he was jealous when other male students talked to them, eventually revealing that his deepest desire was to cut off his male classmates' faces and wear them as a mask. I had never before felt such a bone-tingling dread before while reading an essay.
I spoke with my boss about this, and we called the counseling and advising department, read sections of the essay to them, and they said they would handle things from there on out. The student was withdrawn from my class, and for the next two class periods, an officer was placed at the door of my classroom in case the student showed up.
Here's the kicker: the next year, one of my students told me that her boyfriend was in my class the previous year and that he really enjoyed my class. I asked who it was, and she revealed that it was the student who wrote that bone-chilling essay. I so desperately wanted to tell her, but privacy laws wouldn’t allow me to.
2. The Epitome of Determination
My wife and I taught together in the same high school for a while where we shared several of the same students. We shared one particular student with whom we had entirely different experiences. In my math class, he didn't mind the subject or me as a teacher. He was relatively calm and polite with me. However, when he went to her English class, he turned into a completely different person.
He hated her class. He hated it so much that he began to try, on several occasions, to get out of it. Here are some of the highlights that took place within about a week before he was eventually removed from school altogether. First, during passing period on the way to English class, he threw himself down a flight of stairs and swore he was paralyzed and couldn't possibly go to class.
The nurse checked him out, and much to his dismay, he was sent back to class anyway. A few days later, at the start of English class, he attempted escape again. This time, he soiled his pants in class; no hesitation whatsoever. This attempt was slightly more successful than the last because he was then allowed to go home for the remainder of the day.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, he had to return the following day. His final act came another few days later and finally allowed him to meet his goal. Again, while in English class, this student began to pleasure himself at his desk. Due to the lewd act, he was removed from class and was shortly removed from the school altogether.
He was later enrolled at a juvenile detention center to continue his education.
3. There Has To Be An Easier Way
High school math teacher here. Many years ago I had a very entitled young lady who tried to get out of class every. single. day. Her parents enabled the misbehavior every step of the way. On one occasion, as the students were filing into class, I was helping another student at my desk and this girl asked me (as she had done many times before) if she could go to the nurse.
Without looking up, I told her to take her seat and I would get to her. Once class started (less than five minutes later), I remembered her request and called on her to get a hall pass to go to the nurse. When she looked at me, I was horrified to see her eye extremely red and tearing up. She went on her way and as soon as she was gone, another student approached me.
She said that in the previous class she had witnessed this girl pick up a stray, unbent staple and put it in her eye. The nurse called me to confirm (she was in disbelief) and the girl finally got what she wanted, which was several days out of school.
4. High School Musical
There were rumors about a music teacher and a student, but they were both pretty dramatic people and did very little to dismiss the talk. So, half the school wanted to believe it for the salacious thrill and half just waved it off as attention-seeking gossip. Later on, the teacher was let go without explanation, but most of us thought it was just budget-related.
Years later, I randomly caught up with the student and she said the rumors were true. But the details made my jaw drop. She had freaked out and tried to end things in hopes of shaking off her reputation. Eventually, the teacher showed up trashed and naked on her family's front lawn, in the rain, yelling for her. It was like a messed up version of John Cusack in Say Anything, minus the boombox.
5. Bridge Over Troubled Water
There was a girl during my freshman year who went missing. They ended up finding her body in the river. There were rumors that she was seen on a bridge with her boyfriend the day she went missing, and that maybe he had a hand in it. Nothing was ever discovered, so, it was assumed that there was an accident, or that she took her life.
Twenty-five years later, the boyfriend did away with his best friend of several decades, set a fire to cover it up, and went on the run. A couple of days later, he killed a woman at a rest stop in the bathroom to take her car. They reopened the case about the high school girlfriend. That rumor was correct all along. He will be behind bars for the rest of his life.
6. Driven Together
The school bus driver started receiving a bunch of anonymous letters accusing her of having an affair with the superintendent. Then they started sending them to her husband. But that wasn't the worst part. Her husband got a phone call that was so bad, he ran out, got into his truck, and peeled off. He ended up getting into an accident and didn’t make it.
The bus driver completely denied she was having an affair. After her husband passed, she got together with the superintendent but swore up and down that the relationship started after her husband passed. Too coincidental.
7. Lost In Paris
Each year the senior French class, or the ones who could afford it, took a trip to Paris. About eight years prior, one of the girls on the trip snuck out of the hotel they were all staying in to meet a guy. It ended in tragedy. Nobody ever saw her again. I always thought it was just some quasi-urban legend, but the French teacher who was on the trip, who was still teaching at the school, verified it.
8. She Got What She Asked For
I had a teacher in high school, she was young and starry-eyed. Asking the students to do “outside of the box” essays and such—but some of her prompts were downright disturbing...One of the most memorable ones was: "Your goal is to exterminate an entire population; who are they, what method do you employ and why doesn’t anyone notice?”
It was pretty gruesome; but a great way to actually interest teenagers, unfortunately. Well, one of the students in either my class or another one argued that wards of the state/foster children would be the demographic. They followed through with a well-constructed argument that “people don’t care about them anyway, otherwise they would be adopted”.
He went so far as to detail the method of extermination which I sadly cannot recall. She was genuinely shocked, though I don’t know what else she expected with a prompt like that one. So much so, that she had to call the counselors to have a meeting about it.
9. The Proof is in the Printing
I had a teacher who hated me. To the best of my knowledge, I never did anything to make her feel that way at first, or if I did, it was something stupid and petty. Not being the type to enjoy being hated, I made her life as difficult as I could without breaking rules. Then this awful teacher started telling me that I wasn’t turning in homework assignments. Are you serious? I handed it to you yesterday same time as everyone else.
Principal calls my parents about me apparently just not trying, so they yell at me for a while and sit with me every night for two weeks while I do my dumb homework. Then this genius lady tells me again that I need to start doing homework or I'm going to fail the class. This message ends up with the principal and then ends up with my parents.
Now, they didn't believe me before this point, but now they knew I was doing my homework, and something fishy was going on. My mom asked to meet with the teacher. We went to this parent teacher meet up and she's sitting there all smug. She told my mom, "He isn't doing his homework." But my mom fired back, "I know he is. I've been making sure he has."
Then the teacher went, "Well then he must be choosing not to turn it in. Or maybe he's just not doing the homework for this class. Do you help him with the work? We're doing ____ right now, I'll show you the assignment." She grabbed a folder, opened it up, and right on top was my ungraded assignment. It had my name on the top in big ol’ letters.
My mom noticed too and snatched it. She gave the teacher a look, got up, and walked down the hall to the principal’s office. The look on her face was worth the nightmare I'd been through. I had never seen my teacher, or anyone else for that matter, look so devastated after realizing how much she screwed things up for herself. It was incredible. She finished out the school year but was not present the next year.
I guess there were a lot of issues with her.
10. Life Lessons
At my high school, seniors had to do a senior project. Can be anything really. Just plan it out and follow through. A very popular and well-liked senior made an end of day announcement that tomorrow morning he would be in the student parking lot working on his project and needed as many other folks there as possible. Everyone showed up—completely unaware as to what would happen.
He drove into the student parking lot and set up a tripod and a camera. A large crowd gathered round, just about 30 minutes before the first bell. He hit record, thanked everyone for showing up, then reached into his car pulled out a weapon. He pulled the trigger before anyone could react. No one knows why.
He was a great guy with a bright future, but you never know what struggles others are going through. I think about it frequently and take that into consideration to try and be nice to others with random acts of kindness.
11. Straight from the Sauce
One time this kid I was friends with brought this special hot sauce to high school and let a bunch of kids try it during lunch. It is 1.5 million scoville units. At least 30 kids tried it. Some kids really started freaking out because it is ridiculously hot. You’re supposed to add one or two drops to a big batch of chili to make it spicy.
Some were trying to show off and took a swig of it and ended up vomiting everywhere from the heat/panic. Multiple kids had to go to the nurse and be sent home because they way overdid it, although I think most just really had no idea what a scoville unit was or that they made hot sauce that was that ridiculously hot. It was chaos.
I tried it as well, a dime-sized amount. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but chugging milk—and I’m really good with spicy foods! Finally, the principal came on the intercom and said, “Whoever brought the hot sauce, please, just stop.” My friend got into some pretty big trouble for that one.
12. Life’s a Beach
A female student in my class had a teacher whom she really didn’t like for whatever reason. One day when the teacher entered the classroom, she had her feet on her desk, so he said something like, “Get you feet down, you're not at the beach.” That girl took advantage and complained to the school principal that this teacher implied he wanted to see her in a bathing suit.
The teacher obviously denied it, but the girl doubled down and got the parents union involved. There was a massive outcry. The girl’s parents organized a protest outside the school gate one morning and the local newspaper reported the story. The teacher got fired eventually. The thing is, there were plenty of witnesses to what happened that could say the teacher did nothing wrong, but she was one of the popular girls, so everybody kind of just…decided to not get involved.
13. The Fall Guy
The smallest kid in 12th grade climbed through the roof and padded the inside of our hated history teacher’s classroom with towels before being handed the hose from outside the panel he'd climbed through. He left the hose leaking into the classroom and made his way back. Or tried to. A few steps before he got out, he fell through the roof, onto a railing, and down two flights of stairs. He crawled away unscathed, and, despite getting into a lot of trouble, was still allowed to write his final exams and attend the farewell dinner and dance.
14. Penalty Kick
Over Christmas break junior year (it may have been senior year, I forget), one of the star members of the football team disappeared. Know one knew what had happened—but we eventually learned the chilling truth. Turns out he'd snapped and shot his father. His father turned out to be a Class-A jerk who resented his wife for getting pregnant when they were dating.
The father was apparently a huge high school football star and was set to go on and play college ball until his girlfriend got pregnant and he was forced to marry her. He tried to live out his athletic dreams with his kids, especially his oldest son, and treated his kids like garbage. He had recently forced the oldest son to break up with his girlfriend because she was a “distraction.”
Nobody blamed the son for what he did...he had been tormented mentally and physically for years and just…snapped.
15. Journalistic Responsibility
One of our teachers was sending spicy texts to a student and had a photo of her on his phone—she was 18. One student stole his phone and saw the photo and reported it. The high school was in a high class area, so everything had to be perfect and without blemish on their reputation. This was a pretty darn big blemish.
The teacher got notified by one of his buddies that he was under review, and he left that night. He drove to his hometown and told his parents about what had happened. By this time, his face was already published and that he was on the run. The details of what he did with his parents aren't there, but he shot himself a few hours later.
The police and some other law school and enforcement came to the school and kept all of the girls in the class after school for questioning. Now here's where it gets pretty crazy, and this is from my point of view. I was the "video anchor" for our schools’ announcements. We had a news-like setup, so reporting the news was something I have been doing for at least two years before then.
I saw everyone was sharing the link to news articles, but I decided to take it a step further. Since the articles were all over the place and you didn't know which ones were legit, I put the legit ones in one Facebook post and also put a summary of the article under each post. I kept updating the post and it became the central source for information.
Then all of a sudden, to everyone else, it just disappeared. I got called down to the room where we recorded the news, and my teacher, all of the principals, and the campus police all were there telling me what I was doing was "immoral" and "unethical" and "what if the family sees it." I replied with "If [family name] messages me I will remove it." I had done my research and found out who the girl was.
This went on and on. In the end, I was basically forced to delete my post, which was replaced with this one: "Sorry to everyone I offended with my post. I didn't mean to cause harm. The post was taken down by request of [school name here]." I think it was a nice passive-aggressive response. And that was that.
I had said teacher’s class next, so I followed her to the room and she gave a very passive aggressive speech about not talking about what happened in class or we will get sent to the assistant principal. The entire time she didn't glance at me once, but most of the class knew it was about me.
I want to reiterate that this was the teacher who was teaching me to become a news anchor as my career, who reports on worse things daily. She later quit her intern news anchor job because she didn't want to report a dog dying. Fun days. So glad it's over.
16. Some People Don’t Know When to Give Up
I went to a small high school, graduating class of about 60. In school, I had two close guy friends, and one of them had a drama queen ex-girlfriend named Stacia. She was convinced that the problems in her relationship weren’t her fault, they were mine. She tried to call the cops and say that me and my guy friends smelled like weed.
They didn’t really care, so she tried the same lie on the vice principal. Well, the thing is, the vice principal is my cousin. So he kind of just forgot about my name, but he still had to search my friends’ cars, and he actually found some pot. They were instantly suspended. I was stuck alone at school with Stacia the Psychopath.
I’m in the cafeteria one day, and my hair is up in a high messy bun. I heard her talking behind me, but I tell myself to ignore her. When I think of what happened next, I still can’t believe it. I could tell she was right behind me, and all of a sudden, I felt a weight on my head. The friend who I was talking to changes his expression. His eyes widen and he mouths “ASSSSSS” to me.
All of a sudden, I scream out the vice principal’s name and yell “Could you kind ask Stacia to get her butt of my hair?” He spins around, confused, and makes eye contact with her. Stacia very slowly moves forward, until her poo-caked-behind is no longer resting on my messy bun. Unfortunately, Stacia was not finished with her reign of terror, not even after being hauled to the office and subsequently sent home for “assault” of my person.
The very moment Stacia arrived at her home, she made a phone call to the state police. alleging that myself and my two guy friends, both of whom were home on suspension themselves, I might remind you, had followed her grandfather's Buick from the school to her house, flashing the headlights and honking.
Then, we allegedly did some mean Dukes of Hazzard moves to slide down her driveway and block her entrance to her house. Then we threw rocks at her. Then the guys assaulted her and I spit on her. Then we threw rocks at her again, and left. When she mentioned the alleged assault, the police sprang into action.
Less than 90 minutes after the original altercation where she put her butt on my head, the police were at the school to interrogate me. Well, I was more than happy to share what I know: my friend Alex's parents had confiscated his CAR BATTERY (more effective than taking keys) when he got busted with the weed. So he couldn’t have been at Stacia’s.
As for my friend David? He had no access to a vehicle and was under house arrest 22 miles from Stacia's house. The outcome? Stacia was charged with filing a false police report and the backlash against her for lying was so severe from the rest of the school, that she only lasted three days before transferring when she returned.
17. Meet the Parents
I always knew my girlfriend’s parents were teachers, but we go to different schools. Anyway, last week I met them for the first time. When I walked into their house, my blood ran cold. Not only is her dad my science teacher—he 100% hates me with a pure passion. That dinner was awkward.
18. Spice Up Your Life
Last year we had a girl start randomly pepper-spraying people in the library. It turns out she had snapped after she found out her ex-boyfriend had been hooking up with her mother during and after the relationship—a whole legal bullet was dodged there because he was 18 when it all started. At first, it was just a Twitter beef when she found out.
Then, it escalated to the point where she went to confront him over this, armed with pepper spray, and one way or another had a nervous breakdown, snapped, and then went to pepper spray everyone in the library. I heard that she had been told he was there. She ended up leaving the school after the incident and the guy got suspended, but it was a mess for the school's PR.
I honestly felt bad for her because I'd had a class with her and she was always really nice and it seemed like a super awful situation had just brought the absolute worst in her.
19. Behind Closed Doors
I had a girl in my class as a sub that was a complete nightmare. She basically told me that she wouldn't do work, she didn't care, etc. She was oppositional to everything I said for no reason and at one point she was up writing on the whiteboard and wouldn't sit down. The whole lesson was her distracting other students, just generally being a jerk, and enjoying that she had a sub she could infuriate.
I gave her detention for lunchtime the next day and she just laughed and said, “As if I'm going to come.” For some reason, she got to me more than students usually do—last period on a Friday, probably. I was stupidly angry at her, mostly internally. After class finished I went to add a behavior incident for her on the school system we use for disciplinary things.
The way it works is you can see the student’s history of incidents and refer your incident to head teacher, welfare teacher, deputy etc. When I found out what was happening to her, I was stunned. It turns out she had recently had a bad breakup and her ex was now harassing her, her family, and her friends. This includes turning up at her house with a gang in the middle of the night and threatening her with various things. The police were even involved.
I honestly just closed the classroom door and cried at the hopelessness of the whole thing and I didn't even end up writing the incident. I felt guilty for being so angry, completely lost that this was a reality for a 15-year-old kid, and terrified for what the future is going to hold for this girl. It's depressingly likely that she will end up a domestic violence statistic and there is nothing I can do to intervene.
20. Friends In The Right Places
My mom was a teacher in Southern California schools for 25 years, and not always in the nicest of schools. One High School had a lot of issues with Latino Gangs as many of the students were members. Luckily my mom was well-liked by most of the students. I don’t know why but even the toughest dudes would be all smiles when passing her.
They would then go straight back to being intimidating once they passed. Anyway, during a school lockdown due to gang activity at the school, she had some of her students say, “Don’t worry Mrs. X, we have ways of protecting you, we won’t let anything happen to you.” She described it as less than comforting.
21. Leaving You Breathless
My school had two lunch periods to accommodate our population. The first time I realized something was up was during the second lunch period. I was walking in the stairwells to class when I started coughing, along with a lot of others. It felt like I’d swallowed sawdust. I was near the science labs, so I thought it might’ve been a chemical reaction gone wrong.
The next day during lunch, the upper forum was weirdly completely deserted. As I was going upstairs, my friends and I started noticing we felt the same; like there was sawdust in our throats. When we opened the door of the stairwell to the forum, the effect increased tenfold and a teacher ushered us back into the stairwell.
We’d barely gotten to class when the entire school was evacuated. When the truth got out, I was floored. I still have no clue who did it, but it turns out that someone had gone around spraying mace, or pepper spray, or SOMETHING into the ventilation shafts during lunch. The culprit was never found, but I do want to thank him for the fifteen-minute evacuation—I got to skip science class!
22. Teacher’s Secret Lair
My high school building had a big square with a courtyard in the center. There was a utility tunnel that ran under the whole building. It was like the creepy places you see in horror movies. There were a bunch of rooms attached to the tunnel, mostly used for storage of old junk that hadn’t been touched in decades. No students were allowed in the tunnel for obvious reasons.
However, during the day, the doors were unlocked so staff could get in if they wanted, and of course students would use it as a shortcut around the building and to smoke. None of the rooms attached to the tunnel were locked, not even the boiler room with the steam boilers—except for one, mysterious room. The rumor was this room was set up as a bedroom that teachers would use to get it on with each other.
Yep, that was true. It was exposed when one teacher went to law enforcement after another took her down there and forced himself on her.
23. He Went Out On A Low Note
There were stories about the music teacher sleeping with some of his students in exchange for solos, better grades, prestige, or jobs after graduation. They turned out to be true. He was found guilty and was given a six-month prison sentence. He was also barred from teaching and lost his pension. Except there was a twist. The news hit my dad really hard: They studied together at college and were good friends. He had no idea.
24. What Lies Beneath
Just last year, I had a girl in my 11th grade class. Very bright, studious, had two other girls she usually was with, but overall not very noticeable. The thing is, she was absent a lot, to the point where she was only at school for a day a week or less. It was quite troublesome, as her parents didn’t ever send a mail or write a note for why she had been gone from school, but as stated earlier, she was pretty smart, so her grades didn't suffer that much.
I used to talk to her after classes to ask her what was going on, but she would usually just apologize politely and promise she would do better. Fast forward to around Christmas time and she hadn’t been to school for two weeks. That month was exam month, and she was missing out on a lot of prep days she needed to be present at. Fed up, I marched to the principal's office and told him her absence was really ruining for her, and that I should call the parents and inform them of the consequences, as is norm in the situation.
To my surprise, the principal was completely against it. That’s when he told me the dark truth. As it turns out, her parents had arranged for the girl to be married away to a man from her homeland against her will. The reason she had been gone those two weeks was because she had been picked up by child services and had been moved to a safe location. Shortly after it was revealed she had been absent all those days because her parents wanted her to stay home and take care of them, not because she was sick.
She was abused by her parents, and she was constantly monitored so she couldn't stay at school after hours or do other activities like hang out with friends. She didn't realize any of this was wrong until her friends at school talked to her about it. So this wasn't really drama, but it was quite a shock for me and all her teachers when we were told.
It’s been a year now and she's doing great. She got a restraining order against her parents and she got a little dog she saved from a shelter. But its safe to say that she'll never have the life a normal 16-year-old is supposed to have, and that makes my blood boil, but she is very grateful for her new life it seems and she's safe, and that's all that matters.
25. Poker Party Palace
There was an English teacher who was close with students, not in an inappropriate way, but more like he was a fellow student instead of an authority figure. It was said that he would host weekend poker parties with his closest students where he would serve booze and weed. One weekend, someone prank-called the authorities claiming one of these parties was happening.
They went to his place and found there was one taking place, as described. But there was one crucial detail. There were also racy movies on every TV in the house. The teacher was immediately fired, had his license revoked, and disappeared for a couple of years. Students tried protesting the firing because he was the cool guy who liked to party.
26. A Textbook Case Of Mold
There was this weird closet built into the middle of the hallway at school. It wasn’t flush with the wall; it was a giant freestanding block that you had to walk around. Its door was always locked. Every morning before the bell rang, we'd meet up by the closet block because it was close to our lockers. Rumor had it that it was full of mold because our school was underfunded and gross.
I figured it was just janitorial supplies, even though I had never seen a janitor go in there. Then one day, the door was unlocked. There was MOLD! SO MUCH MOLD! There were multiple stacks of German textbooks rotting inside this closet. The pages were wavy and stuck together, and the whole thing was covered in black spots with white dust on top.
They had literally melted together and dried. I simply closed the door and said, "Well guys, I guess this is why we only have Spanish as our foreign language."
27. Stranger In The Restroom
There was this conspiracy that somewhere near our school was an abandoned, two-story, old, creepy house. In the residential lot there was also an external restroom that was locked. A few people who lived nearby could hear strange noises at night coming from it. Common hearsay stated that a strange person was living inside there with nothing to eat.
So, during a break, we decided to check on it. We couldn't believe what we found. We went to the lot and found the locked restroom only had small, decorated holes on it, so we could only peek a little. We climbed up and peeked into the holes. AND THERE HE WAS. There really was really a strange man living in it, with nothing, and emitting a very foul odor. The man started screaming and threw stuff on the walls. We got out of there fast and never went back.
28. Singing Like a Devious Eagle
My high school choir teacher was emotionally abusive. He lectured us daily on all the things we did wrong. Once, he made me have a panic attack because I missed ONE rehearsal for an AP test. Even some of the other teachers were wary of him. They finally had someone else take his job after 50 years of teaching choir. Now he's an assistant director.
29. This Rumor Blew Up
I had heard that years back, some AP chemistry students had to come up with a final project. One student thought it would be fun to make DNT, an explosive precursor to TNT. The chemistry teacher saw no problem with his plan to make an extremely toxic and combustible substance in school. She even helped him and they successfully made it in her chemistry classroom.
She casually asked the school officer where he would recommend they ignite their contraption. He was obviously just bewildered and a detonation squad wound up disposing of their project. The teacher nearly lost her job but they kept her because she was actually a great teacher. She later became my chemistry teacher so I asked her if she had really made TNT with a student. She said, “Oh it was just DNT, it would have been fine!”
30. Something Didn’t Add Up
There was a young math teacher who seemed a little psycho. She was always on edge and she never talked about her personal life. Any attempt to ask her about it was ignored. Because of this, the running joke became that she did away with someone in the last place she lived and moved away to escape suspicion. Unfortunately, we found out this was more accurate than we thought.
It turns out she helped her brother chop up his ex-girlfriend and hide the parts. They found everything, except the left arm, scattered across five different states.
31. It’s Time
I had a teacher who added all my friends and me on Snapchat immediately after graduating high school. He drunk snapped me almost every weekend saying how he wished we could screw, and I should come to his house and show him a good time. In high school, he was the “hot teacher” that every girl drooled over, but he has some serious issues.
Pikrepo
32. The Favorite
My little sister took ceramics during her freshman year of high school. They had to do some project and she wanted to look on Google for some reference images. She went to ask her teacher if she could use his computer, and she saw that he had a computer folder open that was full of pictures of her. Talk about creepy.
She was like, "Why the heck do you have pictures of me on your computer?" and he came out with some lie, so she told my mom when she got home. My mom called the school about it and he denied everything. The school did nothing about it. So my mom called him personally and threatened the life out of him.
I don’t know what she said but he definitely left my sister completely alone for the rest of the semester.
33. The Curse Continues
At the highschool I went to, there was a story circulating that the school had a "one sacrifice per year" curse. This meant that every year, one person passed due to some weird circumstances around the school grounds. Well, every year a person did. Sometimes it was a student, sometimes a teacher, but every year the curse continued, and is still ongoing. And that wasn't all.
To top it all off, the same high school was well known for being both a mental patient asylum before and after WWI and a service hospital during WWII.
34. Don’t Stand So Close to Me
When I was a senior in high school, I noticed that the Latin teacher constantly looked at me like he liked me. I didn't even take Latin. The thing was that he was older, and not remotely attractive. One day I was home at my parents' house on a Sunday. The phone rang—I couldn’t believe it. The old geezer called me. He propositioned me.
I told him to screw off and slammed the phone down. I kinda felt sorry for him because he was probably terrified that I'd get him fired. I never told anybody. A while later, I saw him in a public place pushing his wife, who was in a wheelchair. We locked eyes and kept walking.
35. Snakes in a School
A biology teacher kept a large boa constrictor in a cage at school. One day everyone comes in and finds that the snake is not its cage. Nobody knows where it is. Word gets out that the snake is loose in the school and the whole school is on edge every minute of every day. Three weeks later, the snake is still missing and everyone has pretty much forgotten about it—but it was just biding its time...
Then one day in a quiet moment in the middle of a class in a room in another part of the school, the snake comes crashing down through a ceiling panel and lands on a girl. The screams of horror from the people in that room were so blood-curdling that people in the neighboring classrooms immediately assumed it was an active shooter.
Now the whole school is on lockdown while the principal is on the PA saying, “LOCKDOWN THIS IS NOT A DRILL” and the SWAT team canvases the entire school hall-by-hall. This is its own kind of trauma, as several of my students legitimately thought they were going to die. Meanwhile, the people in the snake room did not catch the snake. The snake eventually found its way back into the ductwork via a radiator and disappeared AGAIN.
Another three weeks go by with everyone terrorized. Then one day it was announced that the snake had been found by a janitor the night before and taken out of the school. They never said who found it exactly and some people were skeptical as to whether this was true. But that was the end of it, nobody ever saw the snake again.
36. Coffee Break
One day there was a cop car at the front of the school. Someone said they saw a kid get taken into custody when they went to the washroom. At the end of the day, a cop and the principal were standing at both back passenger-side windows, talking to someone inside. We all just assumed that someone was getting picked up for something.
The next day my homeroom teacher told us between third and fourth period, a former student (who was about 20 years old) blended in with students and snuck into the school hallways. He wandered through the hallways breaking into unlocked lockers and actually made off with about 10 laptops from teachers’ classrooms somehow.
They ended up catching him at the Tim Horton’s down the road. Not sure what’s going to happen to him but someone said his mom was his getaway vehicle a couple blocks down the road, he just had to stop at Timmy’s first. Only in Canada do people have to stop for a coffee and a donut mid-act.
37. Mean Spirited
When I was 14, my school had an awesome young science teacher who was fresh from university, eager to do well in his first job, passionate about his subject, and always staying late to help out students who needed the extra time. Unfortunately, he was super timid and shy and not very good at handling behavioral issues.
Naturally, the unruly students and even the nicer ones found it fun to completely take advantage of this, and it soon became a regular “game” to see who could do their best at making his life awful. I never saw him cry myself, but I did see him get pushed to his limits. One awful day, I heard they finally broke him.
He fled a classroom on the verge of tears, and some of the other teachers needed to step in to get the class back under control. But that's not the end of the story—this one has a tragic ending. We found out soon after that he'd passed from an undetected heart problem. His father found him. He went to the teacher's house that Sunday morning when he didn't get to their golf session.
The teacher's father found his body in his bed. He was 24. All of the kids who tormented him felt terrible about it. One girl confided in me personally about how horrible she felt. She knew he was a great teacher, but she joined in with the pack. Now, she had to live with knowing the young, kind teacher was gone, and she had made his life difficult.
38. Insult to Injury
I had a really good history teacher one year. He had had a teenage son who had committed suicide, and after he took some time off, he came back to work. The standard class clown kid started acting up in class, and the teacher asked him to go into the hallway to speak with him privately. Their exchange got a bit heated.
This kid cranked it to 11. He insinuated the teacher’s kid made the right choice with a father like him. I heard that kid bounce off some lockers about a second after. The teacher came back with angry tears and told one of us to call the school resource officer. The teacher ended up suspended for the rest of that year.
39. It’s All Fun and Games…
Two girls were fighting over a boy. They were in the bathroom, in the same stall. While they were fighting one of the girls took out a pair of scissors and injured the other in the eye. The girl with the scissors was expelled and the other girl turned out to be just fine and went back to school like everything was normal. The creepy part was my classroom was the closest one to the bathroom and we didn't hear anything. We just saw the authorities. It creeps me out to think it happened a couple feet away from me.
40. Rumors
Two male teachers had relationships with multiple underage female students. They decided to have a party with these girls and some other students, which the school administration found out about. Teachers were given the old “resign or be fired” choice. They both resigned. Now, for some reason, the school administration decided to announce the resignations to the whole school, instead of just letting them go quietly. That's when the rumors started…
The rumor that emerges is that the teachers were actually gay lovers and the girls were only a coverup. One of the teachers, the rumor says, is dying of AIDS and they both resigned so they can be together in his final days. The rumor swirls for a couple weeks and culminates in a student trying to set up a GoFundMe page for medical expenses.
The administration had to go around the school and explain, class by class, that these rumors were not true and the teachers had resigned for other personal reasons. That didn’t really help, but the rumor eventually faded away on its own.
41. Makes Me Want To Puke
I had a high school color-guard instructor say that she didn’t want to see any “jiggling” after our Thanksgiving break. That was bad enough, but what she said next was disturbing it's impossible to forget: "You ladies had better put your fingers down your throat if you can’t control yourselves.” One of the members had recently been hospitalized for anorexia nervosa. Her comment did not go over well.
42. Scary Stories
My high school had an annual Halloween dance. We had other dances throughout the year, but this was the major party one. Security is always booked to guard the doors, check student IDs, and to send away anyone who is visibly intoxicated or has illicit beverages with them, but they don’t really care that much and kids always find a way to outsmart them.
This year, a whole bunch of grade 9 girls show up with drinks in water bottles. They were already absolutely hammered and, because ninth-graders don’t know their limits at all yet, they lose their minds. Our main hallway when you first walk into the school is this huge open lane with fake trees, benches, and some big lampposts. Picture what would be on an old-timey street in a British movie or something.
This hallway is where the dances are held because the gym can’t hold enough people. They usually put the DJ up on the open staircase balcony, which was pretty cool. Anyways, so these blasted ninth-grade girls decide to start using the lampposts as stripper poles. Most of the older students just ignored them, and there was such a crowd that the teachers on duty couldn’t tell what was going on until too late.
One girl (who was clearly a dancer or a gymnast or something) wanted to cause a scene, so she climbs up higher and starts doing tricks. Before the teachers could get close enough to get her down, the whole lamppost comes crashing down on the crowd of students. It was chaos. One kid ended up concussed, that girl and a few others got kicked out of the dance, there was a lot of screaming.
Somehow, that was not the end of the shenanigans. A whole group of them went into the bathroom to drink even MORE of the drinks they’d snuck in, and they all ended up throwing up in the girls’ bathroom. One of them even had to go to the hospital to get her stomach pumped. I think a dozen kids got expelled the next day, and as far as I know they still haven’t fixed that lamppost five years later.
43. A Threat to Herself
Our long-time high school vice-principal (who was married to my old middle school science teacher) was having an affair with the married high school security guard. When he tried to cut it off, she started sending violent threats to herself over the course of months, saying they were from students and maybe his wife. Local authorities uncovered everything. She was picked up at the high school after students had gone home.
44. This Speaks Volumes
Once a sub made my handicapped classmate who has muscle, joint and vision complications go grab his textbooks from his homeroom. He's not completely helpless but when it comes to heavy things, he needs help. The classmate’s homeroom was halfway across campus and the required book consists of five large-text volumes because they're specifically made for his poor vision.
He can't wear glasses due to complications. I offered to help because I'm usually the one that goes and grabs it for him during normal class but the sub yelled at me saying he knows my kind and I'm just trying to get out of class. The sub told me he's not there to play games and for me to quit it before he sends me off to the principal's office.
Needless to say, the entire class was shocked. The classmate came back with another student from the homeroom requesting that next time the sub send someone else to grab the books because my classmate can't carry them by himself. When my usual teacher came back we requested the sub not return because of what he said to us and did to our classmates. My teacher wrote an email to the principal about it and that was the end of that.
45. I Hate Gym Class
We had a gym teacher who would start class with calisthenics. One of the exercises was leg lifts. Lay on you back, lift your legs, spread your legs, close your legs, then lower your legs. It was great for the core. He would look up the girls' shorts while their legs were up. That part definitely wasn’t so great.
I had a friend who was a girl who told me that their gym teacher would have the girls open their towels as they came out of the shower. If you weren't wet enough according to her specifications, she'd take the towel, put her arm around you, and walk you back to the shower. To my knowledge, no one said anything about either teacher.
I moved back to that school district because, apart from these two creepy teachers, I really liked my childhood and the schools are very good. The woman still teaches gym there. If my daughter gets her for gym, I plan to transfer her out and remind her that she is allowed her personal space.
46. Try, Try Again
He took in a girl in my class to live in his house with him and his wife. Heartwarming, right? Not so much. After graduation, he divorced his wife and married that girl. This was during high school, so she was probably 16 when she moved in and he was in his 50s. Just a bit of an age gap. The girl had a rough family life so he posed it as some sort of charitable act, but that was quickly called into question when they started dating publicly.
He was later fired for something similar that had happened years before with a young student, but that relationship never panned out.
47. Bottle Service
In grade 10, the principal made up a new rule that you could only go to the bathroom once a day. This rule was heavily enforced by every teacher in the school and every single student hated it. Students started to protest against this rule by using bottles. If a teacher caught you doing this, you would get a three-day suspension.
I think there was at least 15 suspensions given out in the time this rule was enforced. One student took it too far by filling up a bottle and drenching everything on the teacher's desk with it before the teacher came to class. This rule was lifted after students started leaving school property to go to the bathroom. We didn't see that principal next year.
48. Mama Drama
A girl in her final year got pregnant and was hiding it from her parents. She was 18 at the time. She went to the counselor (a qualified clinical psychologist) who was helping her through it. The counselor walked her through all of her options and did what she was supposed to do. The girl (I think possibly in denial) carried the baby to quite far along but then wanted out. She was also starving herself.
I can't remember all the exact details, but she apparently went to a dodgy clinic where she convinced them she was much earlier in the pregnancy. I’m guessing they did no tests because they gave her pills. She started profusely bleeding in class the next day and was rushed to hospital. The baby survived for about 4 hours.
Obviously by his point her parents were there. During questioning. she named our school counselor and said that the counselor had forced her to do it. The whole case went to court. Our poor school counselor could not say anything or defend herself publicly until the case was done. We had reporters outside our school gates for ages.
It all came out at the end that the girl had lied and the counselor was completely innocent and had just done what she was supposed to do and had offered the girl all the information and advice for her to make an informed decision. I was amazed at how professional the counselor was and how she did everything by the book when it came to speaking about her client.
49. Fighting Dirty
My ninth-grade social studies teacher was a lazy jerk who couldn’t care less even if his life depended on it. He made learning more mundane than usual and made us all hate watching movies in class as that’s all he ever did. I know it seems impossible, but he accomplished it. My friend loves history. It’s his major now.
Frank is really smart and no longer the little punk he used to be. But even then, he was passionate about history. He loved doing projects and loved the work. But he hated the teacher, Mr. Sale. He’d rejected Frank’s idea for a history project. His idea was to discuss colonialism with museums that were at our disposal.
We’d go on our own and craft a handwritten paper in the style of colonials. It was creative and unique and would’ve intrigued everyone in the class. Frank tried getting the project off the ground many times, and each time, Mr. Sale would reject it and get more and more annoyed. He stopped asking after Mr. Sale snapped.
He sent Frank to detention for disrespecting a teacher. Frank didn't take this well as he had been to detention in the past for other non-reasons. But this time was different. This time he was sent for just trying to make school more fun and interesting for him. Somehow, he learned a powerful secret while in detention.
It was a secret that no one else in at school knew, and we’d be shocked. Frank came back to class acting as per usual. He sat in his seat and was calm. Mr. Sale came in ten minutes late. He took attendance and put on Driving Ms. Daisy. Frank told me later he didn't want to do what he did and looked for a reason not to.
But he believed what Mr. Sale did to him went a bit too far. In the middle of class, Frank went up to Mr. Sale and politely asked him if they could talk about the project idea he had. He was calm and as polite as could be. Mr. Sale snapped harder than before and started berating Frank for being a disrespectful student.
Frank took it and seemed entirely emotionless. He was just waiting for the right moment to say something. Once Mr. Sale was done ranting, he told Frank to prepare for an in-school suspension. Frank told him to make it an expulsion. When Mr. Sale asked why, Frank stood there with a plain face and looked at him directly.
He said, “Because I hope the next time something tragic happens to your daughter, she’ll end everything properly." Then, he picked up his stuff and left. Things didn't go well after that. Mr. Sale had a complete meltdown in class, sobbing, and eventually drinking on the job. Frank was expelled and repeated ninth grade.
It got out that Mr. Sale's eleven-year-old daughter’s babysitter took advantage of her. She attempted to seriously hurt herself and was eventually successful with it at the end of the year, and he lost her. Frank refuses to tell me how he knew this information to this day and openly admits to regretting what he’d said.
And last I heard, Mr. Sale and his wife got a divorce. It was terrible, but where I grew up, making a teacher cry would take a lot of work and effort. They were thick-skinned, and breaking thick skin required some real digging. And sometimes that digging leads to really serious information that you wish you never knew.
50. Muscle Inspection
I had a high school PE teacher who liked putting his hands on his students. I don’t know about the football players, but the rest of us were uncomfortable with it. During class, while we were taking a break I was talking to friends and he grabbed my shoulders and started squeezing them. I removed his hand and he yelled at my friends and me to get back to working out.
For the next few weeks, he would single us out to do extra work until we complained to the principal. He ignored us the rest of the year which was fine by us.
51. Sticking Like a Molecule
Mr. Highberg. This creepy old dude was a horrible teacher who lost half my work. So much wrong with this guy. First of all, he had a giant map of our county, down to the street names. He gave us all a pushpin and told us to go pin where our house was. I put my pushpin in the middle of some lake. Nice try, Highberg.
He would call the girls things like "sweetheart" and "honey" and "baby." It gets worse. He made everyone get up and pretend to be a "water molecule" or something. We had to put our fingers in each other's belt loops. If they didn't have belt loops we were supposed to put them in each other’s pockets. Well, Mr. Highberg decided to take part in this activity, he also decided it would be a great idea to put his hand in some poor girl's back pocket.
Worst teacher ever.
52. Talking Shop
We had a male shop instructor aggressively stalk a female student. Pictures of her were found in his belongings at the school, along with some VERY descriptive notes to her. He made appeals to her parents/friends as to why he was right for her, routinely cornered her and tried to kiss/touch her. If I recall correctly, he was let go but nothing further came from it.
53. A Crushing Story
When I was in middle school, a lady had a heart attack while in the drop-off lane. She was in reverse, parking her van, when she went stiff and hit the gas. The van plowed through a group of kids and smashed into a brick wall. Unfortunately, there was a student who got pinned between the van and the wall. With the tires still spinning and spinning, one of my classmates managed to open the door and turn off the van.
We were all trying to get the van off the kid when the teachers started trying to pull us away. The assistant principal ran up and yelled "NO, WE NEED EVERYONE TO MOVE THE VAN!" We managed to move the van just enough for one of the teachers to pull the kid out, but it was no use. He was gone.
Piqsels
54. A Black and White Issue
I went to a small high school—like, about 60 people in each class small. So everyone knew everyone's business. Anyway, I played football and at the end of each season you could purchase your jersey if you wanted. The one guy, Mike, bought both the home jersey (black) and away (white). Sometimes the girls would wear their boyfriend’s jersey.
This always caused some awesome drama‚ but one year was the craziest by far. One Friday were allowed to dress down. Two girls showed up, both wearing Mike's jersey. One had the black jersey, the other girl had the white one. There was always the talk about which one he was dating because he bounced between the two.
They both knew about the other, but drama always ensued about who the "main" girl was. Well, jersey day settled it. At lunch, the girl in the white jersey fought the girl in the black jersey, because she got to wear the home jersey—apparently it meant more.
55. Mixed Nuts
My best friend in high school was very conservative Christian girl but I was also fairly close friends with a gay dude. I was bi and at the time, was out to my guy friend but no one else in the school. Well anyway, this dude lets it spill to some friends that I'm bi and have a crush on a girl named Alicia. Most people didn't care, but it got back to my best friend and she freaked out about me hiding it from her—while claiming I wasn't going to get into heaven.
She was hysterically asking about who Alicia was and why didn't I tell her about it, etc. But the twist is, there was no Alicia. When I questioned my guy friend about it, he swore I'd confessed my feelings for a girl named Alicia and that he remembered it clearly, then got mad at me for "lying" by denying that I was in love with this girl, while my best friend kept harassing me about it too but in a prejudiced way. Both of these two friends of mine also hated each other. What a mess.
56. Hit List
He was a really strange guy, I didn't really know who he was before the whole thing went off, but people were always cracking jokes about him being autistic and a very open supporter of really bad, problematic stuff. He left school after completing his basic qualifications and nobody thought of him once he'd gone.
A year or so later, the news surfaced that he'd been found the woods with a machete. When police went back and searched his home they found a diary of really detailed revenge plans for the school, including which order he'd take out the teachers and students. There were also weapons and materials to make explosives.
Videos of him throwing Molotov cocktails in the woods surfaced later on. This was all classified info because he was a minor but everyone found out about it through acquaintances and neighbors since he lived near to the school. There was a super injunction to protect his identity, so we used to talk about him in class and make sick jokes about it to wind up the teachers.
It was pretty funny to see the color drain out of their faces when you said his name, but I guess we were trying to make what could have been a horrible possibility seem less heavy. My terrible school should have looked after him better. If they had intervened, it might not have gone as far as it did.
57. It’s Raining Chairs, Hallelujah
My school has a huge blacktop, and the second floor overlooks the whole blacktop. One day two girls were arguing. One of the girls was on the second floor, and the other was on the blacktop. I’m not sure what they were arguing about, I think it was Facebook beef over a boyfriend or something. In the middle of the argument the girl on the second floor paused and went into the nearest classroom and grabbed a chair.
She then chucked the chair over the second floor railing, aiming for the girl she was arguing with, but things quickly spun out of control. She missed and hit some guy walking by instead. I heard the guy who got hit had to go to the hospital and ended up suing the school. As for the two girls, they were expelled.
For months afterward, there was a lot of rainy weather, and everyone made jokes about bringing an umbrella to school to avoid falling chairs.
58. Celebratory Anaphylactic Reaction
There was a girl with a bunch of health issues and allergies in our class, including latex. One day, Ms. Morales chose to let her favorite student hold a birthday party in our class with latex balloons everywhere. The girl who was in a wheelchair got to class and immediately had breathing problems and started breaking out.
She asked the teacher if she could go to the nurse, and this woman had the audacity to say, “Just tough it out until next period. I’m not letting you go to the nurse yet.” Luckily, our TA saw the girl and convinced Ms. Morales to let her go, but the girl wheeled to the nurse at the other side of the school by herself because the teacher wouldn’t let anyone else go.
She got an EpiPen shot and was ok, but it still makes me angry four years later.
59. Roughhousing
I had a class that contained some pretty rough students including one suspended multiple times for fighting, and some gang members. The sub decided to go after a sweet, petite girl that never caused trouble and was generally popular with her classmates. This set off the entire class, which is when the sub went ballistic and started wildly throwing accusations and yelling at the students.
Security eventually got called and took several students out. My first clue was when the sub got my cell number from the staff directory and went off for more than 20 minutes about how bad my students had been. This was followed up with an extremely long email and a two-page written note on my desk plus a concerned note from the administrator about not having appropriate sub-plans.
The next morning when I arrived at school, the students were waiting for me at the door. Once I got them calmed down enough to tell their side of the story, we discussed how they could have handled the situation differently. I promised them never to get that sub again. On a related note, I had a good relationship with said “rough children'' because I treated them with respect and fairness. They usually behaved for me.
60. That Doesn’t Count
My worst teacher was probably my 10th grade geometry teacher. She openly admitted to the class that she hated teaching math. She told us that she'd gone to college, and gotten a degree in English, but was stuck with teaching math instead, etc. Only one person in that class got an A, two people got Bs, a few got Cs, and everyone else either barely passed or failed.
The worst part? She'd also mark your test answers wrong if you misspelled a word even if you got the actual problem right. I had to go to summer school where our PE teacher taught geometry, and I aced it. I couldn't believe how easily it made sense to me when he taught it to me.
61. High-Stakes Math
I had a teacher make us play strip math. No I'm not joking. You got a math problem wrong, you had to remove a piece of clothing. Not surprisingly, there were no volunteers, so she reassured us that we wouldn't have to take off our underwear. Yep, still no volunteers, so she wound up forcing one boy to do it. This wasn't in the US, but it was still weird as heck—especially considering we were only in second grade.
62. Master’s in Death
I don't remember this teacher's name name, but I do remember multiple times when she was wildly inappropriate and just a horrible person. I was in second grade, and my grandpa had just died. I ended up missing school because of the funeral, and as a result, I missed the spelling test that day. The day I got back she told me, "Next time someone dies you better have the funeral on the weekend."
My school was in a snobby nasty district and town that never admitted they did anything wrong, but needless to say, I’m glad we got out of there.
63. No Sharing with the Class
I got a detention from a teacher for knowing something she didn't. We were learning about Japanese print making in art history class, and the text she was reading from mentioned Zen. Another kid asked what Zen was, and the teacher didn't know. I had just been to Japan and visited a temple, so I piped up and told them it was a type of Buddhism from Japan.
I wasn't trying to be a jerk or rude about it at all. I was just trying to help out the other kid and was excited about sharing my trip—I never expected what happened next. My teacher lost it, yelled at me, kicked me out of class, and then gave me a detention. She also taught art class and was terrible at that too. She just liked bossing kids around.
64. Call the Exorcist
One time a girl's head suddenly fell back over while we were watching a movie. She was growling half loud, but we couldn't make it out because of the movie. I saw it first but brushed it off as her doing a "whatever" roll with her head—but then I realized something was horribly wrong. Her head didn't go back to a normal position.
It just stayed there. None of the other girls sitting next to her noticed. Her eyes and mouth were open and staring, but somehow focused at nothing. Her moans/growls got louder and now everyone else noticed. I even got scared and stood up, so my chair backed out with a loud screech. Of course, being my immature self I knew just sitting and staring wouldn't help, but I didn’t know what else to do.
The teacher "took" her out of class and the teacher’s aide told us to stay seated and watch the movie, that all was under control. I know now that was garbage, but I just accepted it and let the day go on. Later they brushed it off as her not eating/drinking enough. I find it difficult to believe as she didn't pass out. She was awake, eyes moving but without anyone being home. She said she doesn't remember anything, as if she just fell asleep and woke up later on.
65. Forgiven and Forgotten
The high school I used to go to has made the newspaper for something bad nearly every year since it opened. The craziest story was about one of the teachers, who we’ll call Ted, getting caught for repeatedly hooking up with one of his students. Ted was a young very attractive guy. He coached cross country, taught the highest level math, and was loved by pretty much everyone. Long story short, he was sent to jail and the girl transferred—but the story doesn’t end there.
Fast forward three years, I'm at a concert with a big group, including these college girls. Everyone got drunk but me, and I started talking to the college girls. Apparently, one of the girls was actually engaged to Ted. She told me that she had forgiven Ted for hooking up with a student “because he was high at the time.” The reason he wasn’t at the concert with us? He was in jail for possession of illegal substances. What a winner.
66. Get Your Motor Running
Senior year of high school we got a new comp sci teacher. He was extremely overweight, annoying, and acted like a 15-year-old when he was 35. One day, he took my car keys and acted like he was turning on an engine while having the keys leveled at my chest. He, then, adds, "Do I turn you on?" I laughed, kind of startled, and said, "Um, I'm going to go do my work now."
He still works at the school and has my brother as a student. He keeps asking my brother if I'm married yet. Ugh.
67. By the Look of It
I went to a wealthy private and bilingual high school in Peru where we had a recurring substitute teacher who had a severe lazy eye. She was a really sweet lady and spoke broken English, so she would mainly substitute Spanish classes where most of the new privileged American students, just like myself, would be placed.
This lovely Peruvian lady of modest upbringing was surrounded by wealthy foreign students all the time while she was subbing. Once, when she was trying to help a student with his assignment, the student just interrupted her mid-sentence and blurted out, “Miss, I can’t tell if you’re looking at me or him in the corner!”
Everyone erupted with laughter, and more jokes came up during the commotion. I’ll admit I laughed as well but the mood quickly shifted when we noticed her tearing up and she ran out of the classroom with her face in her hands. When it was calm, I left the classroom and saw her leaning against a pillar a few doors away. What I saw broke my heart.
She was sobbing. I went and apologized for the other stupid American students and I laughing at her expense. She said thank you, and I hugged her. I barely knew this lady before this, but it was obvious that her condition tormented her and she had few friends in our tightly knit school culture, even among the teachers.
After that, I got to know her a little. She was working the substitute job in order to make tuition for her two young girls in kindergarten more affordable for her because she wanted the best education possible for them. Her goal was to become a full-time teacher at the school, which was a prestigious position locally.
She put herself through the daily guaranteed embarrassment and ridicule of being around a bunch of rich, elitist kids in order to give her daughters a better future. It broke my heart when I found out about all of this and realized that all our incessant snickering and jokes were the epitome of awful rich kid behavior.
68. Secret Sweethearts
I came into a class where my English teacher was already crying because the class she taught before us her made her cry. We could tell she had been trying hard to hold it in before we came into the room. I was pleasantly surprised that the “jerk” dudes in class were trying to cheer her up by making her smile and laugh.
Normally, they would goof off and give teachers a hard time. This happened when it was around Valentine's day, so the school was selling roses in the lobby. One of those jerk students left, bought her a rose, came back, and gave it to her. I’d never suspected or guessed that they would care about anyone but themselves.
69. Falling Out and Falling Down
There are these two girls who were best friends. One girl, Cammy, ditched the other, Carey, to hang out with a dude, and Carey got mad. The next day, Cammy complained of a headache, and Carey told her she had something for her. Instead of ibuprofen or whatever, she gave Cammy two Xanax. When she left class to get water to take them, Carey then planted something illegal in her bag—we don’t know what.
Carey then reported Cammy to the assistant principal—but then her blood pressure dropped from the Xanax and she had to be hospitalized. Carey had told other friends her plan, so she’s now in huge trouble and will likely be expelled.
70. Emo v Goth: Dawn of Eyeliner
My final year of school the goth thing was pretty much over and the emo thing was at its height. A couple of the senior kids still considered themselves goth and did not like the emo kids. Anyways, there was these three emo girls, who were pretty much universally not liked by anyone. They seemed to be emo for the sake of the attention, and would actually call out other emo kids for not looking as good as them. They were pretty much the mean girls of emo.
As I said, the Goths hated the emos, and the emos hated the emo mean girls. Around Chrismas time, arguments were breaking out in front of everyone. One of the mean girls ended up getting jumped and left the school. She was one of the main reasons why a big group of friends no longer talked to each other anymore.
I think about month before the summer, these two emo mean girls were causing trouble and running their mouths at the goths. The goths got a hold of one of them after school and pretty much beat the living tar out of her. She was actually hospitalized and there was a rumor was she was thrown head first into a wall and had her eye socket knocked out of place. A bunch of goths were expelled from the school, the police were involved.
Of course, all the normal kids collectively said, "What the heck?!" It was all that was talked about during the final few weeks of the year.
71. Party of Two
Earlier this semester, a cafeteria worker who a ton of people loved passed away suddenly, leaving her two kids—one senior and one freshman—with their alcoholic dad. The mom's side of the family, last I heard, are taking care of them. Since then, our entire town has had a ton of fundraisers and still has a fund for them. I barely see the oldest son, who I assume doesn't show up because that's some seriously heavy stuff to deal with during that transition out of school.
72. Sub Par
Our regular algebra teacher had a baby and was gone on mat-leave for several months. In her place we got the worst sub ever! She was hyper-focused on three or four of the 28 students in the class and just taught them while completely ignoring the rest of us. She’d pass out a worksheet, then go to her students and never acknowledge us again till she dismissed us.
She never checked homework, never acknowledged us, and if anyone outside of her favourite students raised their hand or spoke up they were ignored. This went about as well as you expected with a bunch of 14 and 15-year-olds. That class was just wild, and it was a mess. I’m surprised we weren’t reported or visited by the teachers on either side of us for how loud we were.
After several months with this lady, the vice principal was walking around randomly checking classrooms and walked into our algebra class. He lost it. He yelled at all of us to sit down and shut up and demanded that the sub leave and he sat with us for the rest of the period. We never saw her again and had maybe six or seven different subs after her.
Two weeks after this our regular teacher came back. When she realized we had learned nothing and learned the extent of how useless this lady had been she started tearing up. I passed the classroom on the way to the bathroom during the next period and saw her sobbing at her desk. A friend of my mom’s worked at the central office where they assigned or organized the substitute teachers, and that lady was permanently taken off the substitute list.
73. Disappearing Act
I had a close circle of friends. There was myself, Matt, Mitch, and a girl named Amal. Amal was Muslim, but acted like the polar opposite. Lots of makeup, black metal shirts, pot, and she dated Mitch. Mitch, while a great guy, was not a parent's dream. They dated for a few months, then Mitch texted me out of the blue freaking out.
It turns out that Amal's parents found out about Mitch and were not happy. I messaged her to see if she was okay, and she told me her parents were threatening to take her back to Pakistan. The next day, her Facebook was deleted. She had sent Mitch one last text, telling him how much she loved him, how her parents were kidnapping her, and how scared she was.
Mitch was livid, and called her dad. Mitch said her dad told him to never speak to their family again, and that Amal needed to be punished for dishonoring their family. Mitch tried for months to get a hold of her. None of us ever heard or saw her again. Amal was wonderful, and did not deserve whatever awaited her. I sometimes wonder if I could have done something different, but she was gone in a matter of hours.
74. England Does It Different
When I was 16 I went on a family ski trip to France. I started hanging out with a bunch of very posh kids from England of similar age who were on a school ski trip. On the last night, after all the bars had shut, we all headed back to this one apartment for late-night drinks. At one point I went for a pee and drunkenly wandered into one of the bedrooms by accident. What I saw made my blood run cold.
I found one of the girls from the school getting screwed by the teacher who was supposed to be looking after them. Definitely creeped me out, but bizarrely, none of her mates seemed to bat an eyelid...
75. Just a Little Smooch
I had an awesome Human Phys teacher. She had a few human bones, and would pass them around the class for people to talk about. Anyways, for half of the semester, we would do fetal pig dissections. When that time came, we worked long and hard to get good grades. It was known around school that she would give extra credit on the final grade for these things: Successfully unraveling the GI tract, then jump-roping [150 jumps] with it, and removing the brain and spinal cord. Intact.
Well, the class clown acted out one day, and she took away all of our extra credit. We were furious. So, a week later, the same guy asks her, "If I kiss my pig, can we get our credit back?" The entire class laughed, thinking he was joking. Her reply? "You have to kiss it, with tongue." Okay, now things are getting…interesting.
So, we all go back to the lab area, and he has the pig pinned down like before, and everyone grabs their phones. He was stalling now. "I'm really going to get the credit, right?" "If you don't hurry up and do it, you're going to lose your chance." He opened the pig’s mouth and shoved his tongue down the pig's throat. My teacher was literally on the floor, gasping from laughter. It was the most hilarious and disgusting thing any of us had seen.
We got our extra credit though.
76. Cool Story, Teach
We had a substitute teacher in high school, a big dude probably in his 60s who wanted us to call him Mommy. I’m not even kidding. That said, he was like the cool chill substitute. In my senior year, I was taking an elective third level class, which happened to pretty small, only five other students and we were all girls.
One day he subs for this class and starts telling us that he hopes we are good, because back when he was in high school, girls were crazy. He told us a story about how a girl invited a bunch of people to her house, and then she banged a guy on her bed in front of everyone while they all stood and clapped to the beat.
We were like... okay? Because we were young and dumb, we just thought he was a bit weird, but didn’t feel in danger. When the actual teacher returned the next day one of the girls started talking about it to her and she immediately freaked out and started asking questions. We were just like, “Ha, yeah, what a crazy guy.” She talked to the principal but I promptly forgot about it so I don’t know what came of him.
77. Failure to Tingle
His name was Mr. Tingley and he was my grade 9 math teacher. Not even kidding, the entire class, other than me, failed the class. None of us ever understood what he was saying. As an adult now, I think he had dementia. I got 93% in math despite not knowing what was happening, ever, in that class. When I was doing placement forms for high school, they tried to put me in academic challenge math. I said no way, just please let me do normal math.
When I had my first test in grade 10, I got 34%. There was an emergency meeting with the teacher and the principal where they interrogated me about being on drugs. Nope. No drugs. For some unfathomable reason, the Tingler, which is what we called him, liked me and gave me that ludicrous mark in his class. The grade 10 teacher suggested moving me to remedial math.
I said no. I asked her to teach me grade 9 and grade 10 math in the same year. She said that would require 3 hours of homework per day just for the grade 9 math. I said fine. I wound up with 5 hours of math homework per night. I literally spent a year doing homework until 1 AM and getting only 4.5 hours of sleep per night to catch up. Ugh. Finished out the year with 85% in Math 10.
78. Create a Diversion!
Our prom turned into a huge debacle. One girl took a pregnancy test at the dance and was confirmed pregnant. She then screamed at her sister for telling everyone and they got into a huge cat fight on the dance floor—but that's just the beginning of the insanity. During the fight, one of the tweakers goes through everyone's purses and jackets and steals credit cards and phones, flushing the SIM cards down the toilet.
No one would've noticed if he hadn't stopped right outside the door and started smoking on school property. The principal called the cops on him and they searched him. The dance ended early with a lot of angry parents and one pregnant girl.
79. Trial by Fire
At my friend's high school, a first-year teacher had a tile broken over his head. He had students who wanted to "act hard" in class, even though the school was in a fairly well-to-do neighborhood. So they would pull the fire alarms in his class—he was in a small temporary building outside—pour water on his computer, throw desks, etc.
Even with all of that, the principals never did anything for him: They never answered a disciplinary referral and they would never remove the worst kids from his classroom. All they would do is yell at him to "learn to control his class." From what I heard, they're now liable to see legal action since this teacher had multiple stitches in his head and a concussion.
80. Mr. Purveyor
A male teacher from my school was talking about the dress code to me and a friend of mine during the lunch period. He stated to us that he didn't like "seeing a bunch of fatties wearing short shorts," but then gestured towards a thin girl in short shorts going up the steps and said to us, "But that…That I don't mind."
81. Ain’t Christlike
A substitute math teacher in high school. All girls’ Catholic school. He showed us smut on the data projector screen from his laptop. But before that, I asked him for help with calculating parabolas and other quadratic equations. He didn’t know how to do it apparently, and as he was saying, “Uhhhh I’m not too sure,”, he stretched his arms down to lean on my desk and I could see that he was trying to conceal a boner.
He would always be extra friendly towards me as well, which I thought I was just being paranoid about. But he would come by my desk during class a lot, call my name to come to the whiteboard, offer me extra “help” during lunch or after class—which I didn’t need in the slightest and didn’t take up—chat with me in the mornings when he would arrive on campus and yeah, I realized it was more often than not.
Well, I hope he liked getting his just desserts. The mother of one of my girlfriends put in a complaint about the smut situation above and a couple of other mothers came forward as well about it. Not to mention he was a useless math teacher anyway, he really didn’t know what he was doing. All he’d do was doodle on the whiteboard, stare at his laptop, and lurk the classroom. After they complained, he got fired.
The Head of the Department for Religious Studies also got fired. Rumors went about that he was acting inappropriately towards girls in his class. Apparently, he would drop markers and pens, etc. and demand the girls to pick them up in front of him. He’d look up their skirts while they were bent over, all while he’d walk around school acting holier-than-thou. Lovely.
82. Are You Even a Teacher?
I had the weirdest and creepiest teacher in junior high. It was the substitute for my history class; an elderly, nearly bald man who wore a bright red vest and a striped short-sleeved shirt underneath every day he subbed for our class. Every single day he came in—regardless of the fact that no one ever learned anything the year he taught us—he offered everyone in the class the same moldy peanuts from an old Ziploc bag.
Even worse, his nails were always long and painted a bright purple, and he wore mascara. He never spoke, ever. He just slipped in the movie that the teacher left him, and watched us. Whenever a question was asked, he'd either not answer, or nod/shake his head. Though he wasn't anywhere near being an actual creeper—as far as I know—he was still really creepy to me.
83. In Confidence
I was asking teachers for animation advice and improving my drawing speed as I was not very happy with my skill level and was stressed about being left behind by my peers. I needed help—and instead, a teacher broke my heart. They said, "There are literally millions of other cute little Chinese girls just like you that are much better than you and can replace you."
84. Forced Out of the Closet
We have a gay male student who was beaten up by a group of the tough jocks for telling all of his friends about having a crush on one of the top sports players in the school. But then, the truth came out. As it turns out, he had been secretly meeting this guy in parking lots and secret locations for months for hookups. After the jock let his friends beat him up for the "rumors," he posted screenshots of their conversations and NSFW pics on all social media platforms for the whole student body to read.
85. Two Steps Back
A few of the periods I taught were co-teach classes where a percentage of the students in the class have special needs but can work well enough in a general population classroom with assistance from a special education co-instructor. These classes were often very rewarding to teach, but one downside of teaching that population from a logistical standpoint is that every special education student has a meeting about twice a year where administrators, teachers, counsellors, parents/guardians, and the student themself all get together to go over their status and review the various educational accommodations the student is receiving to determine what may or may not need to change to best suit their needs.
I didn’t have a problem with attending these meetings per se, but because they only take one period, and several teachers are rotating through various meetings over a day, the school had devoted ‘subs’ who were more akin to babysitters (at best) than substitute educators. That means that during that one period, everything can fall apart.
One year I had a ‘tough’ student who had some serious attitude problems but was a good person underneath it all and with whom I’d done a lot of work to improve her engagement and interest in my class. About halfway through the year, I got called for one of these meetings during the period I was supposed to have with this student.
In my absence of about 45 minutes, the sub decided to pick a petty argument with my kid, who was rightfully offended but unwisely overreacted and escalated things to making threats and nearly coming to blows with the sub to where she ended up with in-school suspension for a while. Getting the story from all parties and witnesses involved later, it’s pretty clear the sub was to blame.
The kid with whom I’d worked so hard was back at square one. I eventually got her back on track, and she ended up with one of the highest grades in my class at the end of the year, but I could only imagine how much better she could’ve been without the setback and the amount of trust in adults she’d lost.
86. Right And Wrong
An English teacher once told the class, "Polar bears almost exclusively eat penguins." This was when we were about 16, and I was not good at literature, but I was good at science subjects and I was not this teacher’s favorite pupil. So, when she said this, I quickly argued back saying that she was wrong. She protested.
I explained that polar bears live in the Arctic Ocean, and, while there are various species of penguin, none of them live in the Northern Hemisphere. This was an open argument during class, and she offered to Google the answer. So, she looked for it. When I was proven correct by the Internet, she sent me out of the class.
87. Identifying Bias
I was not there, but we had this substitute teacher at our school who was this old white dude who would typically spend the entire class talking about all the good he had done for students in poorer neighborhoods. Now I recognize what he said as a white savior complex as he had said several casually offensive comments.
But back then, he was just kind of annoying and seemed to be bragging. We had horrible subs for that school, and he wasn’t that bad; or so we thought. This was 2008 at the end of the first semester when Obama was elected president for his first term. The next class after the election, this sub came into class.
He spent the entire hour and fifteen minutes going on a super offensive rant about Obama using numerous inappropriate words and comparing a black president to a frowned upon regime. The people who were in the class constantly talked about the infamous rant all the way through to graduation. We never saw that sub again.
88. The First Rule of Student Fight Club Is…
I’m a teacher and one of my coworkers got fired one day. Then, an angry mob of parents turned up to beat the heck out of him on an ordinary, sunny Tuesday. When I found out the reason why, my blood ran cold. It turns out this guy was making his students fight in this sort of tournament. The winners would receive a perfect grade that semester. Some of the kids got hurt really bad.
He'll never be able to teach again and he had to leave town because everyone wanted to hurt him. Rumors say that the videos are online, but I haven't bothered to look.
89. Really Fishy
The history teacher in my freshman year of high school in 1988 was a strange but interesting man. He was a teacher I’d visit after graduating. In his class, he was a bit terrifying. He carried a four-foot metal rod that he used as a pointer, but once, I saw him take the corner off the wooden desk where a student slept.
I don't remember what the topic of conversation was, but it must have been boring or he was pontificating about something, and one of the girls in the class let out a loud sigh; that sigh that's both dramatic yet a symbol of boredom and disdain at the same time. He stopped talking and then went quiet for a few seconds.
Then he chuckled and said, "Girl, you sound like someone was tickling your tuna." He chuckled again and continued on with the lesson while we all sat surprised wondering if we had really just heard him correctly. I remember the jaw-dropped look of surprise on her face. It pretty much stayed there the rest of the class.
Flickr
90. A Total Hero
This happened to my kid. He was the quiet kid that people made fun of or generally ignored. Another kid was getting tormented outside near this really big hill descending to the football field. My kid stepped up and told the tormentor to please leave the other kid alone, but this just set the guy off. He mouthed off at him and took a swing at him, but that was a mistake.
Not a lot of people at school knew my kid had been taking kung fu since fifth grade. He was a brown belt at that point, and his instructor was really big on practical applications and sparring. He dodged the punch and roundhouse kicked the guy in the jaw. The other guy rolled down almost the entire embankment before stopping. The prank was on the bully.
My kid got a two-week alternate school suspension for it. His mother gave him a lecture. I bought him a PS4.
91. A Spooky Situation
I had a laid-back English professor in college, and she had finished telling us about this story about ghosts—she's a strong believer—or something that happened at her house. She basically felt that she was being followed by this presence. Super spooky, but I found a way to make it a whole lot spookier. I sat far away from her, so I opened up a word document and typed, "We're coming for you" over and over again, and had it sent to the in-room printer.
The printer came to life, and since we had no reason to be using the printer, her face went pale. She looks at the paper and she just said, "Oh no." At that point, I started laughing my head off. She told us off even as everyone, including herself, started laughing as well.
92. Heart Of The Matter
I had a sub who demanded I turn over my heart monitor in front of the class. It was my junior year I was having major heart problems and had to wear a heart monitor 15 hours a day. It had a phone attached that when I had heart murmurs, it would send the data to my doctor. I was wearing it and started having heart issues.
The monitor buzzed and I went to click ‘send’ when the sub demanded I turn over my cell phone. I started to explain why I couldn't, and she snapped at me, so I lifted my shirt to show the wires and sensors strapped to my chest, in front of the class of 50 students. I’ve never seen anyone’s face drop that fast in my life.
93. Can’t Bring Me Down
In high school, there was a subject I really liked called Informatics 2, but it was mostly basics of graphic design and creative digital stuff in general. I was really inspired for my project we had to do and I really excelled in it. The professor Mr. V loved it and gave me an A+ and showed it to other groups of students.
And I learned he’d show that video presentation for students as an example of a well-done project. The other professor, Ms. M, who taught the same subject but not to my group, met me a few days later in the hall and told me, “I saw what you did for class. Congratulations! It's very good, but you shouldn't have done it."
I asked why. She said, “You've raised the bar for everyone else, so someone who would have gotten an A+ could now get a B or less." I took it as it was, and it’d kind of messed me up for a bit. Wish I could go back in time to tell her off. I'm not in charge of grading, and I've got the right to excel as much as I want!
94. Llorar a mares
I had a Spanish teacher, and in order to gain other students' sympathy, she would make fun of one of the students for the entire class. Of course, other students would sometimes laugh because the class was super boring so it was like a show. However, I HATED the whole thing. She would pick the students that didn't reply to her provocation, the low-profile type, and she would say "Oh, it's just a joke!"
One day, she chose the guy that never caused trouble for her next victim. She used him as an example to describe a homeless guy in a picture. After 10 (long) minutes, he stands up and leaves the classroom crying. And when she stops him before he leaves, he turns around the drops the mic. He says his dad passed the previous night and pushed her away.
Once the door closed behind him, she paused for a second, pretending to be crying, and mocked him saying, "My dad just passed cry cry, poor baby" Before I realized it, she had my Spanish book flying in her face, and I called her an "ugly witch." Yeah, yeah, my insult level isn't great in Spanish, but it got the job done!
95. Who’s Really At Fault Here?
I was once suspended for “refusing to turn my phone off during a class,” and for “having it keep ringing.” I took my phone out of my bag during the ensuing argument with the teacher, dismantled it on the desk, took the battery and the sim card out, and then said, "It's not my phone ringing." I then looked down as some phone rang again. I looked over—and couldn't believe where the sound was coming from.
My teacher's bag was flashing and lighting up, so I said, "Mr. Southern, that's your phone ringing." His reply? "I don't have a phone." I replied, "I can see it through the mesh bit of your bag," to which he remarked, "Get out. You're suspended. Go tell the admin office and we'll discuss this next week when you're back." Alright buddy.
96. You’ve Got A Friend In Me
My mother has always wondered why I didn't have too many friends back in high school. The real reason is a secret that I would never want her to know about. It is because, growing up, my family was always broke and I knew that she was struggling financially. So, in order to avoid anyone seeing how we lived, I always refused anytime people from school wanted to do things with me or have get-togethers at my house.
To make matters even worse, I decided during my senior year that I did not want to burden my mother by asking for money when I needed to buy things. As a result, I started working as much as I could outside of school. This gave me even less time to make friends. I would never want my mother to find out about this, and I would never want her to feel guilty or blame herself for my lack of social life as a child.
Unsplash
97. Post-Secondary Disappearance
A little over 10 years ago, a HS senior in my town went missing, they've never found him. Apparently, he was at a party just before graduation, got into a fight with his girlfriend, and left to walk home. They've extensively checked all the nearby woods, dredged the rivers and lakes, it even caught the attention of some TV "psychic." They found his car, abandoned, but no other sign of him.
The creepiest part is how everyone in my hometown still talks about it; My psych teacher in high school used his disappearance as an example when we discussed dissociative fugue states; the town is still plastered in MISSING signs; every year they go out and search again. I always wonder if it was suicide, an accident, foul play, or if he just took off across the country.
98. Third Wheel to the Rescue
After prom, we went to a friend's house to hangout. It was him, his girlfriend (my BFF at the time), and me. I slept on the couch while they did their thing. At around 6 am, they came running down to get me for help. When. Isaw what happened, I didn't know whether to laugh or barf. I guess they were so drunk that they intentionally sexually and/or jokingly peed all over each other and the bed, and were trying to use bug spray to clean. It was the epitome of a hot mess.
99. Below the Belt Hits
There was a bully in my high school class who liked to “pants” other guys. His goal was usually to get both the pants and the boxers, leaving the victim’s genitals blowing in the breeze. After gym, the bully decided his target was a guy named Dan. Dan was a brilliant yet awkward guy, definitely on the spectrum. Dan was a tall gangly guy and an easy target.
However, Dan had a secret. He had just received his black belt in jiu-jitsu and was fully capable of absolutely messing stuff up. I think you see where this is going. Anyway, the bully struts up to Dan and yanks his shorts down. Shorts, boxers, everything. Dan is left standing there fully on display with the whole class laughing at him.
Dan calmly stepped out of his downed shorts and put the bully into some crazy hold. Once he got the bully to squeal, he flipped him over his back onto the bleachers. The gym teacher saw the whole thing. The bully suffered a broken leg, missed out on his entire senior year of athletics, and was suspended. Dan received a warning not to break the legs of any more classmates.
100. On My Father’s Grave
My worst teacher asked me, “Didn’t your father ever teach you how to act?” I had to inform him that my father had passed on four years earlier. Two weeks later, my step-dad comes to pick me up for an appointment saying he’s here to pick up his child. When the teacher was over the phone with the office, he asked, “You mean the deceased father is here for pick up?”
All through high school, that teacher just kept doubling down and never showed remorse for what he had said. He would chase me into other classrooms because I had a hat on and I needed to take it off. This gave me the motivation to become the compassionate, empathetic, and awesome teacher that I am today. My kids always get the benefit of the doubt and I respect them.
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
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