The classroom can be a truly strange place. Hormones abound, emotions run high...and inevitably, things get a little tense.
So perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that Reddit is so full of horror stories from both sides of the schooling equation. When students and teachers share their stories, the results tend to be extreme: teachers dishing on their annoying students, and students complaining about their vile teachers. It all comes with the territory. And the good news is, there's at least a couple surprisingly positive stories mixed in there as well.
Here we've collected the best of the best, all in one mega-list for your enjoyment.
Thanks for reading.
1. Oh Come On
In a computer class, me and one of my friends were working together. Well, she decided to just copy everything I put down, word for word, so I just emailed her my paper before we printed them. Then the teacher shares our grades: she gave 100 to her and me an 80.
2. When You Gotta Go You Gotta Go
In eighth grade my literature teacher, Mrs. Kropp would let the girls use the restroom but would not let boys. This policy ended when a boy asked her three times to go and on the third refusal he immediately walked to the corner of the room and urinated on the floor.
3. Piece of Trash
In first grade, I didn't want to eat a brownie that a classmate had brought in for their birthday. My teacher decided that this was incredibly rude and that I wasn't allowed to go outside for recess until I ate the brownie. When she wasn't looking, I wrapped it in a napkin and placed it carefully in the garbage can. She noticed, took it out of trash, unwrapped it, and still made me eat it.
4. Once Upon a Lab
Probably genetics and hard work?
Anyway, I would introduce two loosely related topics and she would fill in the gaps of how they were connected with having a little background. She somehow just was able to pull things together and build a "story." Not a real story, I'm talking like, an experimental procedure in chemistry. I barely had to explain and walk her through what she needs... and what needs to be considered for the experiment to work... etc.
5. He’ll Remember That
I was never a teacher, but I worked with a person that was absolutely brilliant. I have no doubt he had a seriously high IQ. He and I were software developers at the time. I've been in IT for over 20 years, had lots of jobs, and worked with lots of smart people. I have never met anyone even close to as smart as he was.
My theory on what made him so smart is that he had a photographic memory. He would read something once and NEVER forget it. We don't work together anymore but are still friends and whenever we talk his memory never ceases to amaze me, not just IT stuff but everything.... world events, dates of things, people’s names, you name it.
6. Too Cute to Be So Smart
We had one at my school last year in one of our kindergarten classes. He could sound out multi-syllable phonetically irregular words. He was sent to the second-grade classes for math. They wanted to skip him two grades but were hesitant because he's such a little pumpkin. Such a tiny sweetie. I know they were working on conveying to his parents (immigrants, the kid is also bilingual) that, no, he's not just "kind of smart" and they need to find a program that can meet his needs.
I've had gifted kids in my class before, but that kid is/was a real deal genius.
7. Gotta Let It Loose
The cafeteria, which is used for parent meetings, has tables with fixed bench seating. You have to swing a leg over to sit down.
Parent wore a short skirt and was commando. She also got up several times.
8. Interviews Are Tough on Everyone
My cousin is a teacher and she once had a parent come to a parent/teacher conference extremely drunk and right before the meeting, tried to pull out a bag of coke and start doing lines. Police were called and so was CPS. The school also had to call 911 once because a parent overdosed in the parking lot while waiting to pick up their kid, and the poor kid was too young to understand why their mom was slumped over in their car.
9. Who Needs Help?
My mums’ story, a girl and her parents were being interviewed before starting high school. The primary school this girl went to notified the high school that the girl was autistic. When my mum tried to discuss how they can best cater to the girls needs the parents interrupted. The parents sent the kid out of the room.
Says to my mum “She’s not autistic anymore she grew out of it.”
The girl is clearly autistic, and the school was trying to help.
10. Too Good to Be True, Apparently
In seventh grade, we had a group project to create a magazine. Our group's magazine was supposed to be animal themed, with articles being written by animals, for animals. I was assigned to write a poem. Now, I've always been a good reader, and a decent writer, and I wasn't bad at poetry either. On top of this, my father had commissioned a painting with the "Clock of Life" poem on it around the time I was born.
I grew up loving the painting, and the poem. I took inspiration from that poem. A theme of time running out. That's all. And I wrote a good poem. It was done days before the due date. But I forgot our animal theme. On the day it was due, I quickly adjusted "man" to mammal and such changes. It really messed with the meter, but it was done.
Now, my painting went to another student, our "editor," and he compiled the magazine before turning it in, so it was a week or more before the next step. My teacher pulled me out of class into the hallway. He told me he knew I had copied the poem, and that I would get a zero. I protested my innocence, of course.
He said he knew it wasn't mine because it was "too good" for a student to write. Tearfully, I still told him I wrote it. He said that if I insisted, he would find where I copied it from, and give me a zero and get me in trouble when he did. This sounded fine to me since there was nothing to find—and I really wanted to get away from being yelled at.
When grades came out, I learned he given me a zero on the poem anyway. In addition, the "magazine" was returned to the editor, not the individual contributors, so I never got my poem back. I can't even remember the words now. But this was one of the traumatic points in my childhood that taught me not to listen to authority.
Later, in high school, I wrote a journal entry for another English teacher about the experience. I didn't realize it at the time, but she shared the original teacher's last name (Beck). She happened to be married to a history teacher of that name. When she graded my journal, she apologized to me, and insisted she was no relation to the original teacher.
Which was kinda weird, but it did feel nice to have some acknowledgement of how messed up the situation had been.
11. Birthday Boy
High School French class. It was my birthday and the teacher gave me this small bag of candy and a cute note. I thought it was really thoughtful because you don't really expect teachers to give a crap about your birthday in high school. I thank her, pop a piece of candy in my mouth, and promptly got a detention for eating in her classroom.
I was shocked and nearly cried because it was my first detention ever. Everyone else was just as surprised and started arguing with her but she wouldn't budge. And that's my story of how I got my first ever detention by eating a piece of candy the teacher gave me on my birthday.
12. Military Bully
Economics teacher was previous military with a hero complex who bullied people. There was a boy that sat by me that wasn't very smart named Matt, but he tried really hard. She would always give us multiple choice tests, but to save paper she would have us write our answers on loose leaf paper instead of on the test sheet.
When she handed our graded tests back out, she had failed Matt. He looked upset and asked if he could compare our answers. I handed him my sheet (I had scored a 98) and we had all of the same answers. She had marked every C on his paper wrong. He raised his hand and said "Ma'am, you marked all of my C answers wrong, but they were right."
She looks at his paper and said "You didn't write Cs, you wrote Ls." He goes "L wasn't even an option. Those are Cs." She said "But they look like Ls, so they're wrong." He wound up leaving the class to talk to the principal about it, and she was forced to change his grade to a 95.
13. What a Joke
When I was in kindergarten, a kid with a speech impediment told me a hilarious joke. I was a humor-loving kid, so naturally, I was laughing very hard. Cue the teacher. She was the worst and always blamed me for things. She flipped my card (a discipline system where there's this board full of little paper bits and the color determines how good you have been, every time it's flipped the color changes for the worse) and to a 5-year-old sensitive girl, it was devastating.
I got yelled at and my parents were called. My mom was angry because she knew I wasn't a mean child, I was actually very kind to everyone I met. The teacher thought I was laughing at his speech impediment, not the joke, and she was denying everything my parents said. I had a miserable day over a funny joke.
14. Used and Painfully Unaware
I was chosen for a dance competition in school in third grade. Since it was a girls school and I was not very thin I was playing the boy for a couple of dance numbers. After a week of practice, I was enjoying myself and the teacher had taken money from us for costumes. And one morning I wasn’t visited by my partner to call me for practice.
Assuming she was absent I requested my class teacher to let me go for practice. I’d been almost 15 minutes late and I ran my way to the room to see some other girl dancing with my partner. I went in apologizing to my teacher for being late. And she pulled me out of the practice room and told me they had taken someone else.
I begged and apologized for being late. She got frustrated and told me no, they wanted someone better looking and thrust my money into my hand. I ran and sobbed my way to my classroom where my teacher told me to quiet down or leave class. It was one of the most painful memories of my childhood. Later I found out the teacher had replaced me with her niece and I was a stand-in, an unaware stand-in, so that practice wouldn’t be interrupted.
15. Adult Supervision Prohibited
In grade seven I handed in a project about nuclear power. The teacher gave me a low grade because, in her opinion, I obviously had an adult do most of the work. The only adult assistance I had on the project was my Dad driving me to a nearby nuclear power plant so I could take a public tour.
16. Blatant Exclusion
The same teacher who purposefully screwed me over on my transcript gave every person in the class a piece of candy for answering a math question...Except me. She rolled her eyes and said "you're not even trying." Then she skipped over me to the guy behind me who, very confused, said the same answer I did. To which she responded "very good! Here, take some candy..."
17. Bunny’s Gotta Eat
I had a rabbit that my mom was allergic to so I decided to give it to my school. Every day at lunch, I would go feed it. I didn't have the best track record with my teachers because I never did my homework or I would forget it. I had forgotten my math homework in my locker so I asked my teacher if I could get it.
She goes "the only reason you come here is to feed your bunny, you'd might as well just go to another school." I was in fifth grade. I left that school. So if you're a teacher and you said this to a student, I'm grown now, I do my homework, I'm in college and I'm going somewhere.
18. Players of Privilege
Every year, the first XV rugby team got new uniforms, new equipment, new everything. When the soccer team asked for new uniforms and equipment, we were told there was no money for that. If we were lucky, we might get the rugby teams hand me down uniforms. The hockey team would ask for new uniforms or equipment, and would be told there was no money for that.
If they were lucky, they might get the SOCCER TEAMS hand me down stuff. It was ridiculous. A member of the rugby team could walk right down the hallway blatantly flouting school uniform rules (non-white undershirt, colored socks/shoes, etc.) and not hear a word from the teachers. Occasionally, a teacher who wasn't a piece of crap would send them to the principal's office for disciplinary action, and the principal would send them right back with a note basically saying it was okay this time. Every time.
One time I got sent home for three days because I wore pants instead of shorts. Basically if you were a rugby player, you could get away with murder, and if you weren't, screw you. This is what happens when you make an elderly ex-PE teacher a principal. He was a piece of garbage but because he had the power, no-one could do anything.
19. Don’t Play Games With Me
It was grade 10 Phys Ed, it was time to do our end of the year write up basically explaining what we learned about the various sports, how we progressed physically, and what we covered in health. So to do so we were in the computer lab. We had a supply teacher as our teacher was sick. I kid you not, I believe about 25 of the 30 kids were playing games and not doing their work as we had all week to complete this assignment, which should only take 2-3 days, and it was day one.
I was going to be absent later on in the week for whatever reason so I was one of the few actually working. About halfway through I take a little break to watch my two friends beside me playing some game against each other. The supply teacher sees me observing their game.
Supply Teacher: "Get back to work"
Me: "Are you kidding me, everyone's playing games and I'm one of the only ones working"
Supply Teacher: "Log off your computer, you're done for the rest of class"
I spent the next 20 minutes sitting at a desk while everyone else plays games because I watched my friend play for five minutes.
20. Homeroom in the Gulag
During the cold winter months, my seventh-grade homeroom teacher would open all of the classroom windows if even one student didn't finish their homework from the night before. We would all have to sit in the cold until every student finished. At this school, we were required to lock our winter coats in our lockers so we would have to sit in the cold with just our shirts. No wonder both of her kids ran away from home.
21. Mature for Her Age
This girl in the preschool class I teach always tells me little random stories about her mom getting pulled over for speeding, or spending time “drinking” with her friends. Well, last week we were on our way to a field trip and she saw a billboard for a beer company. I’m not sure what company but it had a beer can on it and she said very loudly “I love beer!” and I said “um…what?” and she repeated herself. So I said, “Stop, you’re being silly.” She said “No my daddy used to give it to me all the time. He stopped but sometimes he gives me sips of it and once he gave my sister a whole can!” I said “Oh silly, you mean ROOT beer!” and she said, “No, the beer only grown-ups drink!”
22. Umm… Fancy Meeting You Here!
The juiciest gossip was always about my fellow staff. One of my students in the 11th grade came to school and told me she’d ran into my boss in the weirdest situation that weekend... Turned out, my student was dating and sleeping with another student. That second student lived with his mother who had recently separated from the father after the mom was caught cheating.
The man she was cheating with was my boss, who was still married.
My student had run into him as they were both sneaking out of the same house early on Saturday morning.
Turned out to all be true.
23. Now That's Just Silly
I work with preschoolers so the juiciest ones are: "He's not invited to my birthday party!" and "My mom has a baby in her belly, I'm gonna name it Poop."
24. Prudes Aplenty
I was always a well-behaved kid and was never intentionally disobedient. My freshman year in high school I had an English teacher who frequently had a hard time controlling the class—there were several students who would frequently misbehave, talk back, etc. This was back in the late 90s when spaghetti strap tops were all the rage.
At one point the teacher had casually mentioned that she thought it was incredibly distasteful and inappropriate for high school students to show their bra straps. It wasn't against the rules and I honestly didn't really think much of it. I was used to getting similar comments from church ladies and it didn't really bother me and I wasn't going to change my wardrobe based on someone else's opinion.
One day a few weeks later the class was being particularly rowdy and misbehaved. The teacher was obviously getting frustrated and out of the blue, she turns to me and yells, "I specifically told you you're not allowed to show your bra straps in my class! Go to the principal's office!" It was the only time I had been sent to the principal's office for "misbehaving."
I was really upset. In the end the principal just told me I didn't need to be there because I wasn't breaking any rules and he sent me back to class. The funny thing was, the teacher didn't just upset me, she angered everyone in the class who thought it was totally unfair for her to go after the quiet, compliant girl in the corner and it totally backfired on her. The next few weeks the girls in that class decided if she didn't want bra straps in class they were just going to stop wearing bras.
25. Do Your Damn Job
This happened last semester, so I'm really glad that I'll get to vent about it to somebody. My professor didn't grade anything the entire semester, and then just started magically giving grades back two days before classes ended. It was not only unfair, it was unethical that a professor just would not do their job for the entirety of a semester.
Up until less than a week before the final exam, I had no idea where I stood in the class. It was awful, and it was really difficult to make any informed decisions about how much attention I should be giving a class.
26. Unbelievably Fast
In third grade, my teacher gave me The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and I started reading it on the bus home. It was so good that I kept reading it all afternoon, and ended up staying up late to finish it. The next morning I gave it back to her and she didn't believe that I'd finished it. I was surprised and told her that I had, so she sent me to the reading specialist, who had me read aloud and summarize it.
He sent me back to class with a note saying "seems like she read it" or something along those lines. This was before the internet/SparkNotes. The teacher promptly demoted me from the highest reading group to the second-lowest. I told my mom, who went to the principal on my behalf, and I was moved back up to the highest reading group.
Then the teacher sent me to the principal for "lying to my mom." She was a piece of work.
27. Read the Signs
A teacher (who already didn't like me at all) asked me to turn the lights off so she could play something on the projector, and she got pissed off at me for being unable to reach the lights, because I'm 4-feet tall. She sighed loudly and said "Of course, you can't even do that. [Other student's name] can you do it, please?"
The reason she disliked me is that I was generally unmotivated and behind in class. Turns out I was very depressed at that time (verging on suicidal). Yes, I didn't finish homework, and I started skipping class, but just a year ago I had been a highly motivated, star pupil who enjoyed class. I feel like that kind of dramatic change should set off alarm bells.
Would have been nice if she asked what was wrong, rather than get angry at me all the time. Especially for having dwarfism, like what the hell lady.
28. Not a Sip
It was a super sunny and hot day and I was in class. I just wanted to take a quick sip of my bottle (other teachers had no problem with this in such a heat, and it was three days before summer break, so nothing was really happening anymore in school) and then the teacher noticed me and came over to my place. He then said something like "Either you put that bottle away or you go outside the classroom and do whatever you want!"
16-year-old me just went outside the classroom and my classmates were going nuts because he probably expected me to just put my bottle away. He got super angry as I closed the door and took a seat in the hall. I just heard him complaining about me. After five minutes or so he came out and sent me to the principal.
The principal was chill and there were no consequences. But from that day on the teacher always hated me and gave me bad grades. Because I wanted to drink something on a hot day...
Public Domain Pictures
29. Filthy Mudblood
When I was in first grade, the first Harry Potter movie came out, and I brought the movie to class so our class could watch it during our Harry Potter event. I forget exactly what I did wrong but apparently the teacher turned me into a Muggle and at the end of the Harry Potter event she gave the whole class candy except for me and I cried.
My mom called the school and was furious at the teacher and she never apologized. So even though I brought the movie, I was the only one without any sort of reward at the end of the event.
30. Shame On Her
When I was in 10th grade my math teacher (a super nasty and mean women who was like 65 or 70) screamed and kicked out this one girl for wearing one of those crop top skirt things. She called her a bunch of names and the girl looked like she was about to cry. Our school had a dress code but it was never really enforced but I will never forget the math class where the teacher decided to waste like 25 minutes over a girl who was showing like half an inch of skin.
31. Victim Blaming
Chemistry class I was getting bullied once. The guy decides to mock me and take my lab sheet I was working on. Tears it up right in front of me with a huge grin. I go up and inform the teacher I need a new one and why and she tells me that I shouldn't be goofing around and fails me for the lab. I literally told her that this kid was bullying me and I was minding my own business but she wouldn’t relent.
32. Messy Handwriting, Messier Teaching
Third grade teacher told my parents I needed a shrink because my handwriting was so bad. I saw a psychiatrist weekly for about a month. I don't remember much. Nice guy. Anyway, apparently, he called the school and chewed out my teacher over it, taking the stance she was harassing kids for stupid reasons. All he told my parents was to get me a typewriter. Handwriting is still terrible, but you should see my words-per-minute.
33. It All Worked Out
High school freshman year English teacher didn't like my attitude or penmanship (lefty) so she recommended I be sent to remedial English for my sophomore year. It took two classes in sophomore year for the teacher to figure out I didn't belong there, but the freshman teacher was also the Department Head and wouldn't approve my transfer, so he gave me an A, a list of books to read, and asked me to help out leading discussion with the rest of the class.
34. Not Fit for Teaching
One of my teachers had a bit of a breakdown, and her screaming caused one of my classmates to have an epileptic fit. However, the teacher thought he was faking it and stood over him screaming at him to get up. Whilst we were all aware of his condition, he was still going through diagnosis but the school gave us training on what to do when he had an episode.
We started clearing the tables and chairs around him so he wouldn’t hurt himself, and someone ran off to get the school nurse (the teacher lunged at her as she tried to leave the room and knocked her into a filing cabinet but she managed to get out and get the nurse). Luckily the nurse at my school was a badass and as soon as the teacher started screaming at her she replied with a quick backhand and the teacher stormed out the room.
35. System Failure
My father died early morning of the first day back at school for the year. He had been sick a few months and most of my summer holidays was spent visiting him at the hospice. At the end of the previous school year, the school decided to change the uniforms. I went back to school day two and I was called up to the vice principal’s office because I didn’t have the new shirt.
They knew my father had died the previous day—I was told if I didn’t have the right shirt tomorrow I would be suspended. I had to scrape together the money and get the bus to the shops to get the shirt that day because my mum was dealing with enough and I didn’t want to add to it. That was the day I stopped caring about school and it was a real turning point—for the worse—in my life. I was an A student before then.
36. It’s All in the Family
I had a teacher in high school who hated me. I wasn't the best literature student, but I hardly deserved her treatment. She once ripped up a paper of mine in front of the class saying it was the worst thing she ever read. I had to get it graded by the English department. My uncle worked at that school as a guidance counselor, but before that he was the English head when this particular teacher started. I think she took out her hate for my uncle on me.
37. Oh Just Cheer Up
I missed three months of my last year at school because I was treated for severe depression. School and every teacher was informed. I could finish with a lower degree or retake all the courses. Because I didn't know how I'd feel a year later and I wanted to have a degree in my pocket, I decided for the lower degree.
I worked hard, on my health and for my courses. After my final oral exam the teacher asked me why I missed so many lessons. I was confused and asked him if he did not get the letter I sent, which he said he got. So I said that everything was explained there. That I was treated for severe depression in a clinic several hours away.
He looked at me and told me with a disapproving glance, that everyone is sad once in a while. That's no reason to not attend school.
38. The Spanish Inquisition
Spanish teacher gave me zeroes on a bunch of homework that I knew I'd done and turned in like everyone else. My father refused to believe me and punished me in accordance with the rules about my "bad grade." I swore to him that I had turned in the work, so the next morning he went with me to the teacher's "office hours" or whatever you want to call it.
She showed up 30 minutes after the posted start time, so he was already mad because he was missing work. She unlocks the door and proceeds to tell my father that I'm a bad student, didn't do my work, and was disruptive in class. I shove past her into the room, go to her desk, and pull the four missing papers from her "turn it in tray."
My father watches all this, looks at my teacher (who has turned bright red), and tells me to go to class without breaking eye contact with her. She started failing all of my assignments from that point forward until my dad complained to the principal, superintendent, and school board. She retired the next year.
39. The Power of Christ Won’t Compel You
In the early 90s, I was diagnosed with ADHD, put on Ritalin, and also lived in the deep south in Mobile, Alabama. The Ritalin made me itch and made me feel like things were "crawling" on me. I started pulling out my eyelashes and clumps of hair. I mean I was just a kid and I didn't realize I was being weird or my behavior was troublesome.
I was always getting in trouble, all the time. Principal's office every day. Parent-teacher meetings. But this one teacher, she made me feel terrible. She'd take me out in the hall and make me "pray to Jesus" to "forgive me" for my behavior. One day when my mom came to pick me up from school she told my mother that I had a devil in me.
It made me feel so terrible. I was like 6 or 7—I thought they gave me pills because I was stupid and now I'm being told I'm evil and have a devil in me.
40. Baby Bachelor of Sciences
My lab partner for college organic chemistry was a 15-year-old high school freshman. He was taking it "for fun “since he had to wait for his sophomore year for high school chemistry. He was the smartest student in the class, aced every test, perfect score on all homework, but was pretty clumsy in the lab. Gave me lots of laughs during our shared lunch hour. He used my cell phone every day to call his mom to pick him up at 5 pm.
41. Mr. Everything
I went to a small liberal arts school that very few people know about. There are much better schools out there, but this one is good and has a great culture and school-life balance.
I studied physics with about seven other students. That was the size of our graduating class for that department. We all had the same classes together, except for one guy. He wouldn’t say he was a genius—he was more like a DaVinci.
His father is a physics professor, and his mother was an Olympic medalist. His older siblings are all professors, engineers, scientists, etc. He absolutely slew all of our courses, also taking on an oversized course load so he could complete every physics and math course the school offered. He understands physics like I understand arithmetic, and I'm no chump. I got my degree plus a Master's.
Guest speakers would come to show their research and he would very politely tear their presentations apart. This included bio and chem, which I had the nightmare of doing at the same time as him. I only had a couple of physics and math classes with him as an undergrad before we went stratospheric. He technically took the same nuclear physics course as I did, but he just showed up for the midterm and final—never came to lecture. He was doing Ph.D. level work with professors just to help them with their research.
He sang in the choir (soloed), played two varsity sports and one club sport—the one I played. I went on to compete at national and world championships, and I guarantee he could wipe the floor with me if he had kept pursuing it. He was in the student government, Greek life, and outdoor leadership programs. Great personality, well-liked, humble, charitable, competitive, etc.
Ugh. Forget that guy. I hope he goes on to become president. We should be so lucky.
42. Build Your Own Genius
I taught a little boy in first grade who was not yet labeled a genius, but I had no doubt would be. He built a solar-powered motor for our class robot. He wanted to be an electrical engineer when he grew up.
His parents and his kindergarten teacher thought he might be on the autism spectrum because he was so strange and awkward. He didn't have any friends. He didn't really talk to anyone. Each year I usually have one or two students that I pick out as a priority. I make a goal to help that child achieve something outside of academics. That year my goal was to get this genius out of his shell and interacting with the other students. At the time I didn't know he was so smart. A lot of kids are good readers. A lot of kids know sight words and phonics. It wasn't until we started doing STEM activities that I noticed that this kid was special.
He really liked an activity where we built a simple circuit with Christmas lights and batteries. After that, he started reading books about electricity and engineering. I got a circuit set for him to mess around with and decided that our end of the year project would be something with solar energy. That's how the solar-powered robot happened. The other kids build the robot body and he put together the solar panel and motor. It was awesome.
He was a funny little guy, but it wasn't six-year-old humor so he never spoke up. I wrote a comment in his weekly journal telling him he was funny. From that point on he opened up and crack jokes. Even if the kids didn't get it, I would laugh, and they would follow suit. He became very popular with the other students. They looked up to him.
43. He’s Not Wrong
When I was in high school, there was a kid one grade older than me who was the smartest kid I knew at the time. Very bright, kind person, an excellent mathematician. He would regularly get perfect scores on tests and studied some advanced topics outside of class. He went on to study physics at MIT.
My high school was right next to an elementary school. One day, these parents hired this smart kid to tutor their seven-year-old child in math. And when I say, “Tutor him in math" I mean "teach him calculus."
I would walk by a math classroom after school and see this 18-year-old drawing gradients on paraboloids (so, early vector calculus stuff) and lecturing a seven-year-old. The older kid said once that "that kid's brain has many, many more clock cycles than mine."
44. Fast Forward
I have. The student could learn complex concepts in the span of minutes. The kid once missed an entire unit that I taught over the course of several weeks. I spent 20 minutes with her when she got back, explaining and drawing diagrams and she got it... and got it better than anyone else in the class had. It was so much fun teaching her!
45. Brains To Take Your Breath Away
TLDR: Taught English in China. There was a 10- or 11-year-old who more knowledge on every niche topic we discussed than the rest of the class (which consisted of doctors, CEOs, scientists)
When I was teaching English in China, there was one kid who was just incredible. So let me preface this with the admission that I am not an English teacher by trade, I just needed a job to continue my travels in Asia so I worked four days a week in a school and explored China each "weekend" I had. With that in mind, I used to diverge from the suggested teaching a lot and I really enjoyed one class called "English Corner"—which was essentially an open lecture that all students could attend. Other teachers hated this class as there was little or no coursework available for them to print out, so after a few months, I was basically giving every English Corner class.
Now they suggested topics like Happiness, Studying, Sport etc.—mundane stuff. I hated that stuff and so did they, so I started exploring niche topics to get them thinking and sharing ideas—so we did things like the Fermi Paradox, time travel, cosmetic surgery etc.
Well there was one kid about 10 or 12 years old and he knew everything. He had asthma and was overweight and as a result he could only string short sentences together with each breath; but in everyone one of these classes he'd start a sentence like "Did you know [breath], that XXXX [breath], was actually YYYYYY?".... he did this on every single topic we talked about. He was 10 or 12 years of age and his knowledge on topics not usually discussed in China was off the charts. These classes were for students who had advanced English, so we had doctors, CEOs, scientists etc. all present in the class and this kid knew just as much as all of them—I was just humbled by this kid’s potential and capabilities—I always wonder where he will end up.
Inc42
46. “Pure Math” Sounds Pretty Cool
I attended math classes with someone that was a literal Rain Man.
As a junior he completed all the undergraduate and masters level math courses his elite university had to offer. They sent him to a special math program we were both in to challenge him further. He skipped 16 weeks of our very difficult advanced graduate level math courses to play video games but aced his midterms and final exams—which included oral exams.
He scored perfect on every standardized test he took including SAT, GRE, Math GRE. I never saw him put any effort whatsoever into anything he did. He also published in difficult areas of pure mathematics as an undergrad. He seemed to know everything about math and seemed as if his professors were below him. He ended up completing a PhD from an elite university in pure math. One of the smartest people I ever met. He was also very bizarre in his behavior.
47. The Song of Your Heart (and Brain)
Unquestionably a musician I've worked with is on the genius spectrum. Only one example is: We were playing a movement from John William's “Five Sacred Trees” concerto for bassoon. It's actually quite modernist and not at all repetitive or "popular" sounding. Well... he left his percussion part at home and the show was starting in the next hour.
Without skipping a beat, upon realizing he didn't have the auxiliary percussion part—which contains many different instruments all on one page—he pulled out his manuscript paper and wrote, from memory without consulting other parts or the score, his part perfectly. All different instruments, many time changes, measures of rest etc... Genius indeed and this is only one instance...
48. Knowledge Isn’t Everything
My uncle is a genius. Has an IQ of 154. He had serious problems. He would always talk down and look down to everyone. He was the youngest of six kids, who were all smart, and as a child would throw fits at dinner saying how no one would listen to him. Obviously, his siblings didn't give a crap and were busy chowing down.
In the end, he never really adjusted to life or kept a job because he didn't respect his bosses. I guess it's not the end and he's still alive, but his personality and brains has kept him from really reaching his abilities.
49. Pick On Someone My Size
Last year I taught fifth grade. I had a student for one block a day that was a little mentally unstable. She developed a crush on another girl and began writing her a ton of creepy notes. The school was handling it but apparently, the second girl's mother didn't think that was enough, so they drove to the first girls bus stop in the morning and started yelling and threatening her. They basically had her cornered when the bus driver showed up and had to pry this raging mom away from the student.
50. Someone’s To Blame
Blamed me for their child's suicide attempt.
Their kid wasn't even coming to my class, and the suicide attempt was apparently not bad enough to hospitalize her or get her the help she needed. The parent confronted me with this in the fall, by the spring we had a meeting with us, the kid, and my administration, and the parent came around to the fact that their child was essentially gaslighting them and using me as a scapegoat. But blaming someone who had spent maybe five hours with their child in a group setting for a suicide attempt was really low.
51. Sounds Like He’s Doing Work For the Prof
My one/ favorite history professor in college told me about a kid named Gabe. Gabe wasn't great with math, wasn't great with science, but this kid could create a complex map of history in his mind to be able to explain a situation in history from multiple historical standpoints.
An example was when he was in my professor's Nazi Germany course and my professor was talking about Hitler's takeover in a general sense—quick overview of the course type stuff/my professor learning what people do and don't know to shape the course a little—and one questioned how they let Hitler be elected considering Hitler's jail sentence and Mein Kampf. Gabe apparently cited four or so different sources of German people at the time as well as examples of sympathizers in other countries after the Nazi take over to explain Hitler's zeal and demagogue capabilities. My professor still uses the sources Gabe cited because he wasn't even read on them!
52. Don’t You Forget About Me
My buddy was a genius as a kid he could read something and remember it exactly. It was unreal.
Smartest dude I ever met as far as every single subject. Went to Harvard after high school and we lost touch. He’s a judge now.
His memory was so good.
53. The Big Picture
I taught a girl who was an absolute genius. She hated it when I or other people called her that because she didn't think she was.
The main thing that set her apart was her ability to understand a concept as well as the significance that the concept had to other areas based on me explaining something orally once. Most students wouldn't realize that class had started yet by the time she already figured out my lesson.
See, most students, after several attempts at me explaining something, will just memorize my explanation word-for-word and regurgitate that on the test because they still don't understand what on earth you're talking about. Bright students? They actually figure out what you're talking about and can explain it in their own words. But this girl? She not only understood but then applied it to other areas. That's why she was brilliant.
54. Who Doesn’t?
I once taught a four-year-old Chinese kid who really enjoyed talking about the collapse of Yugoslavia.
55. Blaze Your Own Path
Yep, a few. one was a genius in math (not the subject I teach), and the other is a genius when it comes to writing/research/reasoning/etc.
What makes them both so smart is probably a combination of environment—they both have very supportive families—and an intense desire to learn on their own. Both of these guys did way more independent learning on their own than what they got in school, and the math kid is now in grad school working on electromechanical engineering and has been published multiple times. The philosophy kid is doing his own thing and writing books.
56. Baby Book Worm
I teach preschool—had a two-year-old in my class reading middle elementary level chapter books.
57. DIY Prodigy
I’m a preschool teacher so I can’t accurately judge a genius or not. My students range from three to five years old, but I did have one student that stood out. He was a peer (not special ed/not on an IEP) and he was one of our younger students (four years old). We would often let kids have some supervised computer time playing on a site with lots of letter games, math games, etc. for all grades.
This kid taught himself how to tell time, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and started division at the end of our school year. He had little to no help with the work. If he couldn’t figure something out on his own he’d ask for help once and then be perfectly fine continuing on his own. He’s going on to kindergarten now and I’m so excited to see where he goes in life.
Dysart Unified School District
58. To Put It Simply
Okay, I'm going to shamelessly brag about this kid. For the record, I teach high school Spanish.
We'll call the kid Jason because that's nothing like his real name and I don't wanna break FERPA. Jason played basketball and soccer. He was in Art Club and Beta Club and National Honor Society. He was even the Valedictorian. Jason basically taught himself Spanish 1, and by the time he got to my Spanish 2 class, had vastly surpassed his classmates. He asked great questions and even caused me to learn quite a few things about the subject. His Spanish was impeccable. He never made even a single B in my class. When we played games, his team always won. He studied hard, he was focused, and he was so affable. And he was like this in every class, including the AP classes.
He went on to the best college in the state, full ride. He's done study abroad in several countries, and he's been recognized several times in the school's magazine. And not a single person has a negative thing to say about him. He's so genuine and good. He's a serious, preppy white boy that gets along with everyone: the athletes, the nerds, the goth/emo kids. He can even freestyle.
I've gotten off track with the question, but he just makes me so proud. Jason is a freaking genius.
Mitchelldyer Photography - Craig Mitchelldyer
59. A Megamind at Music
He was not only a genius but a prodigy.
My former piano/organ student now has a DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) and is "in demand" for solo performances as well as concertos with orchestra.
He did all the work. I just taught him.
60. To Put I Simply
He won a silver medal at the International Math Olympiad.
61. The Precocious Paleontologist
I did not personally teach him, but he was a student at the school I taught at and the son of a co-worker. He was on Jay Leno as a kindergartner on account of his in-depth dinosaur knowledge. I don't know if he was a textbook genius, but he was probably the closest I've seen.
The last I saw of him was when he was in seventh grade—I changed schools following that year. His personality was very similar to what can be seen in the Leno video. I didn't know him well but if I happened upon a classroom with him in it, he wouldn't hesitate to casually begin explaining a topic in-depth. It was as if us not knowing each other was immaterial; he was just programmed to share his vast knowledge with anyone who happened by. And it was never holier-than-thou. He always had a conversational tone that conveyed he really just had a lot going on up there.
From a quick check, it appears as though he's now studying paleontology at a private college in-state. Good to see.
62. A for Effort (and Everything Else)
Seventh-grade life science teacher.
A girl I taught this year was basically great at every subject. I always sort of felt like the lab partner that was not prepared for the day.
She had raw talent and great genetics, but the thing that set her apart from the others was effort. She wanted to learn and spent time learning. She was quick with everything and it came naturally, but she always gave it 100%.
We had to give awards out to our students at the end of the year and I decided to not award her for her smarts since those are the awards she always receives. Instead, I gave her the award for greatest effort displayed by any student.
She also is probably going to the Olympics in a couple of years, so she’s got that going for her, which is nice.
63. Too Smart to Try
In high school, my good friend was a genius and it annoyed the crud out of the teachers. He would sit and annoy his friends or build stuff out of things he could find out of the classroom. If he was paying attention he would interject with in-depth analysis and not quite relevant questions to sidetrack the teachers or straight up correct them and end up in debates.
He also never did any homework. He calculated out the exact amount he needed to pass and found out he could pass by only doing his tests, which he always got 100% on, but had no interest in doing work. He got banned from playing pre-test studying games because he would always win and was used as the question maker for a while until he made the questions so incredibly specific and impossible to answer he got switched to the judge.
He was also an all-around really cool person, smart, cute, personable and popular, and great at sports. But he was by far the smartest person in our grade and probably the school and graduated with a 65% average because he just did. Not. Care.
64. Smart and Smug
Fifth-grade teacher here.
I had a student who was absolutely a genius. I was teaching him sixth, seventh, and eighth grade Math and Science. I found what challenges him most was my style of teaching which required a lot of collaboration and socialization. I hope I helped him grow his strengths and weaknesses that year.
65. Great at Graduating
I had a student, who was also an undergrad researcher in my lab, who was legitimately a genius. He graduated high school a year (or two?) early and got straight As while taking two to three more classes than other students were even ALLOWED to take. (So... 26ish credits.) He was taking graduate classes that I was taking (while I was his TA for some undergrad labs). He left college a year early and went to Cambridge.
It wasn't that he knew the answer right away all the time. Sometimes he did have to think about things, but he always figured it out, and he was rarely wrong. Note, not "never." He was wrong sometimes, and very quick to admit it. He set the curve for all of my graduate classes, despite being an undergrad at the time. Even though the tests were designed to not have everybody finish, he would always finish, and always have a 98ish% score, while the average for the test was usually ~50%. Remember, this is graduate school, we're ALL smart. Not undergrad where the teachers have to teach to the dumbest student.
He was always working on SOMETHING. Many times, it was even over my head. He was very aloof and portrayed the perfect "mad scientist." Very ADDish, running off mid-conversation to think about something else, very easily distract-able. He was socially awkward and by all definitions a nerd but had a good sense of humor around his friends. He was great at math, great at comp-sci, a great programmer, and he loved the combination of all of them into physical chemistry
His parents were both scientists. So, either they raised him while teaching him quantum chemistry, or his IQ was very nearly ~160ish—or both. He would often question the professors teaching the classes and was often correct with the point he was trying to make. A few times the professors came to HIM to help them solve something.
Georgetown College - Georgetown University
67.The Art of Genius
Art is where she really stood out. As a third grader, adults wanted to keep and frame her paintings. She entered a number of competitions but got shut out until she was in junior high because the judges thought she had been coached or prepped somehow. Her work was so impressive that they wouldn't believe someone her age could have done it. Then, as her age became more "credible" she started winning major awards.
Gifted kids are often portrayed as Rain Man types, but that turns out to be untrue. She has such incredible social and interpersonal skills.
Integrated Learning Strategies
68. Burning Bridges
In shop class, we were given balsa wood sticks and clay to make the strongest bridge we could, which would be tested by putting the bridge between two desks and then placing weights on it. The teacher took one kid's bridge to place it between the desks, and while grabbing it, (accidentally?) crushed the main body of the bridge. The bridge failed almost immediately and the kid got a really bad grade. The teacher acted like nothing happened despite our complaints.
69. Read the Room
The class was learning about the legal system and doing a mock trial. The case involved a girl being sexually assaulted. The student who was picked to play the girl, coincidentally, had been a victim in real life. She felt it was going to be too draining on her and tried to get out of the role. The teacher wanted an explanation but she wasn't willing to share, she was just saying it was very private.
It was not clicking in the teacher's head why a girl may have very private reasons not to play a sexual assault victim in front of a class. She kept on trying and finally the teacher raised his voice, "You're holding up this project for the entire class for no apparent reason. Why the hell is this such an issue?" The whole class was looking at her at this point when she said she had been a victim and started crying. As far as I know, the teacher didn't face repercussions but the project was changed.
70. Borderline Abuse
My fifth-grade teacher Mrs. Hannah would bully this kid that obviously had serious behavioral/family issues. She was not at all sympathetic to him and literally made him sit in a cubicle desk the entire day that she called "the box". It was so infuriating and humiliating to watch. She also once told me she was going to "nail my ears to the wall".
So I reported her. I hated her so much and I felt really bad for the kid that she really scapegoated. Hope he's doing well today.
71. Blind as a Bat
I asked my sixth-grade science teacher if he could switch my seat to the front of the room because I was having trouble seeing the board. I wear glasses and have just really bad eyes. He decided, for some reason, that I had an ulterior motive for wanting to be in the front of the room. To punish me for trying to "pull one over on him" he moved me to the very back of the room for the rest of the year where I could not see the board at all so I learned nothing that year, because we didn't have textbooks, everything was put up on the board.
72. Better Fall In Line
I had a college professor for an advanced comp class. Had to write a 1,500-word essay every week (on a variety of topics), and each grammar mistake is 10% off of the grade. Had a class on Tuesday, met with the professor with a draft on Thursday. No draft on Thursday: automatic zero on the paper. I had written something mildly critical of an author we had read, and when I met with the professor, they said, well, I can't think of anything wrong grammatically with the paper, but you need to change your view, or I will give it a C. I kept it as is, and got the C, even though I wasn't "wrong."
73. What Even Is Smart?
How would we define genius here? I’m a social studies teacher so maybe I’m not the best subject to determine.
I’ve had wonderful school smart students who can do homework and tests with ease. I’ve had kids with so much potential but no drive. I’ve had kids that can’t do school to save their life but are really street smart which saves their life.
Genius is subjective for me. Yeah, I have a kid who can name all the countries in the world but realistically, is he any better than my kid who knows the ins and outs of the city he lives in?
74. I Have the Need for Speed
I used to teach "gifted" kids, that scored highly on intelligence tests. For some of them, that meant they were just very good at taking intelligence-tests, but I had a few that really stuck out and left me truly impressed.
There was this one kid (let's call him Charlie), who was around eight years old. I gave an assignment where the kids were to build something that would allow an egg to fall down three meters without breaking. Most of them built something to soften the impact combined with some sort of parachute.
Charlie thought a little longer about it and saw one of those acorn-seed-transporters. You know the ones that can sort of propel slowly to the ground.
He decided to build that. Made it out of cardboard, nice and thick. Angled it a little, like he thought he saw it with the seeds. Added just a little bit of cushioning.
It thought it would crash for sure. The whole thing was super-heavy. But I didn't stop him. And boy was I wrong: this "sail" actually made his craft rotate just the right way and slowed down his apparatus significantly. His egg survived the impact and Charlie was super proud. Rightfully so.
To me, that was genius: he developed something new based on a similar concept without fully understanding said concept. And he made it work. At eight years old.
75. Cinematic Brilliance
Yep. A medical resident. Reminded me of Good Will Hunting guy. His own history, as he’d tell it, was “I had three last names before I was 18. My dad was in prison for as long as I can remember and will be in prison forever. You can check my family tree as far back as you’d like: I’m the first one to ever attend college.”
Scary smart. He learned Hungarian in his spare time as a trick to play on his (Hungarian) wife. When I first met him as a student I understood he spoke a lot of languages, so I asked him if he could speak to a Greek patient—“I do not speak Greek.” That was Monday. On Wednesday he was asking the patient simple questions in full sentences and understanding the answer. I was annoyed and asked him “Hey, I thought you didn’t SPEAK Greek!?” Him: “I didn’t. On Monday.”
You could make an entire career of following him around with a notebook and writing down his many good ideas, big and small, about literally everything—which he seems to forget as soon as he comes up with them. I do OK. I am a professor of surgery. I don’t have any of this guy’s pure mental horsepower.
I still know him and he’s still white-hot bright. But very much an easygoing dude, and still sometimes a product of a rough and tumble early life. Years ago, I had to explain to him—back to Good Will Hunting guy idea—“you can’t beat anyone up in the hospital no matter how much they annoy you.” Him, incredulous: “Never? But what if they do X?”
“No. Never.” “But what if they do Y.” “No. No beating up, ever, in the hospital.” *doubtful look by him*
75. Swipe Left On This Genius
I *casually* dated a genius. Graduated high school in fifth grade, was finishing up a PhD in neuro engineering at an ivy league school when I met him at age 23. He told me that he felt really lucky his parents noticed his "knack" for building computers early on and put him in an accelerated program or else he thinks he would have become highly destructive as he got older.
I will say he fulfilled every stereotype of a savant you can name and then some. No empathy, emotional maturity of a 12-year-old, with the ethical compass of a graphing calculator—which is to say he was pragmatic to a fault and felt no guilt if he got away with something.
Things that may have also been related—He was into a lot of freaky sexual stuff and was astonishingly frank about all of it—this is admittedly what I liked about him. He also idolized Justin Bieber, BEFORE his comeback. One day I asked him point blank if it's because he saw himself in Bieber and he said, "Come to think of it, yes."
What a ride that was.
YouTube
76. International Smarts
This kid came to Australia at 15 from Somalia, never went to school in Somalia. Both parents dead. He walked his two younger siblings out of Somalia to Ethiopia using a map he found. Then he came to Australia and entered school. Picked up English and math so fluently he was able to graduate high school in four years.
He’s doing computer science at university now. If that kid had grown up in Australia he’d be on the news for being in university at 12.
Edit: he wasn’t literate or numerate when he arrived in Australia.
San Diego Unified School District
Source:
42. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Mum used to be a teacher, and this happened to someone she worked with.
Child was strangling another child, teacher wasn't strong enough to pull the child off of the other child, so ended up having to thump the child until he released, child ended up rather bruised.
Parents of the child doing the strangling decided they wanted to try and sue the teacher for hitting their child.
Result=teacher who prevented their son from murdering someone suspended from work until the case gets rejected from court.
77. Can’t Put a Price on Good Health Products
Work at a school where over 80% of our population lives under the poverty line. I keep a cabinet full of hygiene products for kids to take. Deodorant, lotion, Chapstick, hair gel, feminine hygiene products, shampoo, conditioner, those kinds of things in travel sizes. Being a teen is hard enough without having to cope with hygiene problems due to lack of funds at home.
So one day the entire thing is empty. Odd, I refill the cabinet and two days later all of it is gone again. Refill with the last of my supplies, catch the kid in the act of sweeping everything in his bag. I stop him, take him in the other room and talk to him. He told his mother about the cabinet.
She ordered him to bring her everything he could get. She was returning the items to Walmart for store credit to buy cigarettes and beer. I told him to tell her the cabinet is locked now. I bought a bike lock, so it was not a lie. It was sickening.
The lock was only on until the student left. It has been on the honor system for 15 years, over 1,700 students and only one abuser of the system; I call that a good record.
78. One Drink to Take the Edge Off
Mother came to a school sports day swigging from a bottle of wine. We always felt desperately sorry for her daughter, because whenever she returned to school following a holiday at home (this was a boarding school), we had to wash all her clothes because they reeked of cigarettes, and this poor little girl was easily the most unhappy child I've ever seen.
79. Not A Ride-Along Situation
Wreck their car buying drugs on the way to pick their child up from pre-school, and then try to get another parent to cover for them with their estranged husband.
80. I Can Quit Anytime I Want
I used to work in a daycare. On my first day, in a new room with 15 two-year-olds, I picked up a little boy and noticed he had dropped something through the neck hole in his onesie. I pulled it out and it was a lighter. When we returned it to the mom and told her where we found it she laughed and said, "This kid gets his hands on EVERYTHING!"
Poor kid also sounded like a smoker every time he laughed or coughed.
81. Not Up to Dress Code
My mom's a teacher and in order to talk to a parent about a child that was struggling due to the school environment, she arranged to meet at the parents’ house. Keep in mind this was scheduled in advance with a set time.
The dad answered the door 100% naked and tried to have the meeting with him naked on the front porch.
My mom doesn't do anything outside the school anymore.
82. Hand-Me-Ups
Staff raised money to get an eight-year-old girl a winter coat (live in rural Canada). Girl came to school the next day in a T-shirt in the dead of winter, her mom wearing the brand new, child-sized jacket.
For those wondering—the principal confronted her about it and mom told her to screw off and anything her kids owned belonged to her and she could do what she wanted with it. Children’s Aide was called and that student lives with a very nice foster family now.
Mother was rail thin. Looked like the stereotypical junkie archetype. The sleeves were three inches too short, didn’t cover most of her stomach and she could do it up properly.
83. You Can Do This
Not a teacher, but my mom is, she teaches the visually impaired. There are these two students of hers whose parents (mainly the mom) tell them that they can’t do anything, and won’t be able to do anything, and all they do while at home is sit around because their mom makes them.
However, my mom has been teaching them for about four years, trying to get them to believe in themselves, it mostly has worked, but recently, a different teacher told them that they can’t do anything as well, so that has been a huge setback for them.
I just think that it’s really trashy for a parent to tell their kids that they can’t do anything even though they can do many things that other people can.
84. Skills They Could Use
I work in a school in one of the most socially deprived areas of the UK. At parents’ evening, we give every parent a printout of their child's grades in each subject, alongside their target grades.
Last year, we had the parent of an 11-year-old respond to this printout by shouting, "What the heck am I going to do with this? I can't freaking read can I?" This was in front of other children, parents and her child's teachers.
People seem to be torn on seeing this as just trashy, or more as sad as if I might be picking on her a bit. Just to be clear, I'm not making fun of her. A quick laugh behind closed doors at things like this seems to give a bit of levity for teachers in schools like mine. It can be tough. But I think the majority of people who work in these areas do it because they want to help conquer some of the social inequalities or issues that people are facing. Whether that's for pure humanistic beliefs, their own ego, or just because it feels like you're accomplishing something. Maybe a bit of each.
Regardless, I feel sympathy for the woman in question, and her daughter. One of the aims of my job is to help prevent people reaching adulthood without the necessary skills to thrive. Her behavior doesn't change that and doesn't make me assume I'm a higher class of person than she is, just dealt a different hand I guess.
85. Indoor Voices
I called a parent about a behavior issue. I must have been on speakerphone, because I heard the kid come home. Parent starts screaming at and whaling on the kid.
Cussing, calling them all sorts of names. I don't even know if the parent remembered I was on the phone. I hung up the phone and went to my principal. Teachers are mandated reporters, don't hit your kids in front of a teacher.
Youtube
86. Keep Your Hands to Yourself
Our vice principal is a former Army Sergeant who’s built like a tank. He’s well liked and an amazing role model in a community where many of our kids don’t have a good male role model.
On several occasions, I’ve seen mothers step well over the line and make very sexual comments to him directly in front of their kids. I mean in plain sight of their own children and in ways the kids notice. He’s always very respectful and often asks another staff member to join him if he sees one of these parents coming to talk, but it’s pretty damn trashy when it comes to some of the innuendo I’ve overheard.
These aren’t jokes either. They try to get handsy with him too.
87. Got An “F” in Charm School
This one was pretty funny. A parent brought out a pack of sweets or something and her son asked, "Can I have some?" To which the mother responded, "Where’s your effing manners? How about effing please?"
I facepalmed so hard.
88. Not All Romantic Geometry is Fun
Mom slept with her daughter's adult boyfriend. Kicks daughter out of house. Daughter goes to live with dad. Mom tries to say dad molested daughter.
Real piece of work.
89. No Look-Sees
There is a parent who would walk through our closed campus every single day. As teachers we are supposed to stop her because it’s a closed campus. Every single day she would pretend she didn’t know the rules.
We always knew it was the same parent because she let her younger children who weren’t in school yet ride around on their scooters ahead of her. One day she was walking through with a stroller. She was not paying attention and her freaking baby started falling out of the front of the stroller. I saw four teachers jump up to help the kid and the mom didn’t even acknowledge.
90. The PTA Is No Excuse for PDA
The other one happened directly to me during parent teacher conferences. I was meeting with a mom and her live-in boyfriend about her son.
At the end of the conference, I asked if they had any questions I could answer for them and he started asking me personal questions and flirting with me.
I deflected and told them I had more conferences. But other teachers have told me that parents have hit on them before so it’s probably pretty common.
91. A Few Bad Apples
I was in my eighth-grade biology class and I had a perfect 100%. We were in the middle of taking a test when a couple of kids started talking and wouldn't stop. So my biology teacher stood up, and announced that he would be subtracting one point from everyone's tests. I ended up getting 99% on that test and 99% for the grading period.
I'm a junior in high school now and still remember the seething pain in my soul.
92. Anyone Taping This?
When I was a freshman in high school on my first day of school I had a shirt that looked like it had duct tape on it as part of the design, and my teacher told me to take it off. I told him that it didn't come off and in front of everyone in the class he tried to rip off the "duct tape" and stretched my shirt out and embarrassed himself when he realized that it was just a design on the shirt.
Then for the entire semester, he was a complete jerk to me because he embarrassed himself in front of the whole class.
93. Let’s Be Realistic Here
I had a teacher that counted a question wrong when I rounded to the nearest hundredth on a question that just said "estimate." She said she would count rounding to the nearest tenth, or the nearest whole number because the hundredth is "impractical, as no one would use a measurement that small." The question, I kid you not, was about using triangles to estimate the distance for a snail bridge in Fantasyland.
94. When It Rains, It Snows
Not a teacher but a college administrator. Parents will call in very frequently when there is an issue with their student’s living situation. If they’re jerk (frequent) I quote FERPA to them.
Best example—I had to bill a student for around $600 in damages to their room at the end of the year. Mom called me, pissed off about this, because they had tried to repair the damages (poorly). She ended up yelling about this over the phone, and I reminded her that her son was 22 years old and that I could only talk with him about this.
Kid calls me back the next day and apologizes for his mom being a jerk to me and asks if I’m able to just BS his mom when she calls back.
It’s a weird line of work.
Some vocabulary I’ve learned for other folks dealing with this: snowplow parents.
95. The Deadbeat Dad Diet
Not a teacher but my dad once worked as a groundskeeper at a primary school. Worst thing he ever saw was a guy dropping his daughter off to school and before she went through the gate, her dad went through her schoolbag and took out all of her packed food and left eating it essentially leaving her with nothing to eat that day.
Dad was so angry he said he wanted to knock the guy out right then and there for leaving his child with no food for the day, but he ended up going straight to the principal to tell them what he witnessed so it could be investigated properly and get the kid help.
96. The Sum of Everything
I'm going to drop this in on behalf of a friend of mine who's a math teacher here in the UK, and who once—only once—has come across an actual genius. I will add here that my friend is no slouch. This kid was only there between the ages of 16 and 18, but when he arrived he already had completed every module available to make up mathematics A-levels. So, while you can technically only get *two* math A-levels, he had completed sufficient qualifications to give him three, just because.
He didn't bother with math lessons or anything, he just hung out and talked about math. About halfway through his first year, it became clear that my friend had nothing left to teach him; he had literally surpassed the sum knowledge of the department head of one of the UK's most prestigious schools by the age of 16.
When the time came to apply to universities, he just didn't. They applied to him. There's a rule of thumb in this country that you can't apply to both Oxford *and* Cambridge because doing so will result in both of them rejecting you out of hand. In his case thought they both wrote to him to ask him to come and study there and then when he chose Cambridge, Oxford sent him a second letter saying that they understood his decision, but they hoped he would keep them in mind when the time came for his doctorate.
97. You Can’t Add Everything Up
I taught in the advanced placement program and had one student I would definitely classify as genius level.
What made him stand out amongst his—very bright—peers was his ability to make connections between things he already understood and difficult new concepts.
My students were in fourth grade I was teaching the majority of the class sixth grade math, but I was teaching him high school senior math simply because he was so quick to make connections with very little or practice needed to master a concept.
While other students were writing short stories in English this student wrote an entire novel! Not only was it full length it was well written, complex, deep and he fully illustrated it himself.
What do I think contributed to his genius? A combination of a genetic predisposition and parents who worked hard to satisfy his curiosity when it came to learning.
98. Toddlers and Tech
When I was in my last year of high school we were expected to help two times a week in a first-year class.
(For the countries, high school is about ages 12-18 In the UK).
I helped in the computing class. Most of it was login here open the Internet here's how you open paint blah, blah.
One girl, however, wasn't doing the stuff the others were doing. I looked over her shoulder and she was coding.
She was writing code well beyond even final year high school level and that meant she was beyond what I could even do at the time. Remember she was just 12 at the time.
I asked her about it and apparently, her dad was a programmer and he'd showed her the basics and that she thought it was really easy.
Kinda humbling when you're 18 and a 12-year-old is better than you at something you thought you were good at.
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99. Princess Proof
I once taught a girl who was a genius, she showed it in many ways, but one always stuck out.
This was an A-level physics class (UK so 17/18-year-olds) and for a piece of homework, there was one question that should take them about half a page of working to solve. It was a proof, so they knew what the answer was, but they had to figure it out themselves using the input data, selecting the right equations and then showing all the working.
She turned in her homework and said: "Sir, I've got the right answer but I'm not quite certain how I got there."
What she meant was, she knew what she'd done was right, but it didn't match the solution she was supposed to have.
I take a look, and it's about four pages of working which ends up with the right numbers. I tell her: "<name>, I'm going to have to look into this overnight and get back to you". So, I took it home and had a good read.
Turns out that instead of using the given equations, she'd re-figured out the same equations from first principles—i.e., she'd started with the basics fundamental principles and figured out the same equations that the original scientists did. But she did it overnight.
100. Overdue for Pickup
My mom is a middle school teacher. Just about every day, some bad parent doesn't come pick up their kids because they literally forgot about them or were passed out drunk/on drugs.
Then the poor child gets sent to daycare, which is not free, then the parents complain about the charge. My mom has had to bring random kids home before, who barely know the way home. It's really sad.
101. Uber Carpool: For Kids!
Not a parent, but we had a babysitter who would roll up about two feet from the curb in her ancient dented-to-hell gold van, have a preteen in the back slide the door open, and then scream “Get in!!!” at the tiny five-year-old she was picking up (the poor girl started crying every time).
102. A Return Policy Is Not Discipline
I had a kid whose aunt was his legal guardian. I told her that he was acting up in class and not doing work, so she threatened to put him back into foster care if he didn’t pull his stuff together.
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103. Welcome to the Thunderdome
Parent witness to an event not a teacher. My kid's very first day of school she’s four-and-a-half. In the gym hall, all the kids and parents are in lines according to class and one by one the teachers come and take them away.
Our group was last to go. As we are waiting for a guy storms in clearly drunk starts shouting at a woman in the line “why didn’t you tell me it was now! I’ve been looking everywhere etc. etc.” He slapped the mum.
Another dad in the line pulls drunk dad away and pushes him. He falls down on top of another kid.
That kids mum screams, drunk starts to run out, squished kid’s dad chases him. He made it out of the gym but then got caught and the snot kicked outta him in the school reception.
Everyone is freaked out, kids are crying then the very happy teacher who is completely unaware comes in. I start googling prices for private schools.
104. Pride Before Safety
My kid went to the preschool run by the public-school system. One day, I saw one of his classmates'—every student was either three or four—mom open the front passenger door. Kid climbed in, and they drove off with the radio cranked and the little girl dancing on the seat leaning against the dash board. The back seat was totally empty, not even a car seat.
The next day, I offered the lady my other kid’s seat, I'd buy another one on the way home. She told me to screw off and drove away with her daughter again standing on the front seat. I let the principal know, and we watch the car drive of into traffic towards the highway.
Day three, I've called the police, but they'll only come out of I call during the pickup. Great, that'll only take 30 minutes for them to. After mom drives off with daughter dancing on the seat again, I tell the principal I'm reporting the mom to Family Services if she won't intervene.
On day four, a guy shows up in her car and comes nose to nose with me, without even so much as an introduction. He says if I keep harassing his woman I'll regret it. I tell the principal, nothing she can do. They stopped bringing the kid to school after that.
105. What Happens On Parent Teacher Night, Stays In Parent Teacher Night…
When I taught English in China, my good friend and colleague started sleeping with one of the mothers, a woman 15 years his senior and married. I taught her daughter and would often hear stories about how they snuck around behind the husband's back.
106. Meet Me on the Playground
I work in a middle school with an elementary school next door. Two girls from my school were arguing all day and told their parents about it when they got out of school.
The parents proceeded to call their families up to the elementary school and fought in front of a bunch of kindergarteners, knives and everything. Cops were called, I think some of the parents are still in jail for gun possession/parole violations. One of the kids was pulled from our school and put in foster care.
107. Points for Precise Langauge
When I was a sub, I had to sub a fourth-grade class for two weeks.
The kids had to write a story about their family and read them to the class.
The smartest girl in the class wrote about the dog her dad gave her, except every time she mentioned the word "dad" she said "My dad, sorry I mean the sperm donor.”
I asked the office about it, her mom is crazy AF.
108. Big Love
Once while waiting for parents to arrive to a parents evening / conference, my colleague pointed out one of my students' father sitting in the waiting area. He said “You see the woman sitting next to him, well that’s his wife. And the woman sitting on the other side of him? Well that’s her sister, and also his other wife...”
109. Green Accessories
My wife is a teacher and had a parent show up to conferences with a joint behind his ear.
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110. Why Waste a Good Follicle?
Sitting in a parent teacher conference with several teachers and at least one administrator present, the mom plucks a hair from her head and starts flossing her teeth with said hair.
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111. Easier than Tinder
I’m a male elementary teacher. I’ve had some sketchier parents make weird comments to me. Small rural area. There are some poverty and drug problems and I can feel some single mothers staring at me because I have a decent job.
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112. Who’s a Good Boy?
During a parent teacher conference, the Mom showed up (late) with a tiny dog inside her shirt, with his little head sticking out between her boobs. When we sat down, she took him out and he walked all over the table we were sitting at during the conference.
113. Brawling is a Family Affair
I’m a high school teacher. One time, a parent of a child who had been going back and forth with another child on social media came to the school to confront the other girl. The mom ended up bursting into my classroom to try to fight one of my ninth grade girls, sending us into a lockdown until the woman was removed by the police.
I want to make clear that the systems in place have failed this woman, her family, and her friends at basically every level and I can understand why she felt like she didn’t trust any systems to handle the situation.
By the end of the school year, this particular mother was helping chaperone events and was a good role model for our young people. Her daughter was one of the best performing students in the grade.
114. A History of Violence
Used to work with teenagers who had behavior problems in a special school. One day, a student of mine had a disorganization. He started punching staff and students alike while screaming. It took five male teachers to hold him down. The headmaster called his mom, so she could pick him up. She had ten minutes; if longer, we would call the cops.
The mother arrived eight minutes later. A woman in her late forties with bleach blond hair wearing a mini skirt and a crop top. She came in yelling and swearing at her son. She picked him up and smacked him at the back of the head while telling him he was a good for nothing idiot.
The apple does not fall far from the tree.
What I meant by "the apple does not fall far from the tree" is that I understood from then on why this kid was violent and angry all the time. Often, the parent's behavior is reproduced by the child.
115. Meal Ticket
I taught elementary school, I had a third grader who was well behind all the other children in reading skills. He seemed capable of reading, but just never put forth any effort. So I would pull him aside every chance I got and tutor him, it was paying off, he was progressing nicely.
Then his mother showed up one afternoon mad as hell because the boy was learning to read. It took me a while to figure out what she was screaming about, it seems she was receiving disability payments because her boy was "retarded" (her words) and incapable of reading, if the case worker found out the boy could read the payments would stop.
Luckily, she caused such a commotion that the assistant principal got involved and she was threatened with arrest. But the poor little boy was scared whenever I tried to teach him.
116. Homework For Dinner
Woman I used to babysit for worked in a school as an assistant or something in Toronto, she always told this story about how the class rabbit would go home with a new kid each weekend. They kept trying to avoid giving one kid the bunny for the weekend because it was clear his home life wasn't the best. But they finally caved and let him take the rabbit home.
The parents killed the rabbit and ate it. They killed the class bunny and fried it up for dinner. They weren't even ashamed when they told the teacher what happened on Monday. Said they were out of groceries or something.
I wish I had more details, but I haven't seen this woman in a few years, so I only remember the basics of the story. This incident happened around 20 or more years ago so I'm not sure about the aftermath. I had almost completely forgotten about it until I saw this thread and was reminded of this. As far as I remember, the family was very clearly trashy and irresponsible and that's why the school didn't want that kid to take the animal for the weekend.
117. Kids Can Overhear Things Too
A couple of weeks ago one of my second graders was crying so some of the other kids in the class went over and asked what was wrong. Turns out her parents were getting a divorce because her dad was "messing around with four other women and one of them is having another baby." Those were her exact words. I don't even want to know what else that poor kid had to overhear.
118. She Who Smelt It, Dealt It
My mom is a teacher. She said her students complained about how the math teacher passed gas in front of them. The students laughed which infuriated the teacher and she told them if nobody would take responsibility for it she would keep the class after school because it was not her that farted.
None of the students took responsibility for the loud noisy smell so the students missed their buses that day.
119. Last Names Never Lie
The students told me that Mrs. Spanish Teacher's baby was Mr. Spanish Teacher’s. They went on to tell me that the two teachers had been caught doing the nasty in the library by a student. The saddest part was that they were both married to other people, and Mr. Spanish Teacher and his wife had decided that they weren't going to have children—his wife wanted kids, he didn’t. The baby had his last name, so any kid who didn't already know knew as soon as the baby was born.
120. Getting a Little Too Personal
I overheard sixth-grade girls telling each other which teachers they've had sex dreams about. I walked away not wanting to hear more or if I was named.
121. Consider Yourselves Warned
My first grader once came to school and told me that daddy drank too much last night and mummy made him sleep in the bathtub.
Another told me about the pubic hair grooming habits of her mother.
I’ve never gotten horrible gossip from my young students, but parents be aware, your family secrets are NOT secrets if your young kids know.
122. I Think It's Time to Move Somewhere New
In one school I had heard that three students—all minors—had shot a racy tape and leaked it. In another school, I heard that two kids were called into the office and suspended because they’d shot at each other over the weekend. The saddest was two girls having a conversation about how one girl’s mother had remained dating a man who’d kidnapped and assaulted her (the mother) at gunpoint.
I didn’t work in a good school.
123. You Really Let the Cat Out of the Bag On This One
Two girls in the back of my theatre classroom would not stop talking. One of them seemed upset, so I asked them to keep it down. It continued, so I told them more firmly to pay attention. The upset girl promptly freaked out, said "WHAT THE F*** DO YOU WANT ME TO DO? I'M F***ING PREGNANT!" The entire class's mouths dropped and I couldn't think of anything to do but send her to the trauma counselor. Sure enough, yep—one of my sophomores had a baby the April before she became a high school junior.
124. Let’s See You Slither out of This Mess
I was the student... I told my first-grade teacher that one of my mom's friends played with a snake for work. At first, my teacher thought it was a euphemism I'd heard & asked me privately after class what I meant. I happily explained that she was a "t***y Dancer" (a phrase my mom used) who used a boa constrictor in her dance & that I got to meet the snake backstage. I could tell she was obviously concerned and somehow in my brain, I thought telling her "But don't worry she's very careful not to get herself bit because the snake only likes to eat mice" would help.
The parent-teacher conference ended up in a yelling match and a visit from CPS.
125. We All Think Very High-ly of This Principal
One principal told me that she was dosed LSD by a student who put one or two hits in her coffee and just went about her day as normal, attended meetings, etc. She was familiar with the experience and didn’t need to go home. She waited for another day to discipline him and let him know the legal implications of what he had done and how serious the police would find it if she reported.
126. Some Truly Amazing Talents
I teach kindergarten and they really do share everything that goes on at home! During our morning meeting, one boy shared that his uncle was arrested over the weekend and would be in jail for a long time. I was curious so I asked what happened and he happily told me that his uncle was making lots of fake money!
Another time a student ran up to me and was so excited and the conversation went like this...
Boy: “Ms. V! My dad is so awesome! He's so talented!”
Me: “Oh wow, that's great! What is his talent?”
Boy: “Well he can chug a whole bottle of beer without stopping! Sometimes he drinks all six beers at night.”
Me: “Wow. That's awesome. I'm proud of him.”
127. Finally, Something Positive!
Not juicy, just silly. Good kid stayed after class to show me his anime drawings and started rambling about his family dynamics. He told me that his parents are still very much in love and are often going on dates. Sweet! Then he told me that there's a rule in the house that if the master bedroom door is closed you are to stay far away and never interrupt. Sometimes they'll be in there for hours!
By the change in expression on his face, I could tell he just figured it out.
128. Definitely a Case of Bullying
Not a teacher, but I do volunteer for a middle school. Anyway, one of the students, a sixth grader, had sent a video of herself nude to a boy she liked. The boy had brought his phone to school the next day and showed everybody he talked to. He also had sent it to a group chat that had his whole class. The police had to come to the school to investigate. The girl was taken out of school by her parents, and the boy was expelled.
129. Well That Escalated Quickly
I taught third grade and had to take a mix of students with me to dismissal. A former student—let’s call him B—was standing near me at dismissal. As his vehicle approaches, one of my current students—let’s call him J—waves at the woman driving. I let B in the car and go back to my post. J tells me B’s mom is really nice and I ask if they’re neighbors or if he plays with B after school. He shakes his head and says, “My dad and his mom are friends. They’re going to have a baby.” I stand there confused, knowing that J’s parents are married and had just met with me for a conference. He continues, “Well, we think they are having a baby, but my mom says the lady has a lot of friends and it might be E’s (a student from another class) dad. I hope it’s ours! I want a sister.”
130. Different Strokes for Different Folks
One of my seventh graders told me about how one of the more...interesting students in our class took a dump in his hand and hid the incriminating turd in his desk. Not sure if this qualifies as juicy but I heard this yesterday and have been looking for a place to share this lovely tidbit.
131. Backward Morons
I went to an all-girl Catholic high school in a city, and many students took public transportation home alone through the city, often after dark. Like many high schools, the school would confiscate your phone if you were caught using it during school hours, but had a policy that confiscated phones would be given back during the evenings so that girls could commute home safely—they wanted to make sure that students had it in case of emergency.
Students would turn it in during the morning, pick it up in the evening, etc., for the duration of the confiscation. My phone was confiscated once, shortly after rumors were flying around that I was a lesbian (the rumors were partially correct, but still). I went to the office to pick up my phone for my commute home, and the Dean of Students refused to give it back to me for my commute home.
I tried to argue that I needed it in case of an emergency because I had one of the longest commutes of any student and often spent time waiting alone at a subway station in the dark for my mom to pick me up. The Dean refused. Apparently, I didn't deserve safety, or to be able to call my mom to pick me up from the station.
My mother had to get my line transferred to a different phone after a few days so that I could continue commuting safely. I think of this every time that school sends me alumni letters begging for donations. Also, one time I kissed my girlfriend on the cheek—outside of school hours, at a public bus stop several blocks away, not wearing the school uniform.
The school disciplinarian happened to be passing by in her car at that exact unlucky moment and gave us both detention the next day because "we're always representing the school, during school hours or not." I guess she expected us to just not be queer because that would be "misrepresenting the school."
132. Sorry for What?
At the computer lab in seventh grade in 2000, I was in English class and we were supposed to be learning how to use a word processor. We had ball mice, and mine wasn't working right. For those too young to remember, a ball mouse worked by having a hard rubber ball spin a number of rollers, which over time got coated in lint and other crap that kept them from working right.
I knew this, and had fixed mine at home several times, it was pretty simple, just a matter of scraping it clean with your fingernail. So I decided to fix this one, I opened the ball housing, cleaned the rollers, and put it back together. That's when the lab teacher went nuts, accused me of tampering with school equipment, and trying to steal the ball (other kids did this for some reason).
She told me I was banned from any school computer until I wrote a letter of apology. Which I refused to do since all I did was repair a faulty mouse (which was working perfectly now). This lasted about a week before my English teacher called her on her crap and got me reinstated.
133. You’re in the Wrong Profession
In my home ed class, we were divided in three groups. I was the only girl in a group with five boys. Amongst those boys was one who could be a jerk but was an okay guy deep down. So it was a Wednesday before lunch. Many of us didn't bring lunch on Wednesdays because we knew we had home ed.
The guy in question, let's call him Bob, came from a home with not that much money, even for food. Wednesday was probably the only day in the week he had decent food. On this day we made pizza buns. Three for each. Our teacher had previously stated that she hated kids. Yes, as in: She said it right to our faces. This was sixth grade.
We waited for the food to be ready, and whilst waiting for the oven timer to say "pling", we did the dishes and someone had to go put the dirty towels in the washing machine. Our teacher asked Bob to put them there, and he balled them all up and threw them in. She was FURIOUS, because apparently, it's a crime to ball things up and throw them.
She made him go down to the playground just below (we were on the second floor) without food. He yelled at her, saying this was the only food he was going to get today. She looked at him and said: "You can't have it. I'll make sure it's thrown out." She had to go get more towels and walked the kid down. We knew we had to work fast.
We took the pizza bun out of the oven, threw it in a garbage bag, tied it, and threw it down for him to eat. She asked us if we had thrown them out. We said yes. She looked in the trash and couldn't find them, we explained that we had thrown them out separately. She then sat ALL OF THE CLASS down and told us we were horrible people if we had put them in a bag and thrown them down for him to eat.
134. A Man of Letters
I had a grade seven teacher who was new to our school tell us we'd only get a class trip if everyone behaved. As the year went on he found out we were an obedient bunch so raised the bar and started getting people in trouble for minor, arbitrary crap so he wouldn't have to organize the trip. It's even more messed up than this makes it sound.
He had this system where if someone was acting up he'd write the first letter of that person's name on the blackboard. There was no explanation or discussion; He'd write a letter down and go back to teaching. After five letters you got an automatic detention. Our class was very well behaved, but there were a few people with some minor attention problems (myself included).
But, they all pretty quickly got in line. It didn't take long for him to have nothing on any of us and the letters stopped. Yet, after a few weeks they'd return. After that, us "troublemakers" would all start getting up to four letters a day for little or no reason. My school bus was late, therefore I am late too? Letter. Accidentally drop a pencil on the ground? Letter. Doing nothing at all? Letter.
Questioning why you got a letter despite not doing anything? Two letters. I even had another classmate get a letter for questioning why I got one when I was clearly paying attention and sitting still at the time. He told them then they clearly weren't watching the chalkboard and warned the class that watching other people to see if they were deserving of a letter was in itself deserving of a letter.
Very convenient. When the letters were unwarranted, he always stopped at four. I think because as long as we didn't get detention (and tarnish our record), the principal's office wouldn't do anything about it. And, surprise, surprise, we wouldn't get a trip. When confronted about it, he told the students to blame the two or three "troublemakers."
Somehow, I don't think encouraging bullying is something a teacher should be doing. Thankfully, the class realized this was rubbish and didn't blame any of the people unfairly singled out. A group of them would go to the principal, but would be told that they couldn't force a teacher to arrange a grade seven class trip, despite the fact that it was a long-standing tradition.
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135. You Can't Unread That Note
Story from a friend who is also a teacher. I don't hold a candle to this one.
Students were passing notes in class. This is 8th grade in the US. After about a month they become comfortable and it started to interfere with class so it got to point where he confiscated one of their notes.
The students panicked. And really panicked. He said they apologized and told him to just throw it away. He said he'll decide later and kept it.
He did read it. And a group about 8 students—half boys and half girls—would rotate sexual partners for anal sex only because they wanted to keep their virginity. This is their idea. He ended up having a conference with the parents one on one and it was a rough rest of the year.
136. A Pair of Jerks Can Cause a Lot of Trouble
A girl's mom had been renting out a storage unit and using it to have sex with her daughter's boyfriend. The girl and her boyfriend were only together because the mom suggested it to the boy, so he could hang around her without any questions. When it came out, her parents got divorced and her dad died in a drunk driving accident a month later trying to cope with it all. Really messed up.
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