Teaching is tough. Yet the most brilliant teachers can remain professional when their students do or say something ridiculous. They can transform the most boring class into the most memorable with their witty sense of humor. Here are some of the funniest things students have caught their teachers saying in complete seriousness that are roll-on-the-floor hilarious.
1. Not A Smart Cookie
My astronomy professor had a slideshow about the creation of the universe—at point 0001 seconds this happened, at point 001 seconds, and so on. On the last slide, it said, “Billions of years later, an intelligent species evolved and started asking questions". I still laugh when I think of what happened next.
A girl named Cookie raised her hand and asked, "Are we the intelligent species”?
And the professor, without missing a beat, replied, "Apparently not".
2. Disgusting Smell
My social studies teacher walked into class the day after a huge test that he had prepared for us for the past two weeks. He threw his briefcase on his desk, looked up at the class and opened with, "Class, I was on my way home last night and there was this horrible stench coming from the back seat of my car. When I got home, I looked in the back seat and noticed this disgusting smell coming from my briefcase. So I opened it. It was your test papers. Not a single person passed the test".
Everyone had this surprised look on their face. I just started laughing.
3. Coolest Professor Ever
In my first semester of college, I was taking an English class that started at 10 am on a Monday. At 10:15 am, the entire class was sitting there wondering where the professor was. I’ll never forget what happened next.
Suddenly, someone said, “Where the heck is this guy? This is rubbish”! He then stormed out of the classroom. Two minutes later, the same guy walked back in and started teaching the class. The class started rolling. He ended up being one of the coolest professors of all time.
4. I'm Such An Idiot
On the first day of ninth grade, English class, the teacher, Miss Singley, was singing the praises of Henry David Thoreau—who she was probably old enough to have known in school. At some point, she said, "Another interesting antidote about Thoreau is"...
I do not remember the anecdote. I do remember her misuse of the word antidote. Being an idiot, I raised my hand and said, "I think you mean 'anecdote'".
Her reaction was terrifying. She fixed me with her cold, lizard-like eyes and said, frostily, "Antidote is an alternate pronunciation of anecdote", and continued on with her story.
Now, I have an eidetic memory for words, pronunciations, spellings, and definitions. "Antidote" is not an alternative to "anecdote". They're two completely different words.
The intelligent child would have left it at that and not mentioned it again. As I say, I was an idiot. I went home that night and looked up the definitions for both words. I then wrote them up nicely in paper and presented them to Miss Singley the next day.
She never gave me better than a B+ in English for the rest of my high school career. The grouch carried a grudge.
5. Such An Imbecile
My physics teacher had a grudge against me for some reason. Anyway, one day he decided to tell us how badly we did on the mock test that he gave us—four weeks before the finals. He hadn't taught us half of the course yet so we all did pretty badly.
When he called me up to the front of the class to collect my paper, he decided to tell the whole class what my grade was. Apparently, I had answered question four, which he specifically told us not to answer since he hadn't taught us the unit on radiation yet. Question four was all about radiation.
He then went on and on about how stupid I was and how I possibly think that I knew what I was talking about. He finally turned to me and said, "What have you got to say about yourself"? But I wasn’t about to let him get away with it.
I then replied, "Show me exactly where I went wrong in question four then".
He shuffled through the paper trying to find it but couldn't. He then paused for a second, handed me the paper, and said, "Sit down".
Then this teacher who everyone was afraid of, turned bright red in the face, and the whole class started laughing at him. He actually made some excuse and went out the back for five minutes before facing us again.
6. Don't Take This Personally
Years ago, I had a calculus professor who was normally a happy-go-lucky guy. One day, he came into class and suddenly started ranting.
"You know what, dang you people. You can all go fly a kite and kiss my derriere. Dang you, dang you, and dang you. Screw every last one of you here"!
After sitting down at his desk for a minute with the class in stunned silence, he looked up and smiled, "Oh about that, I'm sorry. Don't take that personally. You see this little piece of paper in my hand? Well, it's a letter informing me I now have tenure which means it's bloody near impossible for them to fire me. I promised myself the day it happened I would chew out the first class I had".
7. Classy Response
I visited my professor after he had life-threatening colon cancer surgery where half of his colon was removed. When I asked how he was doing, his answer was seriously hilarious.
He responded, “You know what they say, “It's better to have a semi-colon than a full stop".
Classy.
8. Shouldn't Have Done That
Upon realizing that he had given us a question on our midterm that we couldn't possibly have answered, my professor said: "Wow! So I guess I shouldn't have done that, huh? You couldn't have gotten that problem"!
He then proceeded on with his lecture...
9. Apples To Apples
In a molecular biology class last week, the professor started discussing a particular experiment that involved comparing live primate brains to those of recently deceased humans.
It was a fairly grisly subject matter as it was—but then he made it so much worse. He said: "Now, ideally you'd want to compare apples with apples by harvesting live human brain tissue under the exact same conditions as the primate tissue. 60 years ago in Germany, this wouldn't have been a problem, but here and now it presents some difficulties".
It took him a good two minutes for him to notice the German student at the back of the room blushing furiously. Impressive, considering it was his own grad student.
10. I Have Arrived
One of our department chairs is from Nigeria and I swear he has the best stories. He's tenured so his classes are pretty much: "You listen to my stories and laugh, you get an A".
He was telling the class about being careful with spell check when writing documents in Word.
He said, "Microsoft Word always tries to correct my name, Festus, and says it's Fetus. But no, no, no, no. I am not a fetus. I have arrived"!
I swear the whole class lost it for 20 mins and we ended up leaving early because everyone was in stitches.
11. Life's Too Short
My philosophy teacher in high school, Dr K, would always make the class watch 300 in the first week. He rationalized this by saying that it shows the start of Western civilization when Leonidas defied the gods, as well as fatalism, and used reason. In the end, the leader of the Spartan army says it is time to "end mysticism and tyranny".
Anyway, between the scenes he wanted to show were the brief intimacy scenes. Someone alerted him that we should skip those. He would fumble with the controls—he was quite technologically challenged. Finally, after not being able to get it to fast forward, he made it play in slow motion. He still couldn't figure out how to skip, so he just said, “Ah screw it, life is short, let's just watch".
12. Science Rules
We were learning basic kinematics in our physics class. On the board, the professor wrote an example involving a guy driving his car off a cliff. He then turned to us and said, "You see, in other fields—psychology, sociology, we would be asking 'What has driven this man to this?', 'Why has society left this man behind?' In physics, however, we just want to know when his body hits the ground".
13. Don't Pause
My professor likes to tell personal stories during lectures and one of them came up when he was talking about stupidity. That’s when he put his foot in his mouth.
He said, "Some people are stupid—for example, my wife—". The intention was not to call his wife stupid but the people his wife worked with. Pauses in speaking can really make presentations interesting.
14. This Ain't Brain Surgery
The physics professor was explaining orbital dynamics and gravitation calculations on the board. When he finished, he looked at the class and asked, "Are there any questions? Does everyone understand this"?
One girl piped up and we all chimed in asking if he could do it again. He looked at us and said, "C'mon guys, this isn't rocket science"!
He then glanced at the board and said, "Oh wait—yes it is”.
15. Hideous Comment
When I was 20, I decided to shave my head (I'm female). It was in the middle of fall semester. When I walked into my World History class, my professor’s reaction was horrifying. He took one look at me and said, "Wow, that's a great form of birth control".
He was a hideous jerk.
16. Faulty Demo
In the chemistry lab, the professor was running a demo and was trying to light a candle that was slightly wet. She mumbled under her breath, "It's like trying to light a wet joint—".
17. Let's Play Ball
My high school math teacher once took a pair of juggling balls out of his desk drawer and proceeded to massage them as he taught for the rest of the period.
Right when the bell rang, he made a hilarious mistake. He said, "And remember, today is my after-school day. If you come by, I'll let you play with my balls".
18. Priceless Metaphor
My film history professor was hilarious. One day, the class TA/projectionist was off sick, and my professor said, "A day without him is like a day—without barbiturates".
He could just deadpan a line like nothing else.
19. In The Midst Of It All
During the middle of our final exam, there was a small earthquake. Without missing a beat, the teacher said, "Don't stop writing. You're not leaving this room even if the roof collapses".
Needless to say, we were all busting up about his comment in the midst of an earthquake during the final.
20. Just One Look
The professor entered the classroom and opened his briefcase. He closed it and opened it again. He looked around and said: "I cannot teach a classroom full of vegetables".
He closed his briefcase and left. Hard to believe, I know.
21. What's In A Name?
I had a professor named Dr Carrie Donald. On the first day of class, she said, "You can call me Dr Donald, Dr Carrie, or Miss Donald but not Miss Carrie because it sounds like an abortion".
I got a kick out of it.
22. What Would You Do?
During our high school senior year, my friends and I were deciding what our senior prank should be. We were thinking about putting a medium-sized boat in the quad of the school.
A friend asked our professor, "What would you do if you came into school and saw a boat in the quad"? His brutal honesty was legendary.
The teacher, Mr Hand, immediately replied, "I'd go back to the bar I just crawled out of".
23. Best Come Back
My high school Horticulture teacher had drawn a cross-section of a root tip on the whiteboard. It was quite big and resembled a part of the female anatomy.
A pranking student ran up to the board before class started and drew legs on it, to complete it. It stayed up there the entire class. When she finally noticed it, her reaction was unforgettable. She turned around with a straight face and said to the whole class, "That's more action than you'll get for years".
The class rolled on the floor with laughter right then and there.
24. What A Show Off
My high school chemistry teacher was a great teacher, though a BIG SHOWOFF.
One day in the lab, he was demonstrating liquid nitrogen. He put bread into the liquid until it froze and ate the bread with his teeth exposed. Every bite released a diffusion of vapor which was freaking sweet.
He then got the idea to knock over his Styrofoam cup containing the liquid nitrogen, and faked freaking out about it as it spilled on the floor.
The girls in the class screamed. Everyone jumped back. He laughed, with his head back and hands on his stomach.
"You cowards. It was vapor before it hit the floor"!
25. A Stupid Question
This was in first grade, and there was a stupid question on a science worksheet, something to the effect of "Why is Earth a good planet"? Being a first grader, I wrote, "It's pretty and everyone wants to live here".
The teacher called me up to her desk and said, "That's actually not true, Josh. Not everyone wants to live on Earth. Some people want to live on Jupiter, for example".
I remember giving her a weird look before sitting back down. I thought about that for the rest of the day. Even now, 25 years later, I still think about what she said and wonder if she was part of some alien-worshiping cult that's waiting on the mothership to come and take them all away to Jupiter.
26. If You Ask Such A Question
About two weeks into our chemistry class with about 400 students, the professor randomly opened a class by saying: "Students! There is one question that you might ask me that I can't abide, and that is this: 'Professor, I didn't make it to the last class. Did I miss anything important?'”
“If you ask such a question, I will give you one of two answers: 'Yes. Five minutes into the class, a bright light emanated from the ceiling. The room was filled with the beautiful sound of eunuchs, and all knowledge was revealed. Or: No. When we realized you were gone, we all sat quietly with our hands folded, awaiting your return'”.
27. Can You Hear Me?
On the first day of class, my philosophy professor, who was in his 60s and sounded a little like Jack Nicholson, stood at the lectern of a medium-sized lecture hall. There were a bunch of students scattered across the hall, as is typical, with several in the back row. I’ll never forget what he did that day.
He leaned forward, and asked in his normal voice, "Can everyone hear me"?
A bunch of people in the back said, "No".
He stayed where he was, and without having raised his voice, asked again, "Can you hear me now"?
"No".
"How about now"?
"No, I still can't hear you".
"Well, maybe you should get the heck up out of your seats and move down a few rows"!
28. What's So Funny?
My strength of materials professor was talking about the concept of a moment, where the longer the wrench is, the less force you would need to achieve a given torque to tighten a nut.
He went on to say, "You have to be careful about using too much torque, because you might bust that nut".
He couldn't understand why everyone was laughing so hard.
29. Roll Call Wisecrack
My professor was this old Polish guy who didn't care about anything. He was taking attendance on the first day: "Patel, Anish...Patel, Jay...Patel, Gurjeet—dang, it's like we have the entire Indian army in here"!
30. Little For The Imagination
In the mid-60s, miniskirts were the rage—no bras and wearing skirts that when seated left little to the imagination. On the first day of history class, the professor entered the amphitheater and wrote the obligatory material on the chalkboard. He turned to take attendance, looked up, then down quickly, and said loudly, "Would all of you young ladies please cross your legs".
I cracked up and there were the sounds of feet moving, skirts tugging, etc...and then silence.
He looked up again and said calmly, "Now that the Gates of Hades are closed, I will continue my lecture". I fell on the floor, I was laughing so hard.
31. Off By A Bit
The calculus professor was handing back our tests, which was a particularly bad one since the class average was well below 35%.
After calling our name, he made us go up to the front to collect our test. Meanwhile, he kept going on and on about how poorly we all did.
When he called my friend's name, who was seated at the very back of the class, the professor stopped his ranting and stated proudly, "This man would have had an 11 out of 10"!
As my friend reached for his test, with the slightest glimmer of hope in his eyes, the professor handed him the paper and yelled, "BUT HE WAS OFF BY A FACTOR OF 10"!
32. That's Not What I Meant
My professor was talking about not paying taxes for doing odd jobs like shoveling driveways or babysitting, and I realized he meant to say "pointing a finger at—" but he made a hilarious mistake. Instead, he said something like: "You don't see the government going around fingering every 10-year old mowing a lawn"!
33. Colorful Prof
My prof was a little off the wall. He even had a nervous tick. One day, he filled up the entire whiteboard with notes and just said "Dang"!
He walked out the door, down the hall to another room. When he returned to the whiteboard, he simply picked up a different colored marker and continued lecturing and writing over top of the notes he already had.
34. Never Again
One of my English profs was also a trained operatic tenor.
One day he was annoyed that his seminar class was asleep. So he jumped up onto the table and belted out the national anthem.
This happened a year or two before I took the same course from him, but no one, and I mean no one, dared to sleep in his class.
35. Great Remark
My philosophy professor told a story of a student who once asked, “Isn't philosophy just a bunch of men sitting around smoking weed"? The professor’s response was legendary.
He told the student: “No. There are women too".
Laughter ensued.
36. Smart Granny
Our materials teacher would often say, "Oh, that's easy, even my grandmother could do that", to every calculation problem we encountered.
He would go on and on during the semester with this statement. Only at the end of the semester did we learn that his grandmother had a master's degree in astrophysics.
37. We Have A Problem
Our math professor caught two football players cheating off of each other. Apparently, they copied each other’s' exams to the letter! The problem was that they were both first-string football players in a D1 school who both failed the exam terribly.
The next day, as the professor handed back all the exams he said to the class that "If you didn't get an exam back, come to the front after class is over".
When the class ended, the two players walked to the front of the room to see our wild-eyed professor. Without a single ounce of hesitation, the professor spun the two tests around in front of them and asked, "Okay, now which one of you is the cheater and which one is stupid"?
He failed them both. Shockingly, they both went on to graduate from college and play pro.
38. Quiet, Please
A friend and I were chatting in the back of the lecture hall during our morning physics class. A few people scattered among the room were nodding off. The professor yelled to us: "Can you guys be quiet back there? People are trying to sleep".
39. I Love It
Before class, my animation professor was talking to a few students about how he used to live in Brazil. He was talking about this brand of cookie they have there called Crotch (I'm not sure of the correct spelling). This got a giggle out of the whole class but then someone asked, "Did they taste good"?
The professor replied, "Heck yeah, they were great! I love Crotch"!
It took him a second to realize why we were all laughing—particularly this kid in the front row who seemed to be losing his mind. Then he turned bright pink and laughed too.
40. Land Of The Free
My general physics professor was a pretty funny British guy. While referring to a picture in our textbook of what looked like people riding on bananas, he had his most ridiculous moment.
He said, "What! No one has done it? But this is America, the land of the free. If you were to ask people in Britain—where everyone's miserable, how many people had inflated a giant banana and ridden it while being towed at frightening speeds, they would say, 'no, it looks like too much fun'! But this is America! If this class was longer and we were on the semester system, then I would require that everyone do this before I graded your final".
41. In Order To Graduate
Our professor was expressing the importance of coming to class to demonstrate our final project to the class. It was a group project and there was a project fair the day after but our grade was based on the performance in class.
"You must come in to show your final project. If you do not come in, you will not pass this class. If you do not pass this class, you will not graduate. If you are deceased, have your lab partner bring in your body and lay you on the floor. You'll get a B-plus".
42. Time To Go
It was a very hot summer's day and our professor had been explaining a complicated theorem for hours. Suddenly, he stopped teaching, raised an eyebrow, and said in a serious voice,
"You know, I recognize that I'm boring my class when I notice some of you constantly looking at your watches. But when you actually see people knocking their watches and bringing them to their ears you know it's time to quit. Class is dismissed".
Everyone roared.
43. Joke's On You
In high school, my chemistry teacher was prepping the class for the final. He told us that it would be multiple choice, so due to probability, even a monkey filling it out would get 25% correct.
In an effort to make us feel more comfortable, he told the entire class that if we managed to score above a 25 we would at least beat the monkey. Of course, we all snickered a little. He did not get the euphemism, but instead thought it was a witty inspirational tagline, so he continued. He said, "You can go home and say, 'Mom, I beat the monkey'"!
At this, we all erupted in laughter, which only encouraged him to keep going. He spent the last 10 minutes of class repeating the phrase "Beat the monkey", in various ways.
We were all still laughing as we went to our next classes. My economics teacher asked what was so funny, and we told him. He then had to go and tell the poor, old chemistry teacher what it meant right as he was already trying out his new joke on the next class.
44. Hilariously Clueless
In my herpetology class, my professor started talking about a turtle called the eastern river cooter. He had no idea what he was walking into. This led to statements such as, "I have a lot of experience with cooters” and "I have seen some cooters that are just massive" and my favorite, "I have actually eaten cooter on multiple occasions".
He was not trying to make a joke and had no clue what he was saying. Everyone in the class, however, was red in the face from trying not to laugh out loud.
45. She Said That
In our high school biology class, we were talking about pollen, and how it was essentially flower sperm. All of the guys in the class start giggling and cracking jokes. Our teacher then said, "Yep, when that sperm gets all over me I just start swelling up"!
46. Science Is Cool
Our high school chemistry teacher was awesome. He was a slightly crotchety middle-aged guy who always listened to Depeche Mode/Gary Numan/New Order-type of music, and frequently used his home micro-brewing as an example in problems.
Anyway, we were going over lab safety, when someone quipped, "Don't drop acid". The whole class snickered. Then the teacher replied, "Unless you're with a trusted trip sitter". Silence.
47. Don't Mess With Her
I went to a small art school. The English professor, who actually spoke English as a second language, was promoted to dean but she finished off the semester teaching the classes she had.
I can't remember what it was about but some student had a disagreement with her at one point and she said, "Don't like it? Take it up with the dean".
48. The Most Boring Thing
During my freshman year of college, I was part of a year-long humanities class. At the beginning of the year, as an icebreaker, we each had to go around the room and state the most boring fact we had about ourselves.
At the beginning of the second semester, one girl asked if we were going to get to say boring things about ourselves again. The professor responded, "Laura, the most boring thing about you is everything you said in class last semester".
49. Smart-Aleck
I used to have a high school physics teacher infamous for getting off on tangents about absolutely nothing.
One day he got off on a tangent about how his neighbor's house was twice as big as it should have been, ending his spiel with "If you don't use it, cut it off"!, to which I replied to a deathly silent room, "Uh oh".
Later, in the same class, he was arguing with another student about an answer, and the student was actually right. So, as he turned and examined his blackboard. He took a breath to say something, realized he was wrong, and just said: "...Oh". I then said, "That was a little anticlimactic there sir", to which he replied, "...and how would you know what a climax is"?
50. That Was Hilarious
The professor was writing things on the board and made a mistake. Someone in the class shouted the correction, then others started shouting wrong corrections to confuse the professor. After a moment, he corrected the board, then turned to the class and said: "Forget it. I have a PhD".
The entire auditorium burst out laughing.
51. Now There's A Strategy
My trigonometry professor is both insane and hilarious. Imagine this being said in a bored, slow, monotone voice: "Negative numbers have always been segregated; they always have to ride at the back of the bus, and only positive numbers get the good scholarships. It's only recently that they've come up with a strategy for garnering civil rights. Hey, let's just multiply with each other, then no one will know the difference”!
52. Take That!
I had a high school teacher who kept a rock on his desk as a paperweight. This one girl in my class was always rude to him. One day, he couldn't take it anymore. He picked up the rock, and threw it directly into her forehead. It simply bounced off harmlessly and landed on her desk as she gaped in astonishment with the rest of the class.
It was a foam rock that looked 100% real. The class burst into laughter.
53. Shattered Illusions
When I was approximately 7 years old, I had a teacher who was literally 300 years old. She was a crotchety old bag who didn't appear to know ANYTHING AT ALL. So I was not surprised—and frankly outraged, when she said, "The moon is just a shadow of the Earth".
My hand shot up in the air. She sighed audibly and allowed me to speak.
"But miss”!! I said in all my precocious 7-year-old glory, "Neil Armstrong has WALKED on the moon?!?! It CAN'T be just a shadow of the earth”!!!
The 300-year-old teacher pursed her lips. "You walk on your shadow in the playground, don't you"?
I could not contain my consternation. "But…but…that's STUPID"!
I was sent out of the lesson and told to sit on the stairs. But this was the first time I realized that actually, adults are just as dumb—sometimes more so, than kids.
54. I Have Good News
We were eagerly waiting for the professor to arrive with our test grades. When the professor finally came into the room, he said that he had good news. We had no idea what we were in for.
Everyone was elated—but then he said, "I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to GEICO"!
55. Prank's On You
I was once in a giant biology lecture with about 1,200 students, when a guy, clearly part of a frat prank, stood up and went into the aisle and raised his hand while holding his crotch with the other. The prof, a nationally known environmental researcher, with a mean sense of humor, stopped the lecture and asked the young man what he wanted. The dude said he had to pee really badly and kept acting like he had to do so. The prof said, "Well"? Thinking for a second that he might have been serious, but the kid didn't move. The prof stared at him for a bit, waiting. The kid repeated the plea, sounding more desperate.
So, the prof walks off the stage and down the aisle until he's face-to-face with the kid, who now looks like he's not sure what to do. Meanwhile, his future frat brothers are in the back row, and just losing it. The kid is sold out on milking this, though, and obviously, the only thing he's allowed to say is that he has to pee. So the prof looks him straight in the eye. What he said was jaw-dropping.
He told the guy: "Do it! Whip it out and go or wee yourself right here, or get the heck out of my lecture. Coward".
The kid just bolts out of the auditorium at top speed, and his “brothers” follow soon after.
The prof goes back to the stage and says, "If he was really serious about the prank, he would have done it. I would have".
Sources: Reddit,
