Being a teacher is a tough job even at the best of times. But what happens when kids decide to bring weird and unusual objects to class? Well, let's just say that class quickly turns into an awkward situation. Here are 50 stories of some of the zaniest, most confusing, and most bizarre items that teachers have ever had to take away from their students.
1. A Little Bag Of Wonders
Former teacher here. I wasn't part of the initial apprehension of the weird object in question, but I was part of the follow-up investigation. The weird thing in question was a bag of turtles. Yep. A kid caught a bunch of the little salmonella-filled Red-Eared sliders at a local pond on his way to school one day. We had a turtle black market at the school by noon, and by the end of the day, the principal had a dozen of them in a bowl in his office.
The kid got caught because a terrible smell was reported coming from his locker. The janitor opened it up and there was the bag of live turtles. The rest of the day was spent tracking down the ones that had already been sold or had escaped into the hallways of the building. For the record, I have personally owned a few reptiles as pets over the years.
To my knowledge, small (under four inches) Red-Eared sliders have been illegal in the pet trade for quite some time due to having a serious risk of salmonella in their skin. All of the turtles that were brought to school were under four inches. The principal released the turtles back into the pond that evening. Also, for the record, these kids were in middle school.
The one that caught the turtles was a seventh-grader. And, funny enough, that wasn’t even the most ridiculous business venture that we had going on in that grade. The best one was when a different kid, who walked to school every day, would stop along the way and buy about ten to fifteen Monster energy drinks from a convenience store in the morning and sell them at school.
That kid banked. The operation was eventually shut down by the school, though. I wish I knew what that kid was up to these days. He was one smart cookie.
2. The Eye Of The Storm
The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a student is eyeballs. I once worked with a blind student who had autism. When he would get angry, he would pop out his glass eyeballs and throw them across the room in anger. They were very expensive, so his mom asked that we put them in a plastic bag in his backpack if he threw them. No more eyeballs for you today!
3. Snack Time
I’m a student-teacher. I was sitting in on an "intimate" education lecture for a class of fifth-graders as part of my senior year credits. Throughout the presentation, all of the normal things happened. People giggled at the words for their "stuff" every time they were mentioned. The class bully claimed he had slept with girls every day, three times a day. But things quickly got even more ridiculous.
At the end of our presentations, we usually handed out small sticks of deodorant. You know, because this is the age where kids really start to smell. We explain what it is for and how to use it. But before we could even start, I see a kid in the back open it up, extend the entire stick, and take a huge bite out of it.
We immediately had to take it away from him. He started crying and they had to send him home for the day. Apparently, he thought the deodorant was ice cream or candy or something. The parents were not happy and even threatened to press charges against the school for handing out poisons in class that the kid could eat. This wasn’t my last presentation in that class, but it sure was the most entertaining one!!
4. This Would Really Bug Me
One afternoon, my class apparently just decided that they should see how many bugs they could capture and keep alive inside the back of my classroom. The next day, I returned from covering lunch duty in another part of the school and noticed that one of the cubbies had some paper towel taped over the front of it like a curtain.
Before I could investigate, I noticed several Tupperware containers hiding in desks. I then opened the cubby curtain and made a horrific discovery: dozens of worms, many assorted beetles, an uncounted number of ants, four bees, a wasp, and, most upsetting of all, several flies which were crazy glued to index cards and had their wings removed.
Yep, the weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a student of mine was an entire menagerie of live insects. That was a long day within an already long year.
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5. Mixing Things Up
The weirdest thing that I have ever had to take away from a student in one of my classes was a package of instant pudding. My student was mixing it in a large Cool Whip container, using milk from the lunchroom, right in the middle of a lesson on Macbeth. Now, I’m not against students eating or drinking a little bit during class, but this was ridiculous.
6. Sounds Like It Was No Picnic
The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a student during class was a whole salami. The kid kept walking over to his backpack and sticking his face in to take secret bites out of it, thinking that I wouldn’t notice. Let’s just say I did notice. I think everyone else in the room noticed as well. It’s a lot harder to hide biting a salami out of a backpack than this kid seems to have thought...
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7. Money (That’s What He Wants)
There was a boy in my seventh grade class that I was explicitly told was not allowed to have coins in his possession at any time, because he’d apparently always try to eat them. As you can guess, he very frequently did show up to my class with coins in his hand. And, as you can probably also guess, I always had to awkwardly take them away from him.
8. Spider-Man, Does Whatever A Spider Can
This is my brother’s story, and he was the kid in it. The awkward thing that his teacher took away from him was a sandwich bag full of live spiders. He collected them during recess, and one of the monitors probably got freaked out by it. He really loved that bag of spiders, though. And when the teacher took it away from him, he was not a happy camper, to say that least.
9. A Nutty Thing To Do
The first thing that comes to mind for me when I’m asked about the weird and crazy stuff that I’ve had to take away from students in class is a drawing of a peanut. One kid in my class had said that he had a peanut allergy, so another boy drew a picture of peanut on a piece of paper, and started shoving the paper into the other boy's face and saying it would destroy him. Kids are weird.
10. The Color Purple
In middle school, we had a special currency that they'd hand out to students for helping out or being kind. The students could then use that currency and be able to be used to buy books or other small trinkets at school events. Somehow, during the year, I obtained a bunch of dental plaque pills. They turn the plaque on your teeth a certain color to help you brush your teeth I guess.
In this case, the color was a dark purple, and I didn't brush my teeth very well at the time, so taking one would make my entire mouth a deep purple color. I thought I'd freak out my school friends by showing off my purple teeth. They all thought it was really cool and wanted to know how I did it. So, I brought some more pills the next day and gave a couple out to friends who then showed other kids and told them that I can make their mouths turn purple too.
So, the next day, I brought all my plaque pills to school and started charging a dollar in school currency per pill. Sometimes, if a kid didn't have any money, I'd make them give me whatever cool stuff they had that I needed. This usually meant stuff like keychains, pencil sharpeners, or whatever they were willing to trade.
And, of course, all these other middle schoolers didn't do a good job of brushing their teeth either, so every kid I sold a pill to ended up with a dark purple color coating their entire mouth. Well, a bunch of kids’ mouths turning purple was quickly noticed by multiple staff members. Who would've guessed! Apparently, I went to school with a bunch of little narcs, because I very quickly found myself in the principal's office.
They took away all my pills, my school money, and most of the other items that they were able to prove didn't belong to me. Even though I had traded the items fair and square. The principal was livid. All I remember of the end result was waiting in the office and getting yelled at by the principal while I zoned out and imagined all the ways I was going to get my butt beat when my dad eventually came to pick me up and this angry principal told him all about my little operation.
But miraculously, some lady came out of a room saying "Hey Principal, your meeting is starting right now and we can't wait any longer". The Principal looked frustrated but told me that they would be right back and that I was still in a lot of trouble. And as soon as they walked into another room, my dad walked in and asked if I was ready to go. To which was answered with a very hasty "yup".
The rest of the year felt like some weird twilight zone. None of the other kids mentioned it again. Dad never mentioned it. Staff never mentioned it. Never talked to the principal again, and made sure to avoid them like the plague. I NEVER GOT IN TROUBLE. And I will never understand how that was possible. Now I just sell dangerous substances like a responsible adult.
11. It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a kid during class was a bunch of Christmas tree ornaments. These kids were throwing them at each other, and it eventually caused a big and nasty fight. As soon as I saw what was happening, I obviously had to intervene and take all the objects away from them. I look back on it and I'm like a Christmas ornament fight? Really?
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12. Biting Off More Than He Could Chew
Not the teacher, but I had a kid in my class that would collect used chewing gum from under the table and form all the pieces into a giant gross ball. During the lesson, he would suck and chew on the ball and roll it all over the desk. My teacher eventually had enough of this and threw the thing in the trash. The kid then cried. After the lesson, the kid got the ball out of the trash and chewed on it again…
13. Playing It Cool
The weirdest thing that I have ever had to take away from a kid in one of my classes was a little drink cooler that looked like a Capri Sun. I realized based on some of the conversations I overheard that the kids had snuck a drink into it that was definitely not appropriate for children, so I immediately took it away. This was a second grader, and she was just getting ready to drink it when I came in and stopped it from happening.
14. There’s A Mouse In The House
I once had to take a small trinket box away from a kid. It was about palm-sized and was decorated with gems and glitter. It also had a live mouse inside it. The mouse was named Jimmy and had been caught in the child’s house. So he secretly hid it inside the box and brought it to school to show off to everyone. Needless to say, I took it away as soon as I realized what was going on.
15. What’s For Dessert
My sister's teacher once had to call my dad up about a suspicious powder that my sister had been eating out of an unmarked bag at school. Obviously, the teacher became very concerned and took the entire bag away from her as soon as she saw that this was happening. Then we found out the truth. As it turns out, my sister was just dipping her finger in a bag of powdered Jello-O and eating it, as well as letting other kids do the same.
16. Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen
The weirdest and scariest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a kid at my school was a chef's knife. I have no idea why the kid had brought it to school and I was terrified in approaching him and asking to take it away. He had it stuffed in the waistband of his sweatpants. He was also clearly wearing no underwear, just to make things even more awkward. This was all during a major snowstorm, too.
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17. Born With A Silver Spoon In Her Mouth
This one girl at the school where I work had about 50 plastic spoons in her pocket. At one point, she tripped and they all fell out. We all found it hilarious, but a high up teacher was walking by at the time and made her pick them up all up. She was going to anyway. Then, he took them away from her and put them all back in the bin. He was probably very confused over the whole situation.
18. There’s More Where That Came From!
I’m technically not a teacher, but I work in a classroom at a school as an educational assistant, so I think this story still counts. The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a kid in class was plastic spoons. HUNDREDS OF THEM. I still don't know why, but one kid in my grade five class came to school with his backpack stuffed full of them.
Nothing else was in his backpack at all, not even his lunch. He hung it on the back of the chair, then pulled out a spoon and began fiddling around with it instead of doing his work. So I took the spoon away. Ten minutes later, he had another one in his hand. I took that one away too. Ten more minutes pass, and a third one appears. That time, the official teacher took it away from him.
Ten minutes later, you guessed it. Another spoon. I think you can see the pattern here. I finally opened his backpack when I saw him grab the sixth or seventh spoon, and I was stunned by what I saw: the bag was completely full of them. Obviously, the teacher had to call the kid’s home since he had come to school with no lunch. His mom comes in, looks at him with just utter resignation, and simply goes "Why?" as she hands him his lunch.
He shrugged, grinned, and walked back to class. His mom is clearly used to this kind of thing and has learned to just go with the flow with him.
19. How Green Was My Classroom
The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a student was a giant head of fresh lettuce that just suddenly appeared on a kid’s desk in the middle of class one day. Where did he get it? I have absolutely no idea. I have never been able to get a straight answer to this question, even though I have tried very hard.
20. They’ve Got It In The Bag
The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a student in one of my classes was a pile of zip lock bags, all filled to the brim with water. Filling bags up with water was a trend for a while at my school. Kids would claim they needed them in case they got thirsty, but usually would just try to pop them in each other's laps in the middle of class, thinking they were being funny.
21. Teacher Of The Year
I’ve had to take away so many ridiculous things from students over the years. When I was student teaching, I had to take away a live tarantula and a newborn rat. Separate times, but both from the same student. Then, during my first full year, I had to take away a jar of a kid’s boogers that he had been saving from a bet with his friend that, “He wouldn’t fill the jar”. Even thinking about it makes me wanna hurl.
Sixth graders are really something! Then, in my second full year, it was the first day of school for a new student. His behavior seemed shifty during our class period, but I thought it was just general nervousness. Well, during lunch, someone set off a homemade explosive in a lunch trash can. Fifth period comes and, though the kids all saw who did it, they did not want to be a “snitch”.
So, we start opening up backpacks to search. Eventually, we got to the new kid’s backpack and found the two other explosive devices that he was hiding for later use. Then, in my third year, I had to take away a jar of mayo that a kid kept eating with his hands in class. I am now currently in my fourth full year. But ya know, distanced learning, so no new stories to report of taking stuff away.
22. Wrong Time, Wrong Place
I’m not a teacher myself, but a friend of mine who is a teacher recently told me this story. She apparently once had to take a letter away from a kid in her class. The letter was written to his other friend, who was also in the class, telling him about how he had inappropriately relieved himself in class without anyone knowing. Every interaction they have is extremely awkward now...
23. When The Parents Are The Problem
I’m not a teacher, but I was part of almost eliminating the "prize" box in my kid’s class. This kid is in kindergarten. I'm friends with a few of the other fathers in her class. One of the things her class has is a prize box. If the kids are all on their game for the week, or if a kid does something especially good, they get to choose something from the box as a prize.
It’s filled with the kind of stuff you would find in a blister pack in the dollar store. Stuff like a little plastic car, or a bouncy ball, or whatever. Anyway, the kids love it, and the parents often supply stuff for it. So one day, my kid comes home with a freaking kazoo from the thing. Nothing like a six-year-old who just figured out how a kazoo works while you are trying to work from home!
So I immediately fired off an email to the list of my fellow dads, asking what wise guy put kazoos in the prize box. I then see that two other people had already beat me to the question. One of the guys finally replies back: "Haha!" And with that, the battle was on. I countered with whistles, someone else had this annoying popping thing, and someone else got the world’s worst balsa planes.
So like, the second time it flew, it was destined to snap in half and upset your kid. This back and forth went on for something like a good two weeks before someone crossed the line and sent in glitter. By this point, the teacher had caught onto what we were up to, and told our wives on us. And that was the end of that little saga!
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24. Like Taking Candy From A Baby
The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a kid in school was a flavored rubber. And the kid that I was taking it away from was in kindergarten. This little boy comes into music class at 1:00 pm or so, after having been at school since 9:00 in the morning. He immediately says to me, “Look! I have a candy!” and he holds up the worst possible object: an unopened (thank god) strawberry-flavored rubber.
Trying not to cause a scene, I tell him, “Remember, we’re not going to eat in music class because it’s hard to sing with candy in our mouths!” I pointed out the pocket on his jean jacket with a snap button closure, and told him to put the candy in there. I made a mental note to tell my fellow teacher later. I always try to avoid losing control of a room of 20 energetic little toddlers.
So the kid puts the item in his pocket, and I start music class. Later on, I see him putting something in his mouth. I shout: “Put that back in your pocket for after school!” or something to that effect. Pretty sure food is scarce at home, so taking it away would have made a huge scene. The teacher comes at the end of the half-hour lesson and I discreetly tell her what’s going on, so she says she’ll handle it. Great.
After school, the middle-aged, male school guidance counselor comes up to me and says: “Thanks to you I’ve been walking around an elementary school all afternoon with a flavored rubber in my pocket”. Sorry, not sorry. By the way, just to make things more comically over the top, the wrapper had pictures of strawberries on it.
Also, I don’t know how many of you have ever tried to take candy away from a five-year-old, but it usually doesn’t go well. Especially if you take candy from a kid who doesn’t have a lot of food at home, and then let him see you put it in the garbage can right in front of him. It would have made a massive scene and the other 20 kids would have gone wild.
I chose to keep the problem as controlled as possible, so that’s why I handled it the way I did.
25. What Are You, Chicken?
The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a kid in one of my classes was an uncooked piece of chicken. Actually, two of them. The student had one in each pocket of his. Why? Where did he get them from? I have no idea. Your guess is as good as mine. But I’m pretty sure teachers aren’t supposed to let children play with uncooked chicken in the middle of their classes…
26. Kicking The Can Down The Road
The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a kid in school is a can of deodorant. You’re probably thinking “Eh, that’s not that weird!” Except for the fact that the two kids were using it by spraying it on the back of the other and then setting fire to the thing. In the middle of the class. They didn’t see any problem with it because “It only stays lit for a few seconds!”
27. Drinking The Heavy Stuff
A kid at the school where I work brought some blue Gatorade in a Windex bottle to lunch period on April Fool’s Day. It was a pretty funny thing to do, in all honesty, but we had to take it away from him so that the younger kids wouldn't see it and think it was real.
28. Bird Man
I’m not a teacher, but back when I was in third grade, the teacher had to confiscate all the origami cranes in the room because one kid decided to make and sell them at a quarter apiece. He got caught when he started selling on the playground. I thought it was messed up that we all had to give up all the paper cranes in our desks, but we didn't get our quarters back! I named mine Swan and was very sad to see her go.
29. You Dirty Rat!
I’m not a teacher myself, but I do have a story to answer this question. My third-grade teacher once had to confiscate a DECEASED RAT from a kid in my class. I, to this day, have no idea where the kid got it from or why on earth he tried to bring it to school. It was definitely one of the grossest experiences of my childhood, and I do not feel sorry that he got it taken away!
30. Wardrobe Malfunction
The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a student during class is a pair of panties. They had fallen out of a girl's gym bag during the previous class. When I came into the room after standing duty in the hall, three boys were flinging them back and forth across the room. Never a dull moment when you're a school teacher!
31. Sympathy For The Devil
During my student teaching, I once had to utter a sentence that I never imagined myself having to say in a million years. The sentence was, "Guys, what did I say about looking up satanic rituals during class?" They were a great group of kids, though. It was a group of four 8th graders who said they had created an occult detective agency and were "doing research" just in case.
My only complaint was that they were doing it during science class instead of actually doing their school work.
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32. Cleanup On Aisle One
I'm not a teacher, but I taught my friend in 8th grade how to make pipe cleaner caterpillars. Since our school was discarding hundreds of bags of pipe cleaners, she found them all, put them in her backpack, and made many of these caterpillars out of them. The only thing was that she had made around a thousand of them by the time our teacher realized.
The teacher tossed them in the garbage right away. But they had just changed the bag. So while the teacher wasn't looking, my friend grabbed them all and put them back in her desk.
33. It’s Getting Holy In Here
The weirdest thing that I have ever had to take away from a kid during one of my classes was a plastic statue of the Virgin Mary with its face melted off. It was so bizarre. I kept it in my desk for many years. I have no idea what purpose that thing was made for, or what purpose my student had it at school for. Being a teacher is weird sometimes, folks…
34. Say Cheese!
I once had to take a can of Cheese Whiz away from a kid in one of my classes. It was from a student visiting from another country, and she was enamored by the incredible canned cheese product she had discovered. So much so that she kept either opening her backpack to stare lovingly at it or taking it out during class to get some sweet, sweet cheesy goodness.
It was pretty cute actually, and I made sure she got her cheese product returned to her at the end of class. Man did she love Cheese Whiz!
35. Homecoming Gift
The weirdest (and scariest) thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a student in one of my classes was a homemade shiv. The kid’s dad had just gotten out of serving a sentence and had given the dangerous object to him, so he decided to bring it to school and show it off. I guess it was like a memento of sorts from his dad’s time behind bars.
Oh, but this story gets worse. I teach kindergarten.
36. What’s Up, Doc?
This one kid had a backpack full of baby rabbits. He had apparently found them in a field on the way to school that morning. They were so tiny and vulnerable. We both cried as I took the bag away.
37. Fanning The Flames
As a teacher, I've gotten this question many times over the years, so I have so much to say about it. Well, this is my freaking time to shine! My coworker and I had a mild prank feud going on. Somehow, the students caught wind and decided to instigate by swiping things from his room and taking them to mine and vice-versa. Here are some of the things I've had to take from them and return to him as a result of this situation.
His car keys. His entire desktop computer. Portraits of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Pumpkins from his Halloween decorations. His desk chair. His car keys again. A student’s desk from his classroom. His travel mug with his name on it. By this point, I was convinced that my coworker just didn't want his car
And somehow, on one occasion, in the five minutes between his class and mine, the kids managed to flip all the desks in his classroom upside down. I'm not making this up.
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38. Well, That Sucks!
I did a brief stint as a supply teacher back when I was in my early 20s. One day, I was at a school that I had never been to before, and there was a group of lads gathered around a table at the back of the room. They were generally not paying much attention to the lesson. I went to investigate and found that they were working on a full-blown diagram of how a male might go about sucking his own junk, calculated using complicated mathematical models and estimates to measure.
I confiscated it. For research purposes.
39. Whistle While You Work
I've told this story before on the internet, but it really fits here. One of our third-grade teachers had a little boy come to her desk first thing in the morning with an object in his mouth that he was blowing on to make a noise. He said something like "Look, Mrs. Smith, I found this really cool whistle in the wastebasket at home".
Mrs. Smith recognized the object. Oh my god, looking back I don't know how she didn't puke. It was an applicator for a product used for vaginal yeast infections. The children went to gym class soon after morning announcements, and Mrs. Smith noted that the object was left on his desk. She threw it away in the teacher's work room, and called his mother to let her know for the future, so that she could take more care with her trash.
40. Plot Twist
My mother was a primary school teacher. One day, many many years ago, she was working as a supply teacher filling in for an absent teacher. It was the late 80s and Casio watches were all the rage. Every hour, on the hour, many watches would sound a chime to signal the start of a new hour. My mother had been hearing chimes and alarms going off all day and she finally announced: “The next watch I hear beeping is coming home with me tonight”.
Moments later, a watch chimed. It was my brother’s…
41. This Calls For A Duel
A kid once brought a real pistol to school that I had assumed to be fake when I was taking it away. Thankfully, it was unloaded. More scary than weird, but I still felt like it was a story worth sharing. Can you imagine how horribly wrong that situation could have gone? It makes me shiver just to think about, even all these years later. It was probably the single most horrifying moment of my entire teaching career.
42. Pet Sounds
I’m not a teacher myself, but our vice principal once had to confiscate a lobster from us after we bought it to school as a birthday gift for a friend. For those wondering, yes. It was a live lobster. We wrapped it in a box with some holes poked in it. When we presented it to him during the day’s first break, he just heard something scratching inside it and asked "What the heck is this?"
It wasn’t long before we got caught, and our new friend got taken away.
43. He Didn’t Even Try To Hide It!
This story is completely ridiculous, but it really happened and there was no way in heck that I could see this question being asked and not immediately volunteer to answer it. Brace yourselves. I once had to take a laptop computer away from a kid in one of my classes because he very clearly had two Google tabs open. His search terms were equal parts humiliating, baffling, and disturbing. He wanted to find "pokemon adult videos".
This was in the middle of class, and totally in plain view of everyone in the room. Including myself. Had this kid no shame? One of the tabs was open to a regular Google search for that, and the other one was open to an images search. Buddy, you can look up whatever you want in your spare time, but that is totally inappropriate for a classroom.
Not to mention that I could never have taken myself seriously again as a teacher if I had allowed that to go unpunished with the entire class of giggling teenagers having seen it open on your computer. My authority and control over the classroom would have immediately been gone for the rest of the year, with no hope of ever coming back to me.
Taking a computer away isn't super weird in and of itself. In fact, it’s been a fairly common occurrence in my personal experience on the job. But that particular reason for needing to take one away from a kid has definitely stuck with me for a while, to say the least! I wonder where that young man is today and how his life has gone since he was in school. Maybe he’s still a fan of Pokemon, too!
44. Making Beautiful Music Together
Not me, but my co-teacher always loves to tell people the story of the time when she had to take an adult toy away from a student during band class. The only reason he found out that the kid had it on him was that the kid was dumb enough to try and play the xylophone with the thing, right in front of everyone in the middle of his class.
45. Mighty Beans
I’m not a teacher, but my brother was once asked to return his history teacher’s beans, which he had swiped from one of the drawers of said teacher’s desk. That must have been a weird experience for both of them…
46. Beach Boy
The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a student in one of my classes was a picture that they had drawn of me in a teeny bikini. At the time, I was a fairly out-of-shape man in my late thirties. Not a good look. The care they'd taken in drawing a pair of gigantic pendulous you-know-whats, which I don't actually have, was rather unsettling for me.
The same student also later wrote "Teacher in a bikini" on a feedback form when asked if there was anything they needed in class.
47. Playing With Bruno Mars’ Favorite Toy
I was the student in this case, but the story is still definitely worth sharing in regards to the question at hand. Back when I was in school, I had a bunch of expended munitions, including a used grenade as strong as tear gas. I brought it to class to show off because I thought it was pretty cool. As you probably could have guessed, I almost immediately got it taken away from me by my seventh-grade vice principal.
For some background, when I was a kid I used to scour the NATO training grounds when my dad was stationed in Germany back in the 70s. And that’s where I found the expended CS grenade. And I obviously immediately knew that I was going to bring it to school to show off to my friends the next day, along with several of my other interesting finds from the little excursion.
Not knowing there had been a violent politically motivated attack earlier that day at another NATO facility, I brought a bunch of my stuff to school. Apparently, the school was on extremely high alert that day, for obvious reasons, and just so happened to have been taking extreme measures to prevent any possible follow-up attacks that could have endangered us school kids.
As a result, the school had apparently brought a bomb-sniffing dog onto our school bus at the Ramstein AFB gate. Talk about terrible timing! Yet somehow, the dog ignored me when it passed me by. Then, later that day, I was showing off the grenade to my friends when the teacher walked in. The grenade had been expended, so it wasn’t at risk of going off or harming anyone, but CS is really a fine dust and the active material was gently “dusting” the room.
She could easily smell the tear gas and immediately flipped her lid and sent me to the principal’s office. They took my stuff, chided me for bringing the object to school, and then returned it to me without any further issue two weeks later once they had cleared up the full story behind it and realized that I only had it for the sake of my little collection.
A few weeks after that whole saga ended, the vice principal asked if I had had everything returned. I said I had. He then informed me that someone turned in a 105mm shell casing into the school’s “lost and found,” and he offered it to me for my collection. I gladly took it and was very appreciative of the thoughtful gift. Being the 70s, everyone was pretty chill, so stuff like this wasn’t a big deal even though it would never happen in any school today.
In hindsight, the teacher was absolutely right to get that nasty stuff out of her class as soon as she spotted it. But at the end of the day, it was all for the best. I learned my lesson, and I also scored an extra-cool new thing for my collection. Today, they would have had the SWAT team there in minutes and I might well have had to go to court over the little incident.
48. Hamming It Up
It was December or January and we were having one of those "lockdown" drills where an officer comes in with dogs to sniff for substances. We were all locked in our classrooms and no students were allowed out, not even to visit the restroom. One of my students was white as a ghost, very afraid. I asked him what was the matter, but it was obvious he was afraid he was about to get busted.
He said "Do you think the dogs will go to my locker?" I said, "I don't know, do you have something to be worried about?" He said "There's a ham and cheese sandwich in there". I scratched my head a bit, "I'm sure it's no problem to have a sandwich in your locker". Then he revealed a crucial detail. He said, "Yeah, but it's been in there since the beginning of September".
Going into the locker afterwards and helping to dispose of that gross old sandwich was not even a little bit fun...
49. The Tooth Fairy
I’ve been a school teacher for many years. The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from a student in one of my classes was another student’s tooth. That he had just fished out of the trash can. That he was going to add to his personal tooth collection. I’m not sure if this was more gross or just plain weird, but I definitely was not impressed…
50. I Wanna Cuff Your Hand
The weirdest thing that I’ve ever had to take away from one of my students during class was a pair of handcuffs. From an eight-year-old girl. They were not quite officer level quality, but they were clearly more than just a toy or some “adult fun” type of cuffs. It was an extremely bizarre thing to find a kid playing with. I sent that girl down to the guidance counselor after making that discovery.
Sources: Reddit,
