Ask Lemmy

On 9/11 we were told something bad was happening in the US, but no details. The teachers decided there would be no class for the rest of day, instead we'd have in-class recess until school ended. We were not informed about what was actually going on, just told to play.

I got in trouble for having fun while playing, because it was disrespectful.

Me and another kid got detention for fighting.

At my house.

On a Saturday.

I asked my French teacher what a comment he’d written at the bottom of one of my test papers said, because I couldn’t read it.

Apparently it said: “Your handwriting is atrocious.”

He refused to believe I wasn’t taking the piss out of him and I ended up having to ‘explain myself’ to the head.

I beat a teacher at a typing test (speed, which is raw speed with mistakes subtracted; aka WPM, words per minute). He said it wasn't fair that I found a "better" way. Right fingers on Shift and Enter (and maybe right thumb on Space), and left hand doing the rest of the work. He said that's not the right way to type, even though he couldn't type as fast as me. So he took me to the office and said I cheated on the typing test. To pass the class, he made me learn the "normal" way of typing. So I did, and I beat him again, this time with office staff watching.

This was in the early to mid-1990s. No computers, no phones, no Google. I don't envy today's kids.

We discovered our teacher had a secret water bottle that was actually full of alcohol and called her out on it. She couldn't write us up for anything 'official' but we were suddenly getting written up for dozens of incredibly ridiculous things.

I got written up for looking bored in class.

Grade 6. I had the correct info on a book report (from the World Book Encyclopedia) but my teacher refused to accept them as correct. I "disrupted class" by telling her she was incorrectly giving me a D, and read the relevant passage from the encyclopedia.

Sent to the principal, who said "You're right, we'll have your grade changed, but go have a seat out there for a bit and wait so she doesn't feel insulted"

One of my truly radicalizing moments about speaking truth to power.

The reason isn't really silly, I get it, but the punishment was.

In high school I spent a lot of time reading. Basically every lunch, every study hall period, etc. I read a fairly significant chunk of the library.

Problem was that I also tended to read during boring lectures in class, which pissed off a couple of my teachers and resulted in not great grades.

But all of their punishments were designed to punish people who hated to read. So my math teacher finally snaps and sends me to in school suspension... where I sit in a room and the monitor on duty is absolutely delighted that I sat there the entire day to read and even lets me go early for such good behavior.

I was later kicked out of honors courses and put into a remedial study hall situation. Again with a monitor who was supposed to make sure people were actually studying. Only way to get out of this was ... a library pass. Where I could freely read whatever I wanted. Never did spend much time in study hall.

Somebody set fire to a wall mounted bin with a firework inside it.
The deputy head went to put the fire out, the firework went of almost blowing his face off, allegedly, I didn't see it as I was already in detention for an unrelated incident.
The deputy head storms straight into where I'm sat on my tod for detention and asks what do I think I'm playing at almost killing him.
The headmaster gets called in and everyone's grilling me to confess for setting the bin on fire while I was in detention the whole time!

I got in trouble for wearing a trenchcoat while it was raining shortly after the whole columbine thing. There are some absolute morons working in schools.

It's a rain coat, asshole.

It's raining.

Do the fucking math!

4th Grade - my friends and I used to fold up pieces of paper into 'guns' that we would play with. They basically looked like a big L. It was right when zero tolerance policies started to get implemented, so of course I got 3 days suspension for my paper. That same year another kid got the same for an action figure gun.

11th Grade - in computer science class all of our exams were written only. I finished my test early, then went to a computer to work on my coding project for that week. The teacher I guess first thought I was cheating on the test, so called me to the front to make an example of me. When she learned I had already turned in my test she changed the charge to using the school computers for non school activities. When I demonstrated that I was working on my project she changed again to say that using the computer was against the agreement we all signed at the start of the year regarding appropriate use of the school computers. I asked to see what part of the agreement I had violated, and she pulled out the sheet to show me. When that didn't back her up she again changed her approach, this time writing me up for Saturday detention for "not bringing my book to class". I went to the Vice Principal to contest the entire issue, but he just told me to go to the detention anyway. I ended up spending an hour cleaning marker off of the walls.

In the fifth grade we were doing some group project thing where we had our desks grouped together while we were working on it. There were probably four of us in each group. One of the girls (we will call her Ashley) in my group was acting wildly, and I blurted out loudly "Ashley is having an orgasm!"

There was a pause of silence and an eruption of laughter and a scolding cry from the teacher calling me to her desk and out into the hall. She marched me to the principals office. I am utterly confused at this point. I sat outside the principals office for what felt like an eternity while my teacher and her were discussing what to do with me.

They called me into the office and had my mother on the phone and handed the phone to me and made me tell her what I said. I am still so confused, and I asked them and they all told me what I said was highly inappropriate and I received a three day suspension for sexual harassment. You see, I did not know what this word I had said actually meant, what I was trying to say and mean was "spasm" but neither authority figures nor my mother believed me. If you're wondering if this was too harsh, this was in the bible belt south in the mid 90s. Not in an exactly progressive state in the US. Fuck those bitches, im still bitter about that!

• Got in trouble for painting, or rather inking, a still life assignment in art class in black and white.
• Was threatened with a zero and write up for "lack of effort" for handing in a typed book report at the end of the same class period in which it was assigned. Don't get mad at me because you assigned a book I'd already read and refused to allow me to choose another.
• Threatened with expulsion after being called onto the carpet in the principal's office for a Very Stern Talk with a policeman present and everything for having a doodle of a benzene ring on the cover of my chemistry class notebook, because this was apparently "bomb making plans." A demonstration that the school issued textbook for this very same class was just chock-a-block full of not only this but illustrations of similar molecules was not received well by the administration ("backtalk") but ultimately I escaped unscathed.
• Sent to detention for my first and only time for gainsaying my biology teacher during a tirade delivered to the class early in the semester on the topic of, "Microscopes are important because you can't see no cells with just your eyes [sic]," and I responded by not raising my hand per se, but rather holding up a hard boiled egg from my lunchbox.
• Subsequently determined undetentionable during that selfsame detention due to the mandatory assignment therein, which was a photocopied form letter thing which was obviously designed to make you feel very very sorry and very very guilty about what you did with a writing prompt at the top demanding a minimum of three full paragraphs on the topic of, verbatim: "Explain why you are here." No further instructions. I started with the big bang and worked forward from there, and I got to about page four of meticulous blackletter script on both sides of each sheet of paper before the teacher supervising the detention room finally noticed (probably due to the bold text) and whisked one off of my desk, briefly skimmed it, and then threw me out. I was not allowed to keep what I had written. For all I know it's still pinned to the wall in the staff room, decades later.
• The reason for the blackletter script was because I wrote everything with a mildly customized vintage Sheaffer fountain pen specifically to annoy that same teacher. I imagine this also annoyed several others, although one or two were appreciative. For instance, my 11th grade math teacher bribed me with extra credit by having me hand letter titles on things for her that she'd photocopy and use as handouts, or whatever. Numerous attempts were made to bring the hammer down on me for this in some form or another, none of which were successful.

I have more. These are the most amusing ones.

Yes, I was an incorrigible little shit when I was in school, mostly because I won't countenance bullies of any stripe. Being bullied by other kids is bad enough; If you're a teacher, do better.

Changing a monitor's resolution from 1024x768 to something useable.

I got a detention for looking at a teacher "weird" in 9th grade. I was the only one in detention and he stared at ME weird the whole time, then tried to block the door on my way out. I slugged him in the stomach to get by and he never reported it, so that confirmed the creepy.

I got sent out to the hall whenever I had hiccups in 8th grade. They were too loud, apparently, and the teacher thought I was faking in order to disturb class.

Catholic school with uniform including khaki pants. I started my period and bled thru. I swapped to sweatpants. Most teachers just figured I must have some reason and didn't bother me. A couple asked after it, one accepted my reason and offered to to let me out of class to have a little more time to cleanup or call home or whatever I needed to feel comfortable. The last one gave me detention for being out of uniform.

School administration reversed it when they heard why I was being sent to detention. I was advised to just go to the main office if it ever happened again so they could help me instead of having to deal with each teacher myself.

I've told this story before and I'll tell it again.

4th grade Teacher of the Year winner and current sitting member of the school board Mrs. S. had a strict rule when lining up after recess:

"Straight line, no talking, no touching."

The bell would ring, and we'd all run to our respective, numbered spots on the playground, in a straight line, without talking, and certainly not touching, one another. Then, Mrs. S. would walk out to us, and we'd recite the line:

"Straight line, no talking, no touching."

And she'd lead us inside.

One day, returning from recess, the kid in front of me, Joe, was crying while standing on his number. Foolishly, I set my hand on his shoulder, and asked, "Are you alright?" Mrs. S. arrived just in time to rectify the situation. I watched as she strode up to me, staring daggers into my soul, and I yanked my hand off of my fellow student's shoulder, but the damage was done. Towering over me, inches away, she shouts to the class, "Class, what is the rule?"

"Straight line, no talking, no touching."

"Papalonian, what is the last part?"

"No touching."

"No... Touching."

I received my first and only citation for the rest of my elementary school years. Ever thankful will I be for learning the lesson that empathy (towards someone I didn't even like) shall never be tolerated when the rules forbid it.

I was in 5th grade during George W. Bush's stint as governor of Texas in the 90s. He did a bunch of "education reform" there that was the predecessor of the No Child Left Behind Act he championed as President. I was in a relatively good school but despite that, we were learning about nouns and verbs for the first time that year.

The teacher was an idiot and we would get dozens of worksheets that covered the same topic. For the nouns and verbs section, we would read through a paragraph and had to write all the nouns in one column and all the verbs in the other column. When the test came, it was the same as the worksheets but the teacher changed the columns to verb/noun, which I didn't read and I got a 0 for the test.

I went to the teacher and told her that it was an honest mistake and showed her how I aced all the other assignments, so I obviously understood the concept. She was insistent though that I got a zero despite that. However, because of the new Bush educational policies, students had the right to retake any assignment for the minimum passing grade.


So I asked her to retake the test, she said ok, and I crossed out Noun and wrote Verb and and same to Verb to Noun and handed it back. She immediately wrote another large zero on the page because I couldn't change that part and I lost recess privileges for the rest of the week for being "rude".

Revenge came though several weeks later when she was hanging black plastic sheeting on the suspended ceiling to create a makeshift planetarium in corner of the room. She was on a tall ladder and when she was putting up the last sheet, she lost her balance and fell through the sheeting and off the ladder and broke her arm. She was crying out for someone to help her but me and the other kids just let her struggle for a few minutes before she freed herself by tearing through the plastic sheet like Ace Ventura escaping from the rhino, crying.

In 8th grade English class we had to write a short essay for homework (this was before most families had a computer, so it was hand written). I'm lefty, and the ink from my pen smudged (iykyk). In front of the whole class she called me out for sloppy work and said I'd receive a 0. So I asked how, as a lefty, I could prevent that from happening. She gave me 3 days of detention for talking back to her. When my mom found out, she called the school and spoke with the principal, who happened to be a lefty. He reversed course, saying detention for this was ridiculous, as well as suggested pens he uses that smudge a lot less.

Another time, in high school, I was in art class. Everyone would keep their sketchbooks in the desks rather than take them home. One day, someone drew a bunch of swastikas all over mine, and then reported me. Originally, I was going to be expelled. After explaining I didn't draw them, and how anyone could access the book, they reduced it to 3 days suspension. After my mom got involved, it was reduced ("reduced") to 10 days of detention. This was catholic school, so detention was kneeling for an hour in front of a wall.

Also in catholic school, I got detention for arguing with my theology teacher that eating eggs means he supports abortion. I deserved and enjoyed detention that day.

.... I got in trouble a lot in catholic school

In the sixth grade I got my first detention ever because I picked up my baseball cap.

We were on a field trip and we went to visit some museum in the capital by train. While we walked back to the train station, our teacher stated that "no one is to step out of the train before her permission or they will get detention". I was the last to get on the train and my cap hit the backpack of the classmate in front of me and fell out of the train doors. I instinctively turned around, leaned out whist holding onto a safety bar and picked my cap. And stepped back on board.

I was a calm kid and had never broken any school rules or gotten into any trouble whatsoever. So when my classmates saw me putting one feet outside the train they simply flipped: "TEACHER, LORINDÓL STEPPED OUT OF THE TRAIN! YOU'RE GETTING A DETENTION!"

I was utterly dumbfounded. My "friends" had betrayed me and the teacher was approaching and looking angry. With tears in my eyes I explained what had happened and reminded her that we still had more than 10 minutes until the train doors would even close. Her face went from angry to sad and she silenced my heckling classmates with a few strict words. She told me that we would discuss this when we were back at school.

When we got back, everyone else got to go home and the teacher asked me to our classroom with her. "Lorindól, I'm very sorry. I have to give you detention because you did step out of the train, even if it was for all the right reasons. I understand you acted instinctively and did not mean to break any rules. But I must keep my word or it will lose it's meaning. As stupid as this sounds, the purpose of this detention is not to punish you. It's purpose is to show the others that my word is the law in this classroom, with no exceptions. I hope you can understand why I must do this." I thought about it for a while and said that I did.

When I told my parents about the detention my dad couldn't stop laughing. "You finally get a detention and it's for NOTHING!"

Mom was so angry that she wanted to call the teacher and make her call the detention off. I managed to talk her out of it and didn't hold any grudge against the teacher. I learned a lot about the world of adults that day.

I got in trouble for putting eye drops in a teachers coffee.

I had the flu that day, the day before, and the day after.

Got suspended for 3 days and told to write an apology letter.

Rumors are fun my friends.

I needed to pee. I had to bring a doctor's note saying that, yes, I needed to pee.

I was disciplined for 'disturbing' the class by correcting my teacher when she said the elephant was the largest mammal in the world... And no, I did not say 'yo mama'...

I can think of two stupid ones right off the top.

In my highschool freshman year, in our multimedia & webpage design (a very barebones graphic design/learn how to use Microsoft Office class), I got in sent out of class for doing all of my work at home (I used GIMP and a pirated copy of Sony Vegas at home). That same teacher also gave me a long lecture about viruses for visiting downloadmoreram.com.

In middle school, maybe 6th grade, we were split into groups to do some group project. Everyone was talking, working on their posters, chitchatting, normal kid stuff. For reasons I do not know, I had like sat down and shifted weird, and my throat made a strange, quite loud, involuntary noise. Kind of like a weird yelp? I did not mean to make this noise, but regardless, everything got super quiet, and the teacher asked "who yelled?" I stood up, explained that I did not yell, and accidentally made that noise. Teacher didn't believe me and sent me to the office. I'm still confused about that one.

High school bathroom during lunch. 15 or so guys, handful smoking. Saw a guy making a smiley face on the ceiling with a cigarette lighter. It just leaves a soot mark that wipes away easily.

No sooner do I attempt to do the same thing, the principal walked in and saw me...

"YOU!" he yelled. "You're going to HQ!" Like he was a cop or something.

Cops came, he said that he wanted me charged with attempted arson. He took the cops to the bathroom. When they came back, the cops were kind of laughing at the principal.

Got charged with criminal damage to property, but it got dropped, because the mark could be wiped off easily.

we were building a snow fort and I was punching a hole into a snow block

next thing I know, a teacher is telling me I have to go inside because I punched a kid in the face

I had to sit in detention, as like a first grader, and have the older kids guide me through it. I was so confused. pretty sure I was crying. no adult helped me, that I can recall.

either this kid hated me and made some shit up, or they were so fucking stupid and enough of a little bitch that they walked right behind and stuck their face where I was repeatedly punching the snow and got hurt without me feeling the impact.

and on that day, my mistrust of authority was born. no amount of insistence would sway them. I must be punished.

Sweet tap-dancing christ, this whole thread. If there's anything I've learned today, it's that some teachers are the most petty dictators that cannot tolerate being proven in the wrong, nor can handle having their decision making skills challenged. They're out there doing real lasting damage to people and their ability to think critically.

It's almost enough to make me want to go into education, just to displace one of these tyrants.

Sincerely, I'm sorry all of you had to go through any of this. Here's hoping you have support and find closure.

I once got detention for not getting a practice test signed by my parents. I'd scored a 92, but apparently everyone else bombed, so they wanted everyone to get theirs signed, I figured that since I'd done well that it wouldn't apply to me. Oops.

It's a universal thing I think. So many little injustices that stay with us well into adulthood!

I have two. One goes way back to when I was 6, some 42 years ago.

We were on a field trip to a beach in the summer, which, given we live on a group of small islands, wasn't exactly imaginative, but I guess the teachers just wanted out of the classroom.

Anyway, the task was to collect seaweed. I came back with a bit of kelp, with the 'leaves' missing, so I guess it looked a bit like wood.

The teacher seems to think so, and insisted that it was just a wooden stick. It clearly wasn't, as anyone who paid the blindest bit of attention would know. My dog could tell the difference. Proof:

But she dismissed my weak protest and that was that. It was at that point, I guess, I learned a valuable lesson: some adults are fucking stupid.

The other incident was when I was 9. I was a good, polite boy in school and was never cheeky. Anyway, at the end of each day, we had to stand and be quiet for 30 seconds before we could leave class.

On this occasion I had the hiccups. The teacher held me back for half an hour and lectured me on respecting authority. She genuinely thought my hiccups, which are involuntary by definition, we're put on deliberately to provoke her. Needless to say, that reinforced the lesson I'd learned with the seaweed.

This was in elementary school. It was pretty cold, even inside, so I was blowing into the inside of my elbow to get warm air into my sweater. I'm not sure how, but I messed up the alignment or something and ended up making a loud fart noise. And without getting any opportunity to explain, I was made to stand in the hall.

I got beat up by a guy twice my size who was just in a pissy mood. "Participated in a fight, in school suspension"

I was walking through the canteen with some classmates. One of them stole a sugar cube intended for coffee from the canteen. A teacher, apparently feeling Biblical, punished the whole group with an hour of detention.

Zero tolerance era. Grade school (I think 4th?) I'm reading one of those books that's just like "Medieval History" with a bunch of pictures and the history on what the items was. (I think this one was about spies or James bond or something). Kid comes up to me actively reading and says "I was reading that, you took it from me!" Basically escalates it to "I'm gonna fight you" and starts sort of dragon ball z style punching me in the stomach a bunch of times really fast. Parents told me not to let that slide and to fight back, so I cock back and punch him in the face. Right as the teacher walks through the door. I was in 4th grade, I didn't deck the kid, but I did hit him. Whole deal, go to the office, explained what happened. "Zero tolerance, 3 day suspension"

Dad asks what happened, explained, got 3 days off school at home fishing and playing video games. Best time I had at that school, also completely broke my faith in that system, so win win.

Worked in school. One of the teachers gave a paper to be signed by the parent at a kid because he didn’t tie his shoes, which was ridiculous because he didn’t have time to get out of his winter clothes.

One of our teachers said you have to learn some things by rote because "if you throw enough mud at a wall, eventually some of it sticks". We were investigating this for science on the (windowless) back wall of the gym and we all got detention. We had got quite a lot of brown smudging but very partial and blotchy coverage.

1st to 2nd grade so this was what my parents relayed to me after I grew up a bit more

Apparently I was so aggressively autistic (and relatively smart) that I not only did close to perfect on all my exams, I once did the calligraphy/writing homework so well that my teacher had to talk to my parents to know if I cheated by having them do my homework for me... FYI: my handwriting now is as bad as a doctor's

When I was in NYC schools, I used to play with rubber bands, and I'd fold paper into tiny "bullets" and I'd "slingshot" them at things for fun... I mean, I was like probably 9 years old and smartphones weren't even a thing yet and I had no DS like some rich kids in my class did (early 2010s for context). So, anyways, I was messing with ciphers with another kid, and we were in the same grade and same class in the afterschool program we went to, so we'd kinda pass notes to each other using the cipher, by slingshotting the piece of paper.

So I was nearsighted. I can't aim properly. I was trying to aim like at that kid's desk, I accidentally hit the staff/teacher/volunteer (idk what he even count as, don't think they are officially licensed teachers, it's some non-profit program and there were a bunch of volunteers, probably doing it as community service hours for college or something)... dude got mad at me and I got in trouble, and because I was in a foreign country, I felt very vulnerable, I felt scared, and I just cried...

The other time was like in a different afterschool program. I think it was like 3rd grade, and they played some holiday music around december, I remeber it feeling very like Christmas... but anyways, idk what happened, I think the music just triggered my sensory issues or something (I have no diagnoses of anything btw), so I just felt this sudden urge... so I went up to the smartboard thing and turned down the volume. The white lady teacher got so pissed at me, she marked my behavior chard to red (I think I remember she was also my homeroom teacher, so she had control over the behavior chart thing), red is the worst, yellow is a warning, green is good behavior.

It wasn't even official class time, it was afterschool. Why does behavior outside school hours even count?

So I couldn't go on school trips until I "behaved" again.

Like...

I just cried...

Yes I cried very often...

I was a scared little kid in a foreign country and had no idea wtf is going on.

I remember being excluded from a lot of trips, and have no clue wtf was happening around me.

Like... seriously I didn't even damage anything... the music was just hurting my ears... my sanity...

Why yell at a 9 year old child that doesn't even speak much English?

Fucking karen.

So I kinda just feel very intimidated by teachers from that moment on.

I think I vaguely remember a few dreams in my late teens, like way after my family left NYC, where I remember, in the dream, being trapped in an elementary school classroom, from where I was waking up so anxious...

I got sent to the wall for going down the slide. I was never told why going down the slide was punishable this time, but thanks for teaching me to have a healthy mistrust of authority early in life

6th grade bully crushed my bag of chips, i retaliated by dumping my water bottle on him. I'm the one that got in trouble.