(In grade four, my teacher hates me. He leaves us in a line outside our class door to get some photocopies.)

Class: *making a bunch of noise in the hallway*

Me: “You guys should really quiet down. At this point all of the second floor will complain about us.”

Class: *still making noise*

(I say that they should be quiet many times. As a failed effort I sit down against the wall waiting for the teacher to come back. When he comes back he complains about us being noisy and gives us a lecture in class.)

Teacher: “Do you little kids even KNOW how EMBARRASSING that was?! To you AND TO ME?! You guys are old enough to keep your mouths shut! I bet [My Name] was talking the most, too.”

(I am about to my end’s wit. I am horribly mad so I get out of my seat.)

Me: “I actually told everybody to stop talking or else this would happen! I only told them to be quiet! Other than that no words came out of my mouth!”

Teacher: “Oh really? Raise your hand if you heard [My Name] talk?”

(A classmate raises his hand. Keep in mind we are not friends.)

Teacher: *shoots me a glare* “And what did [My Name] say?”

Classmate: “[My Name] said that we shouldn’t talk or else we would get in trouble.”

Me: *shoots glare back at teacher and smirks*

(At this point he blushes and doesn’t know what to say.)

Teacher: “J-just go back to your seat.”

(The school organises class photographs, individual and offers one where siblings can have a separate photograph taken. At the end of the day, they are checking all have been done. My little sister is five and has just started school.)

Teacher: “[Sister], have you had your family photo taken today?”

Sister: “No.”

Teacher: “Well you need to go—”

Sister: *interrupting* “I’ve only had one with my sister.”

(I’m an American acting as an assistant English Teacher in Japan. Summer vacation is coming up and I’m eating lunch with one of my classes.)

Homeroom Teacher: “What are you doing for summer vacation? Are you going to visit America?”

Me: “Probably not. I plan to see a couple of movies though.”

Student #1: “What?”

Me: “Eiga o miru.” *see a movie*

Student #1: “Nan eiga desu ka?”

Me: “Kore wa eigo nan desu ka?” *what is that in English?*

Student #1: “Uh…”

Me: “What…”

Student #2: “Oh! ‘What movie?'”

Me: “Guardians of the Galaxy, maybe… Definitely Gojira.”

(Gojira is the proper Japanese pronunciation of Godzilla.)

Homeroom Teacher: “Oh! Gojira?”

Me: “Oh, yeah, definitely. I used to watch that all the time as a kid.”

Homeroom Teacher: “Really?”

Me: “Yep. When I was a kid there were a lot of ninja movies and Godzilla movies to watch every Saturday.”

(I start humming the Godzilla attack theme from the original 1950’s movie.)

Me: “That’s not right.”

(Homeroom Teacher joins in.)

Me: “Ah! Thanks!”

Homeroom Teacher: “No problem.”

(We spend the next two minutes or so humming the attack theme song from ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters’ together.)

Me: “Awesome.”

(The students didn’t stop staring at us.)

(A boy in my class tends to finish his work early and always starts to draw afterwards. One day, my teacher tires of this.)

Teacher: “[Student]! Stop it!”

Student: “But I—”

Teacher: “If you want to draw all day, I’ll take you to where you can draw all day!”

(The teacher then proceeds to march to his desk, and grab a hold of him by the arm, and then turns to the rest of us.)

Teacher: “I’m not allowed to leave you alone, so you come with me.”

(We all get up from our seats and walk with her down the hall, her still holding the boy’s arm, until we get to a random kindergarten class. My teacher knocks on the door, and when the kindergarten teacher opens the door, she shoves the boy inside and starts leading us back to our room.)

Teacher: “If you brats don’t shape up I’ll do the same thing to you!”

(I never saw that boy again. This teacher also failed any drawing assignments where the sky wasn’t kept white with blue clouds, tried to give me detention for using a water fountain in the classroom during indoor recess, and screamed at us for a half hour when someone mispronounced her name as ‘Clay’ instead of ‘kill-ay’.)

(I’m tutoring a girl on the times tables, and having some difficulty.)

Me: “All right, [Girl], let’s see. What’s one times two?”

(The girl scrunches her face up in concentration.)

Girl: “I dunno.”

Me: “Well, try two times two!”

(The girl replies automatically.)

Girl: “Four.”

(I blink, then try again.)

Me: “Three and two?”

(The girl has difficulty again, and I try again:)

Me: “Four times two?”

Girl: *again, automatically* “Eight.”

(I’m starting to catch on.)

Me: “Eight times two.”

Girl: “Sixteen.”

Me: “Sixteen times two.”

Girl: “Thirty-two.”

(We keep going until we reach 2048.)

Me: “2048 times two.”

(The girl scrunches up again.)

Me: “Huh?”

Girl: “I didn’t get that far…”