I teach ninth through twelfth grade. Part of my normal duties is supervising the cafeteria during student lunch. The school administrators (principal, vice principal, and counselor) and two other teachers are supposed to be there as well, but I am frequently left alone to supervise some two hundred and fifty students while they eat. The administrators regularly schedule meetings during that time and call it a “working lunch”, and the other teachers use it as a free planning period to make copies, grade papers, or catch up on other tasks.

I have complained about this regularly, including at school board meetings, but my complaints are always ignored and brushed aside for some reason or other.

All of that changed one day when I was gone from school. It was a planned absence that I had put on the schedule nearly a month in advance. I even sent emails to everyone else who was supposed to be on lunch duty to remind them that I would be gone.

The night after my absence, I got an email from our district superintendent, saying he had heard about what happened at lunch that day and would have HR open an investigation.

Before school started the next morning, I went to the superintendent’s office to talk to him and ask him what had happened.

Superintendent: “A few students started arguing and eventually fighting. It grew into a full-scale food fight, with a few fist fights here and there. One student had to knock on the principal’s office door and interrupt his meeting to get him out there. Police had to be called to break up the various fights, and three students ended up going to the hospital to get checked out. The janitors also threatened to quit because of the mess from the food fight.”

Me: “That’s crazy, but why are you investigating me?”

Superintendent: “[Principal] said you had lunch duty, but you weren’t in the cafeteria.”

Me: “Why was [Principal] in his office instead of supervising lunch like he’s supposed to?”

Superintendent: “He had a meeting with [Some Local Businessperson] discussing a potential donation to [School Program].”

Me: “Then where was everyone else? [Vice Principal], [Counselor], and [Two Teachers] are all supposed to have lunch duty. Why weren’t they there to stop everything?”

Superintendent: *Starting to get flustered.* “Look, the point is that you’re supposed to have lunch duty, and you weren’t out there. I’ll have HR look into the others as well, but—”

Me: *Interrupting him.* “—Of course I wasn’t there. I was off.”

Superintendent: “You were… off? As in not at school?”

Me: “Yes. I had yesterday off and put it in the scheduling system about a month ago. I sent everyone an email reminding them that I would be gone, and they needed to actually do their job for once.”

Superintendent: “Erm… well…”

Me: “This is why I’ve been complaining all year. I’m left alone EVERY SINGLE DAY because nobody else does their job when they have lunch duty. It’s a miracle it took this long for something to happen, even with me there. Now you want to blame me because NOBODY else did their job, even though they KNEW I would be gone, and the kids were left COMPLETELY UNSUPERVISED? That’s bull-s***. If you even think of blaming me or punishing me for this, I will be going directly to our union rep, and very likely to [Local Newspaper], because if you and the school board won’t do anything to make [Administrators] and [Other Teachers] do their job, maybe they will. I should have done that already, but silly me, I kept thinking you and the school board would actually do something the first three times I brought it up at school board meetings.”

I finally ran out of steam and left the superintendent’s office before he could say anything else.

I received an email from the district HR rep an hour later saying the investigation into me was dropped and nothing further would come from the previous day.

On the positive side, none of the administrators or other teachers have skipped out on lunch duty since that day unless they had an EXTREMELY valid reason. 

On the negative side (or maybe a different positive side?), I already have my resignation letter written for the end of the school year, because this was only the latest straw that has caused me to lose faith in the school district in the last few years that I’ve been here. I love the kids, so it’s going to be really tough walking away from them, but my mental health is already so much better knowing I only have to make it through the rest of this year and then someone else can deal with the school board and school administrators.

I am the Science Teacher in this story. 

This was close to the end of the year, and I was trying to review several concepts with the Grade 10 class. I hadn’t picked up that they were getting bored, probably because they were familiar already, but they were restless and not really paying attention. I was getting a little frustrated, and finally, I had had enough, and spouted off on them by saying something like:

Me: “I think I could teach heads of cabbage easier than you lot today.”

I didn’t get much reaction, but they did settle down for the rest of the class.

So, the last day of classes finally arrives. My next science class was just after lunchtime, and I had gone home to have lunch. When I got back to school and entered my classroom, there was a head of cabbage on each and every desk. 

I busted out laughing and couldn’t contain my mirth. The students started to hesitantly enter the classroom, not knowing what my reaction would be, but when they saw that I wasn’t mad, but in fact quite happy at the troll they had played on me, they all had a good laugh too. They all passed my exam that semester.

I submitted “The Secretest Santa That Ever Secreted“:

I had a field trip that happened in that same school year that I mentioned in the comments as an example of how I was one of the few impoverished students in a program full of wealthy (or wealthy-in-appearance) students and classmates–here is an elaboration on it.

We were sent downtown for this field trip. Rather than going on a school bus, this program preferred to have parents volunteer as chaperones. For this one, students were randomly assigned to a group of four to five, plus a parent. I had been given $5 for this field trip to buy lunch. We were poor (I was on the free lunch program), so while it wasn’t much, I appreciated it. The field trip was divided into two parts, with an hour-long lunch break in between.

When it was time for lunch, we got in the parents’ car and drove off; she asked the group if there was anywhere they’d like to go. We passed by an interesting-looking place, which I now know is the Grand Central Market. I suggested we get lunch there. The parent, knowing what I was referring to, said:

Parent: “No, that’s poor people’s food.”

Ultimately, she made the final decision as no one else in the group had suggested anything, none of the others being too familiar with the area either. We went to an area in the business district with no one else around that I could see and except at a Starbucks attached to an office building; we went there. Now, this was the late 2000s. In this area, at the time, Starbucks hadn’t been around for too long, so it was locally known as a place to get coffee more expensive (that is, classier and more sophisticated) than at other places, so it was popular among the wealthy and those who liked to appear wealthy, especially teenagers who wanted to look mature.

We all went inside. I don’t know if this was because Starbucks was more limited in its menu at that time or if it was a small location with a deliberately limited menu, but all it had for non-coffee items were cookies, some simple pastries under a heat lamp, and muffins. The only thing I could afford with the $5 on me was a cookie. Not in the mood to have a single cookie for lunch and nothing else, I walked out looking for anywhere else to eat in the area. There was nothing within sight except for this one place that was not only closed at the moment, but the menu posted outside had even more expensive stuff. I just sat on an unused chair in front of the Starbucks.

Eventually, everyone else in the group walked out with coffee. They had no solid food. The parent turned to me.

Parent: “You didn’t get anything?”

Me: “I couldn’t afford anything there, and I didn’t want just a cookie by itself.”

Parent: “I see. Well, I’m shocked. Shocked that you didn’t get anything. Oh well.”

She turned to the rest of the group and chatted about what they experienced in the first half of the field trip, while I continued to sit in that chair to kill time for the lunch break to end. They sat together at another table. I wasn’t going to tell anyone else during the second half of the field trip, knowing I would be mocked and teased about it to the end of the year over it.

I should’ve just accepted the cookie.

A good number of years ago, when I was still teaching the introductory engineering tech class, one of the major units was measurement. This covered general to high precision measurement, everything from standard rulers and tape measures, to surveying measuring tools, to machine shop measuring tools. A number of the students, despite being in a course of study they selected, didn’t see the value of the basic skills for several high-paying trades and professions.

Most didn’t pay attention to the general measurement portion, using various types of rulers and an engineer’s scale. Many liked the introduction to surveying tech portion, as they got to go outside. One student in particular saw no point in the portion for calipers and micrometers- tools used to measure to lightwave length precision. The finest instrument we used was accurate to 0.5 millionth of a meter.

The student said, in essence, that he had no need to know how to use these tools, as if he didn’t pass, he would become a p*rn star instead.

Another student told him that he’d still need to know, since there he’d need the micrometer to get critical measures for his resume.

It took several minutes to get the class back.

The teacher is going over a map of the United States. This is not a geography lesson, and we’re all high school-aged, so we know all the states. The map is just required for the discussion we’re having.

Teacher: “So then Alaska has the Aleutian islands, that—”

Student #1: “—That’s not real.”

Teacher: “What’s not real?”

Student #1: “Alaska. It’s fake. Nobody actually knows anyone from there. It’s just something the government made up.”

The room bursts into laughter. [Student #1] was speaking seriously, but the class’s reaction is making them seem less confident.

Student #2: “So who’s been sending all the fish and oil then, Bigfoot?”

Student #3: “Where do all the reality shows about Alaskan crab fishing get filmed?”

Student #2: “And Ice Road Truckers! Who are they?!”

Student #3: *In a mocking tone.* “Actors! It’s staged! I’ve never met an Alaskan, have you?”

The teacher pinches the bridge of their nose, trying not to laugh, and gets things back on track.

A few months later, we had a new student join us who just moved from Anchorage, and the jokes started up all over again…