It was the late 1980s. It was my first year of teaching in the inner-city high school, and it was, to say the least, administered a little differently than my previous placement.

We had roughly 2500 students, the principal was EVERY student’s friend and knew all of their names, and he had zero tolerance for dress code issues. The dress code was pretty easy-going, but as the trend to pant beltlines below the butt, even down at the knees, came in for the first time, he had no tolerance.

The day I came in, at the faculty meeting, the ONLY one that year where most of the staff paid any attention and none of them were playing poker, he handed out three-foot lengths of laundry rope. His instructions: If a child has their pants too low, tell them to pull them up. If the child couldn’t keep them up due to a lack of a belt (a common issue related to the trend), then give them the rope and “let them walk around looking like Jethro Bodine” all day.

After the first week, there were no more Jethros or Ellie Maes. The kids REALLY did not like that.

I’m a full-time substitute teacher. I get along really well with most students and staff, but there is one assistant principal who seems to have a genuine dislike of her job as a whole, and a particular hatred toward substitute teachers. Nobody around the school likes her, and that goes double or even triple for the substitute teachers because she seems to have made it her personal mission to “keep subs in line”.

She’ll walk into classrooms while a sub is teaching to “perform an observation of classroom management skills”. She tries to introduce ways to make sure subs aren’t wasting the school’s time, such as requiring subs to keep a “time journal” documenting what we did each hour. She’ll belittle subs in front of staff and students – for example, she once told a sub (not me), in front of an entire class of high schoolers, “You’re such an idiot that you should go back to Kindergarten as a student and try again, because there’s no way you passed the first time!”

I’m known for being fairly laid back about certain things that I don’t see as a big issue, such as letting kids have their sweatshirt hood up or letting them listen to music with headphones or earbuds while they’re working. Technically, these things are against school policy, but I’ve learned from experience that some kids just work better that way, and if letting them keep their hood up or listen to music keeps them from talking and distracting the rest of the class, that’s a win for me.

One day, while the kids are working on a big project, the assistant principal decides to do one of her random “observations” and enters the classroom without knocking. She sees all the kids working quietly, but many of them have their hoods up or their headphones on. As soon as they notice her, most of the kids scramble to remove their hoods and headphones/earbuds, except for one particular student (this will come back later!).

Assistant Principal: “Ahem. What is this, [My Name]?”

Me: “They’re working on (project).”

Assistant Principal: “And why do they have hoods and headphones?”

Before I can respond, she walks up behind the one student who has not removed his headphones – the kind that cover the entire ear – and yanks them off his head.

Now… this particular student is very autistic. I’ve known him since he was in middle school. He’s a great kid, but he can be challenging when something goes wrong, such as somebody yanking his headphones off his head without warning.

Student: *Screaming at the top of his lungs.* “DON’T TOUCH ME, YOU STUPID F****** B****! GET THE F*** AWAY FROM ME!”

The assistant principal freezes with the goofiest deer-in-the-headlights look.

Me: *Fighting back laughter.* “That’s why.”

The assistant principal fled from the room, and the entire class started howling with laughter. I managed to get them calmed down after a few minutes and working on their projects again, hoods and headphones proudly back in place. I offered to let the student who had his headphones yanked off his head go to his Special Education resource teacher to cool down, but he decided that he would rather stay in class with me than risk running into the assistant principal in the hallway.

The assistant principal tried to get me in trouble with the principal, but the principal waved the entire thing off when I told him about the incident. He’s more laid back, like I am, and unlike the assistant principal, he understands that teachers and subs are capable of finding their own solutions to common problems, such as students getting distracted, even if it means that school policy isn’t always followed to the letter.

The principal has started paying more attention to everyone’s complaints about the assistant principal and informed her that she’s on a very short leash that applies to her treatment of everybody at school, not just the substitute teachers.

We’re having an (unplanned) class debate about nuclear weapons and which nations should be allowed to have them.

Student #1: “USA should be the only country that’s allowed to have nukes! That way, all the other countries will have to stay in line.”

Student #2: “And why would any other country agree to that? And how would it be enforced?”

Student #1: “It’d be enforced WITH the nukes, idiot!”

Teacher: “No name-calling. Back on topic, who can name the nuclear nations that have nuclear weapons?”

Student #3: “I know this one. The US, Russia, the UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.”

Student #1: “You forgot Japan.”

Student #3: “Japan definitely doesn’t have any nukes. They’re completely against them.”

Student #1: “They’re like, the 2^nd biggest economy in the world; why wouldn’t they have them?” *This was before China overtook them in the GDP rankings.*

Student #3: “I can think of two big reasons they wouldn’t have them.”

Student #2: “Dude, we literally covered this in history class last month. Hiroshima and Nagasaki?”

Student #1: “Who were they?”

Teacher: “[Student #1], you’re too stupid and too ignorant to maintain this debate. Now, back to class…”

Another from my thirty-five years in a public high school, teaching math and science.

We have “in-service” days, which are full-day training, or BS, depending. We also have a half-day in-service, where we see the students until lunch time, then they go home, and we meet for three hours without time for lunch.

On the day of a particularly pointless half day in-service a few years ago (remembered by all as the day the “clown nose lady” came to teach us something, but no one knew what, including her as best as I could figure) I asked a few coworkers if they wanted to go grab a sandwich at the local tavern.

Coworker: “Sure. After this, I have to be sure you know that alcohol isn’t the solution.”

Me: “Of course it isn’t. Alcohol is a compound. Beer is the solution.”

I have been a computer teacher for almost ten years in a combined middle/high school (grades seven through twelve). My classroom includes the school’s computer lab. Recently, I was supervising a group of eleventh-grade girls who were finishing a project on the computers. One of the girls is new to the school, and the other three are telling her about the classes and teachers. I was half paying attention while doing my own work when suddenly one of the girls turns to me:

Girl: “You’re so cool, Mrs. [Name]. I want to be like you when I grow up. You’re my favorite teacher.”

She was being sincere, not sarcastic! I got a little teary-eyed. It was nice to know I’d made a connection.

That night, I excitedly told the story to my family at dinner.

Me: “Something great happened at school today.”

And I told the story. When I finished, my ten-year-old looked unimpressed.

Son: “I thought you were gonna say you got free candy or something.”

Way to keep me humble, little man. He did later give me a hug, so I had two wins for the day.