(I am a pre-service teacher, completing my experience before I can graduate and register. I am put on the roster on at my school for Tuesday afternoon detention. The school I am at rarely has anyone in detention, but this afternoon I am supervising two girls.)

Me: “So, get out your diary girls. Your instructions are to copy out the code of conduct until your time is up.”

(At this point we all settle in for what should be an hour detention. However after about 45 minutes, they’ve been perfectly behaved, and I’ve been told I can release them early if this is the case.)

Me: “Alright girls, you’ve both been great this afternoon. You can head off early.”

Girl #1: “But I’m almost finished!”

Girl #2: “Me too! Can we stay and finish it off?”

Me: “I… I guess?”

(We stayed for another ten minutes. Later on I told a fellow pre-service teacher what happened, citing that no one was going to believe me at university, that students requested to stay in detention longer.)

(I am in biology class at the end of the day. We have just finished reading a skit that was very obviously written in the 90s. It is also my teacher’s first year teaching, and so we like to give him a hard time.)

Boy #1: “[Teacher], did you guys talk like this when you were in high school?”

Boy #2: “Yeah, did you guys talk about the…” *looks at paper* “…popping honeys?”

Girl #1: “Were the honeys popping, [teacher]?”

Teacher: “No, we didn’t say that the honeys were popping; we said that a party was popping when the honeys got there!”

(We’re reading a short story in literature class, when one student comes across a word he doesn’t know.)

Student #1: “Miss, what’s an antelope?”

Me: “What do you think it might be?”

Student #1: “I think it’s an animal, because the sentence also talks about giraffes and zebras and lions.”

Me: “Good use of context clues, [student #1]! Yes, an antelope is an animal.”

Student #2: “No it isn’t!”

Me: “Sorry?”

Student #2: “It’s not an animal.”

Me: “Um, yes it is. It’s kind of like a deer.”

Student #2: “No, it’s a fruit.”

(I have to stop and think for a second.)

Me: “No, honey. That’s a cantaloupe.”

(It’s the week before I’ll have surgery and be gone on sick leave, so I decide it’s time to tell my students I’ll be gone for the next one and half months.)

Me: “Okay class, from next Monday I’ll be gone for about one and a half months. [Colleague’s name] will have responsibility for you all while I’m gone. But if there’s something urgent, you can get hold of me either by mail or phone.”

Student #1: “Why will you be gone?”

Me: “I plan on going to Hollywood and get a tiny part in a movie, let the success get to my head, and start heavy abuse of alcohol and cocaine until I end up in the gutter. I’ll be forced to enter rehab, clean up my act, and then return home and beg on my knees to get my old job back.”

(The entire class is silent.)

Student #2: “Really? You plan on going to Hollywood?”

(Our chemistry teacher is teaching us about sp hybrid orbitals.)

Teacher: “If you look at a diagram of an sp hybrid orbital, you can see that they basically look like an s orbital and a p orbital combined.”

(She starts pointing them out on the diagram.)

Teacher: “See, there’s its ‘s-ness’, and there’s its… ah…”

(The entire class bursts into laughter.)