I’m a teacher. Our school has a cloud that holds all of our lesson plans, grades, everything. We are required to use it, and can even get in trouble if we don’t. I keep resources on my home computer. The finished product gets uploaded to the cloud. I’m not technically supposed to do this, but I have had these since before I worked here, and they’re too messy to sort.

My first year at this school was okay. I didn’t have the problem I had with another school- kids being forced to take my class instead of the one they wanted- so, most of my classes actually wanted to learn! My boss was okay, too.

Two weeks before the next new school year, I looked online, and everything had been wiped. I received an email saying that the grades and other personal data had been wiped for privacy reasons, but they wiped my lesson plans, too! This had to be a mistake. I called my principal.

He told me, “We have new standards for teaching every year, so you wouldn’t even be able to use them! It’s easier to wipe them all so teachers don’t have to go through a revision process when they submit old plans.”

I was stunned. First of all, plans can be modified, and it’s easier to modify than to create an entirely new thing from scratch. Secondly, TWO WEEKS?! Two weeks to plan an entire year? Thirdly, I was no longer ashamed of my secret resource stash (which would have been deleted, too)!

After somewhat of a breakdown, I picked through the mess of resources and cobbled together the first semester. At the first teacher’s meeting, I was the only one who had gotten that far.

(In my school there is always a fire drill shortly after the beginning of the school year. In my very last year, we are a class without a teacher when the drill was announced. Usually we would just leave through the door, but directly in front of our door is the “fire”, a teacher saying fire over and over again.)

Fire: *flapping arms* “Fire, fire! It’s hot; go back inside!”

Classmate #1: “But we don’t have a teacher! Are we supposed to burn?”

Fire: *thinking, shakes his head* “Bad luck! Go back!”

(We go back inside. The other escape route is a wall-door to the next classroom, which can be opened fully, and is usually opened by the teacher. So, of course, we have no idea how to open it. Since we know it is just a drill, we decide to just stay there, instead of bothering with opening the door. About half an hour later, someone knocks on the door.)

Fire: *winks* “Someone’s here to see you!”

Our Teacher: “You’re dead!”

Principal: “Would you please try to open the wall-door? I had hoped you, as the oldest, would be able to, but it doesn’t seem so.”

(We then spent another quarter hour opening the door. Our principal was new and didn’t quite believe in the effectiveness of the wall-doors in emergency situations, especially if there was no teacher available. She was right. Luckily for us, there were no real fire alarms until we were gone and new doors were installed. A fairly large amount of people had “the time we burned to death in class” quoted as funniest moment in the yearbook.)

(I am a teaching assistant and I am helping out in a lesson of food technology. The students are making cupcakes. They were allowed to bring in food colouring of their choice.)

Student: “Mrs. [My Name], if I make my cakes green, will they be mint flavoured?”

Me: “No, you would need to put flavouring into the mix, like peppermint.”

Student: “But isn’t that clear?”

Me: “It can be, yes.”

Student: “But mint is green!”

Me: “It doesn’t have to be. Kendal Mint Cake isn’t green. After Eights aren’t green.”

(I have never seen someone’s mind collapse under such a simple concept, but he had to go to the nurse’s office and rest. He didn’t come back until close to the end of the lesson. I finished his cakes for him, but I didn’t use the colouring in case it confused him again.)

When I was in high school, there was this ONE IDIOT that would always say “Hey guys, it’s snowing!”

It didn’t matter what month it was; January, June, he’d just say it.

The whole classroom of idiots would automatically turn our heads toward the window, and it was never snowing. So, we’d throw pencils at him and tell him to shut up.

A few years later, I went to university and that ONE IDIOT was in my class. In the middle of the lecture he said, “Hey guys, it’s snowing.” And we all (idiots) automatically turned our heads to the left to see if there was snow.

There were two problems with that.

One: It was September, and the temperature outside was in the mid-80s.

Two: This classroom had no windows.

Not only that, but for some reason, ALL OF US automatically looked toward the left side of the room for the same non-existent window.

So, we threw pencils at him and told him to shut up.

(I am in drama class. We are doing coursework where we need to design a stage for a random play we pick out of a hat. We are free to do whatever we like, as long as we justify our choices in the written portion, the minimum requirement of which is 300 words. My play is usually set against an audience on all sides, and our teacher has always stressed that all of the set pieces are to be in the middle so everyone can see. I’ve never followed this logic, as I find it difficult to imagine how an actor is meant to use the props without preferring a particular side of the stage. The only way around it that I can see is that they present themselves to each one at a time, which doesn’t work for me with timing. I design my stage differently in that the unused props are disguised as something else, or that props can be reused, to maximise on space, and that the centre of the stage is primarily for the actors. When I submit my work, I am expecting a lecture from my teacher, but I end up also failing. I ask my teacher about it.)

Teacher: “I have told you all, time and time again, how to correctly design a stage. Your design not only broke with convention, it also made absolutely no sense!”

Me: “But you said we could do whatever, as long as we explain it.”

Teacher: “Within reason, [Name]! I couldn’t imagine trying to explain your design.”

Me: “You don’t have to. I wrote nearly 2000 words explaining it.”

Teacher: “Yes, that, too. The count is 300!”

Me: “You said there was no limit.”

Teacher: “’Within reason.’ I couldn’t even get past the title!”

(So, essentially, my teacher looked at my design, didn’t like it, and saw the write up as too long, so she just failed me. It ended up biting her in the butt though, as my coursework was selected to be independently graded by the exam board, and the examiner took a considerably different attitude towards it. It lead to my entire class having their work sent away, and everyone got a grade increase, as my teacher was seen as both too strict and holding her opinion in too high regard. I dropped the course when I moved on to A-Level to avoid her, but I’m hoping to take it up again when I go to university.)