About fifteen years ago, I got a job as an English teacher at a German high school. It took me some time to realise that the other English teachers weren’t really that good at speaking or teaching English. This is the story of one event that made me lose all respect for their abilities.

The school had a charity drive to collect money for an orphanage in India. One year, some of the nuns who ran the orphanage came to visit the school. There was going to be a big event, with all students attending, where the nuns would talk about what that money was used for. The principal asked me to translate their answers to the assembly. The students had prepared some questions in their English classes to ask, and I was supposed to translate the answers.

To my horror, every single one of the questions was in something that might have resembled English but was utterly incomprehensible. Of course, the nuns didn’t understand a word they were saying, so I just made something up, based on one or two nouns I thought might have been part of the question.

Unfortunately, the nuns had very thick Indian accents that I wasn’t familiar with, so when I translated the answers to the questions I had made up, I also had to improvise. Basically, I had a conversation with myself. In the end, the students learned that the money they raised was used for building toilets (I think) and that the Indian kids’ favourite food was chicken.

About twenty years ago, I was in a small middle school — I’d say 400 students. Those in charge decided to donate to an environmental charity and made it into a game for the students. One class per grade got to go on a field trip if their class brought in the most cans for recycling. There was only one rule: no deliberate wastage of content.

I had quite a massive advantage with this. As luck would have it, my grandfather was a restaurant owner, and their main source of drinks was out of cans. Another bit of luck: my cousin had a wedding with hundreds of guests, with plenty of canned beverages. Not to mention lots of older relatives who just simply liked to party. So, word got around, and we gathered up the cans.

All in all, I brought in around 9,000 cans. My class even had to get permission to use the spare storage room for all those extra cans. I alone outperformed every single other class combined. Without me, the average number of cans per person was only fifteen, I think, during a two-week period. The person who brought the second most number of cans had around 200.

That was fun and very memorable.

Our home economics teacher once let us make pizza. The recipe was for a ham and mushroom pizza.

Classmate: “I don’t like mushrooms. Could I make one with just ham?”

Several of us agreed.

Teacher: “No, you have to follow the recipe exactly, or I won’t be able to tell if you did it right.”

We suggested, y’know, tasting it. Apparently, that was a completely bizarre idea.

But at least the pizza we threw away uneaten was made according to the recipe, I guess.

I’m in class. One kid loudly burps and farts at the same time. This isn’t a quick “bleh” but a really long, drawn-out brrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaapppp, and an equally long, low frrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt. It practically rattles the windows.

The teacher turns and stares at the class.

Teacher: “Who did that?”

We all point at the guilty culprit, who looks very proud of himself.

Teacher: “Look. Normally, I’d send you to the principal for being so disruptive, but… I’ve never had a kid burp and fart that loudly — and simultaneously at that! Go to the nurse so we can figure out what’s wrong with you, and maybe report to the biology department for vivisection after.”

A few months later, I sat with the kid at lunch, and he told me his parents put him on a restrictive diet on the recommendation of the school nurse after that event.

I’ve been a substitute teacher at the same school for about ten years, and I’m one of the favorite subs the district has according to most of the kids. One day, I’m assigned to a class that has two identical twin brothers. I’ve known them for a few years, but despite my best efforts, I simply cannot tell them apart unless they are literally shoulder-to-shoulder in front of me. The twins are Black, and I am white.

We’re between classes when the kids have a few minutes to go to the bathroom or grab something from their locker. I’m standing out in the hallway when [Twin #1] approaches me.

Twin #1: “Hey, Mr. [My Name], can I please go to the bathroom before class?”

Me: “Yes, you may. Which one are you?”

[Twin #1] starts to answer, but then I hear a woman’s voice just behind me.

Woman: “Excuse me? What did you just ask him?”

I turn around and see a middle-aged woman I’ve never met before, at school or anywhere else. She is white, like me. Before [Twin #1] or I can say a word, she continues.

Woman: “Are you racist? Do all African American children look the same to you, so you need to ask ‘which one’ is speaking to you? I may have a word with the school principal about this.”

Just then, [Twin #2] comes out of my classroom and stands next to his brother. The woman splutters a bit and goes beet-red.

Me: “In this case, yes. I have a bit of trouble telling [Twin #1] and [Twin #2] apart. Most people in school do, and it has nothing to do with their race or ethnicity. Can I ask who you are?”

The woman refused to answer, turned on her heel, and started walking toward the office. I gave both twins permission to go to the bathroom and then asked a different teacher who I knew was on their free hour if they could please cover my class for a few minutes. The teacher agreed after I gave a hasty explanation, and I followed the woman to the office to make sure I could defend myself against any accusations she might make.

The woman turned out to be a brand-new substitute teacher, and she did try making a few accusations against me — racism toward Black students, verbal abuse against her, etc. The principal — whom I’ve known for many years, even before I started substitute teaching — didn’t buy a word of it after hearing my side of the story. The woman was invited to rethink her decision to become a substitute teacher and to either learn to figure out the facts before jumping to conclusions or find a different career.

I returned to class and got a high-five from both twins. We still sometimes joke about it whenever I have to ask “which one” of them I’m talking to.