(Because of a specific chemistry assessment, several students need to come in after school to do lab work.)
Classmate #1: *pouring solution* “Ugh, the ammonia smells.”
Classmate #2: “Don’t insult the ammonia. The ammonia has feelings, you know.
Classmate #3: “Ammonia was my best friend for a year.”
(During the two last years in high school in Germany, you pick two classes as your “major,” for which you have more hours per week and exams count most during graduation. I pick art, and since only nine other people do, and we are all genuinely interested and enthusiastic, and as this is the first art major ever at this school, our art teacher makes class a lot of fun while also educational. For our final project, he allows us to each paint a mural on sections of the walls of his classroom. We get really into it and often spend not only class hours but also breaks painting. One day we go a bit too far, though.)
Art Teacher: “Okay, guys. Class is officially over. Pack up your brushes and clean up.”
Student #1: “But I just need to finish this bit! I’ll never be able to mix this colour right!”
Me: “I just got into the zone! Let us stay!”
Art Teacher: *sighs* “Okay, you can stay for break, but after that I have another class in here, so have everything cleaned by then!”
(We promise, yet somehow forget. Not a problem, since the next class has to be shifted to another room for whatever reason, and our teacher completely forgets about us staying during break. Ninety minutes later, after finishing his class, he comes back into the room to find us still painting.)
Art Teacher: “Wait, you’re all still here?! Do you have a free period right now?”
Me: “Uh… No. We forgot.”
Art Teacher: “You forgot to go to your classes because of painting?!”
Student #2: “Oops?”
Art Teacher: “I’m going to get into so much trouble for this.”
Student #1: “Can’t we just all say we skipped class?”
Me: “Yeah, nobody knows we were in here. We could’ve just gone to get fast food or something.”
Student #2: “Yeah, it wouldn’t be fair to get you in trouble for us messing up.”
Art Teacher: “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear this conversation, but I’ll also not talk to the principal or your other teachers until tomorrow. You guys decide whatever you want to do.”
(We agreed to stick with the lie of skipping class, and we all got detention for it. Retrospectively, I have to wonder if our art teacher told the principal the truth, though, since detention mysteriously got scheduled in the art classroom, so we could just spend it painting even more. I went to visit our art teacher years after graduating, and our murals were still there.)
(The UK has very strict gun laws. One day, there are police everywhere and helicopters in the sky. Social media informs me that two people were spotted with guns. The next Monday when I’m in my films and media class…)
Teacher: “Before we start, I just want to thank you guys for being so eager to do your coursework. Next time, though, please alert both the college and the police if you’re going to be filming with realistic replica firearms.”
(He looked pointedly at two of my classmates. I think we know who caused the stir.)
In high school, I took a political theory class that was essentially a series of role-playing games. One of the first ones we did had each student as the ruler of a 100 mile square country, with our grades determined by our country’s economic status at the end of the game.
A group of five other students banded together to invade my country, leaving my country super poor. My solution? I legalized the growth and export of opium poppies. By the time the guys who had invaded my country figured it out, their economies were suffering due to rampant narcotic use. They threatened to take a ton of money from my country, but I told them I would make it illegal again.
While I did make opium poppies illegal again, I let the teacher know that I wasn’t going to enforce the law, so I avoided losing my country’s money while still making bank with the export of opium. Some of my classmates legalized medical narcotics in their countries, so I was also making money by exporting to them.
In the end, pretty much every country in the class had a ton of opium use. Mine was fairly mild, but all the classmates who had originally invaded my country had their economies ruined. I ended up regaining most of my lost grade and getting a B+ or A-, while they all got poor grades.
(We are learning about the Vikings in English class. The teacher has just begun talking about how the Vikings were great explorers and reached America in circa AD 1000. [Classmate #1] is quite rude and thinks everyone should be on her side.)
Teacher: “They came from Iceland, which they discovered 150 years earlier…”
Classmate #1: *rather accusingly* “But they didn’t discover it, did they, Miss?”
Teacher: *bewildered* “What do you mean? It says so right here—”
Classmate #1: *smugly* “It says nothing about the native Icelanders. Is it like with the Native Americans, and the Vikings just—” *makes finger quotes* “—’discovered’ Iceland first? Did they erase their culture from the history books?”
([Classmate #1] is smiling, as if she has stumbled upon a great secret.)
Teacher: “Okay, just humour me for a second.”
(She brings up an online video of where each place was discovered, from the first humans in central Africa. At Viking exploration, she pauses it.)
Teacher: “Just concentrate for a second.”
(The video clearly states that the Vikings were the first to reach Iceland, due to its remoteness. [Classmate #1] is shrieking in uproar as we struggle not to laugh.)
Classmate #1: “That can’t be right! It’s a conspiracy! The Vikings were white! White people never arrive anywhere first!”
Classmate #2: “What about the Moon?”
([Classmate #1] ran out, screaming that she was going to get the principal and that the teacher was racist.)
