(I am an American working as an English teacher in China. I am working with a class of five five-year-olds through the unit on describing the rooms of a house. With us is a local young woman who translates and assists me as needed. At the beginning of today’s lesson, I review the names of the rooms with the basic sentence structure using our large flash cards. Towards the end of the review, the class clown starts messing around.)

Me: *holds up card* “What is this?”

Four Students: “It’s the kitchen!”

Class Clown: “[My Name] is in the kitchen!”

Me: *holds up next card* “What is this?”

Four Students: “It’s the living room!”

Class Clown: “[My Name] is in the living room!”

(The review is now over, but I decide to give myself something to chuckle about with my coworkers later.)

Me: *holds up the closet card* “[Class Clown], what is this?”

Class Clown: “[My Name] is in the closet!”

(Usually, the locals that work with us part time have a fluent understanding of English but do not understand colloquial expressions, and I assume that this will slip by my TA, but it turns out, I underestimated my current TA. She cracks up when she hears [Class Clown] “outing” me.)

Me: *To the TA* “Oh, you know what that means?”

TA: *nodding while laughing*

(This creates a problem for me. [Class Clown] realizes he has said something funny. [Class Clown] loves nothing more than to be funny. [Class Clown] is not going to forget something he said that made him funny, even if he doesn’t understand it. For the remaining weeks I have with them, he will randomly shout at me, “[My Name] is in the closet!” Even when they graduate from this level and move into another class, it does not end. Sometimes, we pass each other in the halls or in the waiting area, where there are many teachers, employees, and parents, and he points at me and yells:)

Class Clown: “[My Name] is in the closet!”

Me: *sighing* “I deserve this.”

(When I am in primary school, my mum works as a nurse and my dad as a police officer. So that one of them can be home as much as possible, they often work opposite each other. Mum quite often works nights when Dad works days and vice versa. One day at my parent-teacher evening, Mum goes to talk to the teacher:)

Teacher: *grinning* “I have to show you this. [My Name] was asked to write about what his parents do for a living, and he wrote this.”

My Writing: “My mummy stays out all night and stays in bed all day!”

Mum: “Oh, my!”

Teacher: *chuckling* “Don’t worry; I know what you actually do, so we’ll say no more about it!”

(My anatomy class tends to get off topic sometimes. We talk about everything from famous people to how our day was. Today is a little different, courtesy of a girl on the other side of the class. We have started talking about religion, sharing random facts about it. [Student #1] puts her two cents in.)

Student #1: “I’m Catholic, as you know by now. And if you have not, or do not go to church, you are devil worshipers.”

(She says this without any hesitation. The whole class just stares.)

Student #2: “That’s a bit harsh.”

Student #1: “I don’t mean like y’all are going to Hell. But that’s what the devil does. He doesn’t go to church. So you follow him. That’s why you don’t go to church.”

(Everyone in our cultural rainbow glory of peers just stared. Even the die-hard Catholics were sitting there with “WTF” looks. Each to their own opinion, but seriously.)

(I attend a career event with a specialty lab program for high school students and as a second-year, we do individual labs. Our sterile hoods are in a separate area and are quite loud. One of my classmates and I are prepping our hoods while another is in the main lab with our teacher. Glass shatters loud enough for us to hear in the hood room. [Male Classmate] and I look over at each other but continue on with our lab. [Female Classmate] comes in, obviously shaken.)

Female Classmate: “[Teacher] just cussed.”

([Male Classmate] and I are confused, as our teacher is a woman who doesn’t even say “darn” most of the time.)

Me: “What’d you do?”

Female Classmate: “I dropped a beaker.”

Teacher: *entering room* “She dropped it next to my head.”

(I work as a part-time tutor because I need some extra cash and I enjoy working with children. This evening, I am working with a ten-year-old girl who is known to be very bubbly and intelligent. She also tends to be very talkative and I doubt she has ever had a thought she has not vocalized. I am helping her through her study packet when, out of the blue, she says this.)

Girl: “I’m not wearing underwear!”

Me: “W… What?!”

Girl: *giggling* “I don’t have any underwear!”

Me: *takes a moment to process this bizarre declaration* “Uh… yes, you are?”

Girl: “Nuh-uh!”

Me: “Yes, you are.”

Girl: “How do you know?”

Me: “Because you’re wearing leggings and your panties show through them.”

Girl: *sheepish at being caught in a lie* “Oh…”

Me: “Now, stop making up silly things and let’s finish your work.”

(We finish the session without further incident and I think nothing more about it, save for chuckling a couple of times at how odd it is. The next time I come into work, the assistant director asks to speak with me.)

Assistant Director: “I got a very strange report about your conduct from another teacher.” *looks more perplexed than concerned* “She said you were discussing inappropriate topics with your student and… and that you are a peodophile? Something about talking about the underwear she was wearing?”

(I stammer dumbfounded at such accusations, but then I explain to him the full story.)

Assistant Director: *chuckling* “That sounds like something [Girl] would say. I’ll have a talk with the accuser. This is an extremely serious accusation to make for such trivial reasons.”

(I worked with my assigned student that night without incident. There was only one other tutor with me on the floor the night in question, so I knew who must have made the report. I am not sure what was said to her, but she refused to make eye-contact the rest of my time there. There’s a good reason men are under-represented in the field of childhood education. It is far too easy to ruin someone’s life with false accusations. Think before you report!)