(In anatomy and physiology lab we are learning about the skeletal structure.)

Professor: “And this is the collar bone. Which quarterback broke his this past weekend?”

Me: “Aaron Rodgers.”

Professor: “Yeah, so, basically, the Packers are screwed for the season.”

(The professor then goes on a rant about why Rodgers is out for the season, and about recovery of collar bone breaks.)

Professor: “You know, since the Packers’ season is over, we should be, too. Class dismissed.”

My daughter’s middle school English teacher inadvertently left a loophole in her syllabus. Students could earn points for every book they read; all they had to do was fill out a form with the author, title, and a brief synopsis, with a signature from the parent that the book was actually read. The catch? The teacher hadn’t put a limit on how many points a student could earn.

[Daughter] spotted the loophole, drew my attention to it, and asked what I thought. I figured this could be a valuable learning experience for both [Daughter] and her teacher, so I told her that, as far as I was concerned, she could go for it.

I was very proud, as a parent, of having gotten my children addicted to reading at an early age, and [Daughter] went for it in a big way. Much to her teacher’s distress, [Daughter] read and turned in the forms for something like 130 books that semester, and didn’t do any of the assignments.

She ended up with an A in the class, begrudgingly granted, but the teacher wouldn’t recommend her for Advanced Placement English classes in high school. I gather that her syllabus changed the next semester. So, they both did learn something.

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.)

(I teach evening courses at a community college in Oklahoma and, as such, always get at least one student who was, or is currently, going to University of Oklahoma [OU] or Oklahoma State University [OSU].)

Me: “Why do more football players go to OU than OSU?”

Victim: “I don’t know.”

Me: “It’s easier to spell.”

(I’m a dad. I have a right to make dad jokes.)