11 Teacher Stories That Left People Speechless

Teachers often leave lasting impressions—some that inspire and uplift, and others that challenge and haunt. Let’s delve into these experiences where teachers have undoubtedly influenced their students.

• My daughter always loved school. But one afternoon, she came home crying. She wouldn’t talk to me. Hours later, she finally said, “You’re a bad mom! Mr. Parker told the class today that good moms always put their kids first, like coming to school events and being there for them. But... you’ve missed many of them.” That broke me.
  I’m a single mom. I work two jobs to provide for my family. I’ve missed many field trips and school events — not because I don’t care, but because I’m doing everything I can to give her a future. I emailed Mr. Parker. He replied: “I was just telling the class about what an ideal family looks like. I’m sorry if your daughter misunderstood.”
  The next day, I went to the principal. I didn’t yell. I just said my child wouldn’t stay in a class where she was quietly made to feel less than. She was moved to a new class.
• We had weekly spelling tests in my 11th-grade English class, which I thought was a bit remedial by that point and probably said so in a not completely diplomatic way. The teacher even made you write any words you got wrong 5 times and hand that in to her by the end of the class.
  I would typically get perfect scores on tests, but one time I got a test back with no actual errors marked as 0%. My teacher’s explanation was that she saw me talking to someone in our free period before class, who ended up doing poorly, and that was my fault because I distracted them from possibly studying. © ropeerasers / Reddit
• I did a presentation on biology. The teacher told me she wanted me to do a creative introduction instead of just opening it with the standard “Today I’ll be presenting...”
  So I did. I invented a short story about an old lady going to the supermarket and worked in some early symptoms of Alzheimer’s (the topic I was presenting). I was so invested in that character; she had a name and a backstory. I even drew up a few comic panels so that everyone could follow along easily. Then, at the end of my presentation, I asked my class which symptoms the old lady in the story had and, hence, what stage her Alzheimer’s was.
  When I got my grade back, I was surprised that the teacher deducted points for the intro since she “told me to do a creative intro, so it wasn’t an original idea.” Like, what the hell?! I came up with the story, I drew the comic panels; all of that was me. I felt so betrayed. If I hadn’t done a creative intro, she would have deducted points, so I did one, and she deducted points anyway?! And after all that work... still grinds my gears. I was 15 at the time. © Olapaloo / Reddit
• The staples were not in the “right spot” for my essay, even though I had them in the top left corner like always. © midgetrage7 / Reddit

• College. I handed in my work to a teacher. He lost it. Gave it to him again. He lost it. He said I didn’t give him anything. Gave it to him again. He lost it and said I didn’t give him any of my work. I complained to my tutor. Next lesson, he pulled me aside and said to do distinction-grade work, but he will give me the lowest grade anyway, and my tutor won’t believe me if I tell her. She didn’t. Ended up getting the lowest grade. © quack_quack_mofo / Reddit
• Freshman year of high school, I had the worst earth science teacher. She was terrible at controlling the class and at organizing her things. Five or six students got an F on a project once because her four-year-old painted all over them. She would lose papers a lot, and it would ALWAYS be the students’ fault because “high school freshmen are so unorganized and lose things alllll the time,” and “the teacher is an adult and so mature and NEVER wrong.” © yarbousaj / Reddit
• My math teacher in 11th grade. I got pulled out of school for medical problems and was out for 2/3 months. I came back, and she made me take all my missed tests all at once. I failed them all, obviously (hospital tutoring can only help you so much). And my teacher claimed, “Whatever, not my problem,” and I ended up failing the class and going to summer school and still failed, but damn, as a teacher, she could have helped me out a bit and made an effort to teach me... I hate her so much for that. © freshylemon2 / Reddit

• Back in high school, during a quiz, one of my friends had his eczema flare up from stress. Right after the test, the teacher called him over and handed him a detention slip. When he looked at the reason, his jaw dropped. It read: “Signaling answers by scratching head.” He tried to explain it was just his eczema, but she wouldn’t listen. “Don’t try to deny it. I know all the tricks, and you know the school has a strict zero-tolerance policy for cheating.” It wasn’t even a multiple-choice quiz—just a regular test. He stood there, completely stunned, trying to understand how she came to that conclusion.
• A friend of mine got minus 1 for scratching his head. Our teacher said he was faking it... © ObiBram / Reddit
• Had a math teacher in high school who would “learn” as we went. She would be in the middle of a lesson, then pause for a bit and mumble to herself, “Now, how did they get that answer?” while reading from the book. There would be times when we were taking notes and she would completely mess it up by mixing different lessons and having to redo all the notes...© 1**********TooMuch / Reddit
• I had a community college English professor who I think was months from retirement. He was nice, but simply didn’t care about us learning anything. He would pull up joke emails he got and spend most of our time telling stories. About a month left of class, he told us he’d gotten some formal complaints and then assigned us one, loosely graded research paper. © TheDarkNightwing / Reddit

These stories underscore the sometimes shocking impact teachers can have on their students’ lives. They truly reveal the immense responsibility educators bear.