13 Teachers Who Could Hardly Keep a Straight Face

School years are some of the best times in life, filled with joy, friendship, and unforgettable memories. Some school stories are so unbelievable that even teachers struggle to keep a straight face. Here are 13 of the funniest classroom moments shared by teachers online.

• I was teaching math—two-step equations, to be exact—when I asked the class if anyone had any questions. A student raised their hand and asked, “When are we ever going to use this in real life?” I love that question. I handled it like a pro because I’ve been answering it for ten years now.
  Then the student added, “My mom says I don’t need to learn math because I won’t ever use it.” Curious, I asked, “What does your mom do for a living?” The student replied, “She’s a banker.” © DownRodeo404 / Reddit
• One February, I gave my students a simple assignment: write a one-page paper on a Black mathematician. It was an easy task—something that could be completed in about thirty minutes.
  One student turned in his work, and it was clearly plagiarized. He had copy-pasted an article straight from the internet, even leaving the hyperlinks underlined in the document. Per school policy, I gave him a zero, wrote him up, and called his mom to explain what had happened. Her defense? “You never said in the directions that he couldn’t plagiarize.”
  It took everything in me not to laugh out loud. With a huge grin on my face, I calmly replied, “Well, when you walk into a bank, there aren’t any signs saying, ‘Don’t rob the bank.’ It’s just understood.” © paulccarboni / Reddit

• In that same class, I had a little girl, Ashley, who absolutely adored her baby sister. Every time we had show-and-tell, she would share some story about her sibling, and every art project featured a picture of her.
  One day, I had to discipline Ashley and made her put her head down for five minutes. She started to cry, which was unusual for her, and when I told her she could sit back up, she was still crying. When I asked her what the matter was, she tearfully said that her baby sister had to go to the hospital.
  Imagining the worst, I took Ashley to the back of the classroom where we could talk privately and asked her to elaborate. “She’s ANEMIC!” Ashley sobbed. “Oh,” I said, relieved, “That’s not so bad. They’ll just give her some vitamins and...”
  “NO!” she wailed, her eyes brimming with tragic tears. “She has to eat VEGETABLES!!!”
  To Ashley, this was the cruelest thing that could happen to a poor, defenseless baby, and once again, I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing. © Pamela Christie / Quora
• One student, who had just flown back from the Philippines, pointed to the waning gibbous moon in the sky that day and asked, “Is that the Philippines?”
  Another student asked, after I showed the class a picture of my parents with my dad dressed up as Smokey Bear at his fire station, “So, are you half bear?” © scoutopotamus / Reddit

• I still chuckle when I recall this incident from my early days as a teacher. I was explaining magnetic materials to my class—covering ferromagnetic, paramagnetic, and diamagnetic types. When I mentioned that paramagnetic materials are weakly attracted to magnets, a curious student stood up and asked, “On which day of the week?”
  At first, I was perplexed by the question, but it took me a few moments to realize the misunderstanding. The student had interpreted “weak” as “week,” thinking I was referring to a day of the week! It was a lighthearted moment that taught me to be mindful of my wording and to appreciate the creative thinking of my students. © Hemant Inamdar / Quora
• Two boys in my math class kept looking under their desks, smiling and pointing at something. I assumed they were hiding their phones, so I quietly walked over, ready to catch them—when suddenly, they held up a box of strawberries and immediately asked, “Do you want some?” They had set the whole thing up!
• One of my favorite kindergarten students was a very sweet boy. One afternoon, I had misplaced my reading glasses. I made an announcement that I would offer stickers to anyone who found them.
  A moment later, this little one came over to me and asked if he could use the computer. I said yes, of course, and asked what he wanted to do. With his charming smile, he said he wanted to do a Google search for my glasses. I fired up my laptop, and we typed in: “Where are my glasses?”
  When he looked at the screen, he shook his head and said, “Maybe we should have entered ‘Where are Ms. [Teacher’s Name]’s glasses?’” I eventually found my glasses under some papers on a student table. © MuchCommunication539 / Reddit

• Last year, I taught English at a high school in Spain. One day, we were doing a geography exercise where I’d say the English name of a country or body of water, and the class would repeat it in unison.
  Then, I came across the Aegean Sea. I had no idea how to pronounce it. Flustered, I hesitated and finally said, “AY-jeein Sea... I think.” Without missing a beat, the entire class repeated in perfect unison: “Aegean-Sea-I-Think.”
  I completely lost it. And to this day, I’m pretty sure they still have no idea why. © mrmuzz2 / Reddit
• I was teaching sophomores, and the students were working on guided practice. All of a sudden, a girl screamed, “Oh my God! My dad ate my mac and cheese!” She had randomly realized it in class — and was quite upset. © TictacTyler / Reddit
• It was raining during break time, so we stayed in class. We have a large storage box full of games for the children to play with during such times.
  One very trustworthy child asked to bring the box out from the class cupboard, and I said yes. A couple of minutes passed, and I would’ve expected her to have brought it out by then. So I went over and said jokingly, while flexing my poor excuse for muscles, “Everything okay, Angela? Do you need the help of a big, strong man?”
  She poked her head out of the cupboard, looked at me, looked around, and said, “Where is he?” I laughed my head off — such a quick-witted little girl! © vsquad22 / Reddit

• In life skills class for significantly cognitively and socially impaired students, we were talking about how to make friends and get along with others. Their homework was to give a polite compliment to a classmate or family member.
  One girl looked concerned. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, “I can’t do the homework because I’m not good at lying.” © ICLazeru / Reddit
• One time, a student looked me up and down and said, “You look like the kind of person who goes home and drinks tea...” He definitely meant it as an insult, but I just laughed and said, “You’re right — I do drink tea.” © Mundane_Raccoon3062 / Reddit
• I had a third-grader who would sit rubbing his upper lip. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, “Just waiting for my mustache to grow.” It hit me so hard — I laughed until I cried.
  On the last day of school, I gave him a pack of fake mustaches, and he ran around asking to show everyone in the building. I still laugh every time I think of him! © Unknown Author / Reddit

Discover more school stories from internet users recalling the surprising moments their teachers gave them.