19 Teachers Whose Kindness and Patience Deserve a Standing Ovation

School teachers are not just people who grade assignments and check homework. They are also wise and sometimes incredibly witty individuals who can teach with a single phrase. We put together 20 stories that will make you want to laugh, cry, and give all teachers a big hug.

• It happened long ago, when we just started having computer classes. Our guys decided to test the new teacher’s nerve by setting swimsuit model photos as the screensaver on all the classroom computers. But the teacher didn’t freak out, and as soon as she discovered the prank, she immediately ordered the culprits to set flowers as the screensaver since they are so interested in the topic of pistils and stamens.

• Written exam in the chemistry-biology class. The question was “Name the main characteristics of flatworms.” And there on the perfectly clean, neatly formatted double sheet proudly stands the sole answer: “They’re gross.” © NaginiSnake / Pikabu
• Even the most diligent students sometimes come to class without their homework done, let alone the underachievers. And almost always they somehow feel that simply saying “I forgot” or “I didn’t have time” isn’t serious enough — they need to explain in detail to the teacher what prevented them from completing the assignment. Once, a girl didn’t do the assignment again and gave me this reason: “Yesterday, my parents gave me a kitten, and I couldn’t stop watching it sleep all evening.” © NaginiSnake / Pikabu
• I had one weak student. My subject isn’t a core one, and I didn’t want to fail the guy, but I also don’t like giving out free passes. I suggested he write a paper. A week goes by, I open the work... and read — and you could practically add links, it was so blatantly copied. It seemed like he was heading straight for an “F.” But there’s a twist: everything — all 8 pages! — was handwritten. For such dedication and perseverance, I gave him a “C.” © Grigory Gavrilov / ADME

• Chatting with my mom in the kitchen, she works at my school. She says her favorite moment on the job is when the whole class tries to help an absolutely hopeless underachiever. First, they explain with hints and metaphors, then they gesture with their fingers, and finally, they resort to just saying the answer. Yet, he still doesn’t understand because he hasn’t studied. That’s when the class turns into a bunch of cavemen: everyone gesticulates wildly, grunts something, trying to explain the correct answer — but nobody understands anyone. © Shkoverts / VK
• Once, I gave an assignment to write a short essay in English on the topic “My Dream.” I’m checking the notebooks — most have something standard like “I want to become a doctor” or “I dream of traveling a lot.” But I loved the most one student’s first sentence: “I dream that schools will cancel essays one day.” Well, it was honest.

• I confiscated a balloon from a kid one day, because he was making that really loud squeaky noise with it. 2 minutes later, I looked over and he had another balloon. A blue one this time. Took that one too. Next time I turned my head he pulled out another one. Red. Took it.
  This went on for another 2 minutes or so, which counted another 3 balloons. I finally asked him how much longer this was going to go on, to which he just kinda shrugged his shoulders.
  “Well, how many more balloons do you have?” I asked him.
  “I don’t know, couple?” he said, as he opened his backpack. His backpack was literally full of balloons. There were at least a couple hundred in there. No books, no pencils, no spare room for anything else, save for the 5 or 6 balloons that I had confiscated a few minutes prior. There were 4 or 5 pockets on the bag that I asked him to empty, which were all filled with balloons as well.
  All in all, the kid was very dedicated to the gag, so I told him that if he promised to do the same thing to another particular teacher, he could get them back at the end of the class. © plessis204 / Reddit
• My first grade class was learning the word “powerful.” Kids came up with examples of powerful things and people, like elephants or Superman. Then one boy said, “Babies are powerful because they can cry and get whatever they want.” © Hiciao / Reddit
• Teaching grade 5. Students were fooling around during group work so I said sarcastically, “Do I need to stand here and watch you do your work?” to which the student responded even more sarcastically, “Well you don’t have to stand, you can grab the chair and sit.” © shaaannon08 / Reddit

• I can’t remember which grade it was, but probably second or third grade. Teacher was asking something relatively simple and no one wanted to or knew the answer. “What’s going on here? There should be hands up like trees in the forest!”
  “Maybe this is a logging area,” said the joker of our class. © RottenHeads / Reddit
• ESL teacher. I had my students do an activity where they had to give directions based off of a map and situations I had chosen. The final question was more complex, and one of my students wrote, “Way too difficult, take a cab.” © Unknown user / Reddit
• I’m a student art teacher of 16+ kids, the art rooms have a strict “no food policy.” Anyways, all of the kids I teach are talented and genuinely lovely kids, cheeky but do their work and aren’t awful. I’m sat with one group going over their work and I smell coffee, not unusual in art rooms because we use it to stain paper, then I hear rattling and a minor commotion, I look over to see one of my students handing out cups of coffee from a flask with mini cups and biscuits to other students. It was so out of the blue and just funny that I told them to hurry up and hide the evidence before someone saw and to not do it again. Had a biscuit too. © moosickles / Reddit

• I was doing my student teaching, and there was a boy that got his recess taken away and I was the one supposed to be punishing him. His problem was that he talked and talked and talked. So I ask him, “What could we do to help you focus better?” He thinks for a solid minute and replies, “Ice cream.” I couldn’t help but laugh. © maroonmallard / Reddit
• I started teaching while my father was still teaching. One day I went to see him teach. Intro course, 300 students, large lecture hall. Kid in the back fell asleep, completely flat on his desk. My dad did not break cadence, did not alter his tone of voice, all the while taking a pillow from behind the podium. He calmly walked up the aisle, still talking, and gently put the student’s head on a pillow. He then went on with the lecture. I about had a cow. At the end of class, everyone left very quietly. The best part was knowing that about an hour or so later, the guy was going to wake up and not know what happened. © pdraper0914 / Reddit
• When I was working with first graders, I once asked them to draw their family. One little boy drew his mom, dad, and a giant cat that was twice the size of his parents. The reason for such odd proportions? “Well, the cat’s the boss of the family!”

• I graduated from school with honors, not a single bad grade. Once, a teacher asked for an example of irony. Without thinking much, I said, “That’s Harry Potter in the last movie. He was looking for the last horcrux, which he himself was.” The teacher’s eyes grew twice their size, and he blurted out, “Thanks for the spoilers, Alexandra. Sit down. D!” © Caramel / VK
• During my teaching practice, I had the opportunity to observe art classes. They were conducted by a charismatic elderly teacher — a true free artist who had somehow ended up teaching in school. He spoke passionately about the power of art, about how it is capable of capturing the spirit, and finally gave the fifth-graders this task, “Please, depict a raging sea, show a storm that sinks even the mightiest ships!” And then, from the back of the class, a hand goes up. “Can I draw a puppy?” The teacher sighed theatrically and said kindly, “Of course, you can draw a puppy.” © Caramel / VK

• After college, I got a job at a school and lasted just under 6 months. I had long known it wasn’t for me, but I decided to give it a try anyway. It was difficult and uninteresting. I was constantly waiting for some kind of sign from above to finally make the decision to leave. The sign came to me in the school corridor when a third-grader collided with me, almost knocking me off my feet, then looked at me sternly and said, “You should get out of here as far as you can!” That’s exactly what I did the next day! © Karamel / VK
• My son had a new teacher. The kids decided to test her. They slipped some naughty pictures into her notebook. She comes in, nods. The class sits down and waits in suspense. She opens the notebook, puts on her glasses, takes the pictures, looks at them. She takes off her glasses and with a slight smile says, “Guys, I’m 58 years old. What did you want to surprise me with?” The class was smitten and captivated until the graduation prom. They listened not just to her voice — but to the movements of her eyebrows. © Yuriy8 / Pikabu

Do you agree that teachers like this remain in our memory forever? Which of these stories impressed you the most? And do you have a couple of stories about your wisest or funniest teacher to share? Share them in the comments!

And here are some stories about teachers who could hardly keep their face straight.