I got two answers for this.
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When I was in grade school, the teachers would get mad and fuss at me for reading books during recess time. Because I wasn’t playing with the other kids. But those kids told me they didn’t like me and they didn’t wanna play with me because they thought I was too weird. So why should I want to or have to play with the other kids if they didn’t wanna play with me? Also I was sitting on the steps reading my Junie B. Jones book or Babysitters Club book or Judy Moody book and eating my cookies, minding my business, how was that bothering you any?
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In my sophomore year of high school I took a Ceramics/Sculpting art class, and it was the last day of school before fall holiday break. And rhe project we were currently working on was making tumbler cups that can be used to hold desk supplies like pencils, markers, pens, highlighters, etc. I guess i didn’t wrap my project up as well ad i thought the day before because half the clay of my project was dried up before I was finished. I asked the teacher what I should do, she said that I could ask the girl at the table in front of mine for some clay, because she was prepping a new bag of clay. So when I went to ask the girl, she said “Of course, but can you give me about 10 minutes?” And I said “okay, I can wait”. Whilst I was waiting, I pulled out my school laptop, checked to see if I had any new important emails and made sure I turned in all my finished assignments into Google Classroom so my teachers could grade them during break. 15 or so minutes later, I asked the girl again if I could get some clay now. But I just asked her from my table since hers was not far from mine. The teacher called me to her desk and said to me “We do not yell across the classroom! You can prep your own clay.” I didn’t even yell, I thought to myself. The girl was literally less than ten feet in front of me. But out loud, I responded “That’s fine, but can I at least get an apron or smock first please? I don’t wanna get my clothes dirty”. And for some unbeknownst reason that made my teacher even more angry with me. “You have been very disrespectful all day today! Pack up your bags, I’m calling your vice principal”. And I was sentenced to all day in school suspension.
But what about you? What’s the silliest or dumbest reason you got in trouble for in school?
1st to 2nd grade so this was what my parents relayed to me after I grew up a bit more
Apparently I was so aggressively autistic (and relatively smart) that I not only did close to perfect on all my exams, I once did the calligraphy/writing homework so well that my teacher had to talk to my parents to know if I cheated by having them do my homework for me… FYI: my handwriting now is as bad as a doctor’s
4th grade, i drew handcuffs on my wrist with a pen during class. I thought it looked cool, the teacher apparently did not. The punishment was that i had to skip the next recess, and i still dont understand why i was punished, since the teacher didn’t explain and i was too shy to ask.
I still have the pink slip somewhere around here, pressed into an old textbook…
But it was for “placing dog dropping shaped powerbars around the classroom”
Classroom = his desk
4th grade at a Christian school. My brother was getting into Metallica and so I was also getting into Metallica. Gave a friend a my brother’s copy of Kill 'Em All and that he could borrow it for three days.
My folks didn’t really care, but his mom raised hell over it. If you don’t know the album, look up it’s cover. Its got a bloody hammer in the center with Kill 'Em All st the bottom. She raised hell and I get called into a meeting with the principle and my folks.
I don’t remember what was said, but my dad wasn’t going to take any shit from them. I was there to learn and I was a good kid so they can fuck right off. Frankly, I don’t remember having any suspension or detention from it. What I do remember was them throwing out the cassette and knowing how pissed my brother would be. That was the real punishment.
The satanic panic was dumb. And I was lucky enough to not even know it was going on.
I once got detention for not getting a practice test signed by my parents. I’d scored a 92, but apparently everyone else bombed, so they wanted everyone to get theirs signed, I figured that since I’d done well that it wouldn’t apply to me. Oops.
Heh. I had a teacher insist on that. I signed every one in front of her. She’d call my parents, who would swear up and down they had signed them the prior week (before we took the exam) themselves. My parents had given me authorization to sign any and all school documents for them.
My teacher gave me detention for that, but the signature matched the one on file for my parent (also mine) so I managed to weasel my way out of it.
Zero tolerance era. Grade school (I think 4th?) I’m reading one of those books that’s just like “Medieval History” with a bunch of pictures and the history on what the items was. (I think this one was about spies or James bond or something). Kid comes up to me actively reading and says “I was reading that, you took it from me!” Basically escalates it to “I’m gonna fight you” and starts sort of dragon ball z style punching me in the stomach a bunch of times really fast. Parents told me not to let that slide and to fight back, so I cock back and punch him in the face. Right as the teacher walks through the door. I was in 4th grade, I didn’t deck the kid, but I did hit him. Whole deal, go to the office, explained what happened. “Zero tolerance, 3 day suspension”
Dad asks what happened, explained, got 3 days off school at home fishing and playing video games. Best time I had at that school, also completely broke my faith in that system, so win win.
I got in trouble for doing homework at school. Homework is supposed to be done at Home, not at school, I was told.
High school bathroom during lunch. 15 or so guys, handful smoking. Saw a guy making a smiley face on the ceiling with a cigarette lighter. It just leaves a soot mark that wipes away easily.
No sooner do I attempt to do the same thing, the principal walked in and saw me…
“YOU!” he yelled. “You’re going to HQ!” Like he was a cop or something.
Cops came, he said that he wanted me charged with attempted arson. He took the cops to the bathroom. When they came back, the cops were kind of laughing at the principal.
Got charged with criminal damage to property, but it got dropped, because the mark could be wiped off easily.
I was in second grade, it was for reading. I don’t remember what book anymore, but it was age appropriate. I was just reading the wrong thing during reading time.
we were building a snow fort and I was punching a hole into a snow block
next thing I know, a teacher is telling me I have to go inside because I punched a kid in the face
I had to sit in detention, as like a first grader, and have the older kids guide me through it. I was so confused. pretty sure I was crying. no adult helped me, that I can recall.
either this kid hated me and made some shit up, or they were so fucking stupid and enough of a little bitch that they walked right behind and stuck their face where I was repeatedly punching the snow and got hurt without me feeling the impact.
and on that day, my mistrust of authority was born. no amount of insistence would sway them. I must be punished.
We were always late to our class after lunch and the teacher was fed up with it, so gave us before school detention. Thing was, we otherwise were on good terms with him and did well in class, so detention was sitting around and watching part of a movie of our choosing. I think it was more a show for the class that we weren’t favored (which we absolutely were).
We still weren’t on time after that, but never got detention again. Moved on to the next grade and a different teacher for that subject the next year.
Sweet tap-dancing christ, this whole thread. If there’s anything I’ve learned today, it’s that some teachers are the most petty dictators that cannot tolerate being proven in the wrong, nor can handle having their decision making skills challenged. They’re out there doing real lasting damage to people and their ability to think critically.
It’s almost enough to make me want to go into education, just to displace one of these tyrants.
Sincerely, I’m sorry all of you had to go through any of this. Here’s hoping you have support and find closure.
Totally. Some teachers have nothing else going for them so we end up with a strong authoritarian influence in education. It almost always misses the target where the actually trustworthy kids get unfairly punished.
4th Grade - my friends and I used to fold up pieces of paper into ‘guns’ that we would play with. They basically looked like a big L. It was right when zero tolerance policies started to get implemented, so of course I got 3 days suspension for my paper. That same year another kid got the same for an action figure gun.
11th Grade - in computer science class all of our exams were written only. I finished my test early, then went to a computer to work on my coding project for that week. The teacher I guess first thought I was cheating on the test, so called me to the front to make an example of me. When she learned I had already turned in my test she changed the charge to using the school computers for non school activities. When I demonstrated that I was working on my project she changed again to say that using the computer was against the agreement we all signed at the start of the year regarding appropriate use of the school computers. I asked to see what part of the agreement I had violated, and she pulled out the sheet to show me. When that didn’t back her up she again changed her approach, this time writing me up for Saturday detention for “not bringing my book to class”. I went to the Vice Principal to contest the entire issue, but he just told me to go to the detention anyway. I ended up spending an hour cleaning marker off of the walls.
You got done dirty. Good on you for fighting back on the policy.
One of our teachers said you have to learn some things by rote because “if you throw enough mud at a wall, eventually some of it sticks”. We were investigating this for science on the (windowless) back wall of the gym and we all got detention. We had got quite a lot of brown smudging but very partial and blotchy coverage.
When I saw in first grade I was held back for pronunciation problems and in my second time through Math at a 1st grade level I completed a lot of the homework because I remembered math pretty well. My teacher caught me doing this in class and she started flipping through the pages, I had finished about 15 pages of upcoming hw. I got written up and my parents had to come in, I don’t remember a detention because it was 1st grade but it could have happened.
In third grade I was at recess playing with a friend and I lightly tapped him, like a friend tap, on his cheekbones. I remember it being in jest and good faith. He then reported me to the teacher and then the principal. I received a detention for playing with my friend by my friend.
I usually just received detentions for regular things like not doing homework. I guess I was jaded because i got detention for just existing.
