On 9/11 we were told something bad was happening in the US, but no details. The teachers decided there would be no class for the rest of day, instead we’d have in-class recess until school ended. We were not informed about what was actually going on, just told to play.

I got in trouble for having fun while playing, because it was disrespectful.

Me and another kid got detention for fighting.

At my house.

On a Saturday.

I asked my French teacher what a comment he’d written at the bottom of one of my test papers said, because I couldn’t read it.

Apparently it said: “Your handwriting is atrocious.”

He refused to believe I wasn’t taking the piss out of him and I ended up having to ‘explain myself’ to the head.

We discovered our teacher had a secret water bottle that was actually full of alcohol and called her out on it. She couldn’t write us up for anything ‘official’ but we were suddenly getting written up for dozens of incredibly ridiculous things.

I got written up for looking bored in class.

Grade 6. I had the correct info on a book report (from the World Book Encyclopedia) but my teacher refused to accept them as correct. I “disrupted class” by telling her she was incorrectly giving me a D, and read the relevant passage from the encyclopedia.

Sent to the principal, who said “You’re right, we’ll have your grade changed, but go have a seat out there for a bit and wait so she doesn’t feel insulted”

One of my truly radicalizing moments about speaking truth to power.

The reason isn’t really silly, I get it, but the punishment was.

In high school I spent a lot of time reading. Basically every lunch, every study hall period, etc. I read a fairly significant chunk of the library.

Problem was that I also tended to read during boring lectures in class, which pissed off a couple of my teachers and resulted in not great grades.

But all of their punishments were designed to punish people who hated to read. So my math teacher finally snaps and sends me to in school suspension… where I sit in a room and the monitor on duty is absolutely delighted that I sat there the entire day to read and even lets me go early for such good behavior.

I was later kicked out of honors courses and put into a remedial study hall situation. Again with a monitor who was supposed to make sure people were actually studying. Only way to get out of this was … a library pass. Where I could freely read whatever I wanted. Never did spend much time in study hall.

I got in trouble for wearing a trenchcoat while it was raining shortly after the whole columbine thing. There are some absolute morons working in schools.

It’s a rain coat, asshole.

It’s raining.

Do the fucking math!

Somebody set fire to a wall mounted bin with a firework inside it.
The deputy head went to put the fire out, the firework went of almost blowing his face off, allegedly, I didn’t see it as I was already in detention for an unrelated incident.
The deputy head storms straight into where I’m sat on my tod for detention and asks what do I think I’m playing at almost killing him.
The headmaster gets called in and everyone’s grilling me to confess for setting the bin on fire while I was in detention the whole time!

• Got in trouble for painting, or rather inking, a still life assignment in art class in black and white.
• Was threatened with a zero and write up for “lack of effort” for handing in a typed book report at the end of the same class period in which it was assigned. Don’t get mad at me because you assigned a book I’d already read and refused to allow me to choose another.
• Threatened with expulsion after being called onto the carpet in the principal’s office for a Very Stern Talk with a policeman present and everything for having a doodle of a benzene ring on the cover of my chemistry class notebook, because this was apparently “bomb making plans.” A demonstration that the school issued textbook for this very same class was just chock-a-block full of not only this but illustrations of similar molecules was not received well by the administration (“backtalk”) but ultimately I escaped unscathed.
• Sent to detention for my first and only time for gainsaying my biology teacher during a tirade delivered to the class early in the semester on the topic of, “Microscopes are important because you can’t see no cells with just your eyes [sic],” and I responded by not raising my hand per se, but rather holding up a hard boiled egg from my lunchbox.
• Subsequently determined undetentionable during that selfsame detention due to the mandatory assignment therein, which was a photocopied form letter thing which was obviously designed to make you feel very very sorry and very very guilty about what you did with a writing prompt at the top demanding a minimum of three full paragraphs on the topic of, verbatim: “Explain why you are here.” No further instructions. I started with the big bang and worked forward from there, and I got to about page four of meticulous blackletter script on both sides of each sheet of paper before the teacher supervising the detention room finally noticed (probably due to the bold text) and whisked one off of my desk, briefly skimmed it, and then threw me out. I was not allowed to keep what I had written. For all I know it’s still pinned to the wall in the staff room, decades later.
• The reason for the blackletter script was because I wrote everything with a mildly customized vintage Sheaffer fountain pen specifically to annoy that same teacher. I imagine this also annoyed several others, although one or two were appreciative. For instance, my 11th grade math teacher bribed me with extra credit by having me hand letter titles on things for her that she’d photocopy and use as handouts, or whatever. Numerous attempts were made to bring the hammer down on me for this in some form or another, none of which were successful.

I have more. These are the most amusing ones.

Yes, I was an incorrigible little shit when I was in school, mostly because I won’t countenance bullies of any stripe. Being bullied by other kids is bad enough; If you’re a teacher, do better.

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.

I got a detention for looking at a teacher “weird” in 9th grade. I was the only one in detention and he stared at ME weird the whole time, then tried to block the door on my way out. I slugged him in the stomach to get by and he never reported it, so that confirmed the creepy.

I got sent out to the hall whenever I had hiccups in 8th grade. They were too loud, apparently, and the teacher thought I was faking in order to disturb class.

I’ve told this story before and I’ll tell it again.

4th grade Teacher of the Year winner and current sitting member of the school board Mrs. S. had a strict rule when lining up after recess:

“Straight line, no talking, no touching.”

The bell would ring, and we’d all run to our respective, numbered spots on the playground, in a straight line, without talking, and certainly not touching, one another. Then, Mrs. S. would walk out to us, and we’d recite the line:

“Straight line, no talking, no touching.”

And she’d lead us inside.

One day, returning from recess, the kid in front of me, Joe, was crying while standing on his number. Foolishly, I set my hand on his shoulder, and asked, “Are you alright?” Mrs. S. arrived just in time to rectify the situation. I watched as she strode up to me, staring daggers into my soul, and I yanked my hand off of my fellow student’s shoulder, but the damage was done. Towering over me, inches away, she shouts to the class, “Class, what is the rule?”

“Straight line, no talking, no touching.”

“Papalonian, what is the last part?”

“No touching.”

“No… Touching.”

I received my first and only citation for the rest of my elementary school years. Ever thankful will I be for learning the lesson that empathy (towards someone I didn’t even like) shall never be tolerated when the rules forbid it.

Changing a monitor’s resolution from 1024x768 to something useable.

I was in 5th grade during George W. Bush’s stint as governor of Texas in the 90s. He did a bunch of “education reform” there that was the predecessor of the No Child Left Behind Act he championed as President. I was in a relatively good school but despite that, we were learning about nouns and verbs for the first time that year.

The teacher was an idiot and we would get dozens of worksheets that covered the same topic. For the nouns and verbs section, we would read through a paragraph and had to write all the nouns in one column and all the verbs in the other column. When the test came, it was the same as the worksheets but the teacher changed the columns to verb/noun, which I didn’t read and I got a 0 for the test.

I went to the teacher and told her that it was an honest mistake and showed her how I aced all the other assignments, so I obviously understood the concept. She was insistent though that I got a zero despite that. However, because of the new Bush educational policies, students had the right to retake any assignment for the minimum passing grade.


So I asked her to retake the test, she said ok, and I crossed out Noun and wrote Verb and and same to Verb to Noun and handed it back. She immediately wrote another large zero on the page because I couldn’t change that part and I lost recess privileges for the rest of the week for being “rude”.

Revenge came though several weeks later when she was hanging black plastic sheeting on the suspended ceiling to create a makeshift planetarium in corner of the room. She was on a tall ladder and when she was putting up the last sheet, she lost her balance and fell through the sheeting and off the ladder and broke her arm. She was crying out for someone to help her but me and the other kids just let her struggle for a few minutes before she freed herself by tearing through the plastic sheet like Ace Ventura escaping from the rhino, crying.

In 8th grade English class we had to write a short essay for homework (this was before most families had a computer, so it was hand written). I’m lefty, and the ink from my pen smudged (iykyk). In front of the whole class she called me out for sloppy work and said I’d receive a 0. So I asked how, as a lefty, I could prevent that from happening. She gave me 3 days of detention for talking back to her. When my mom found out, she called the school and spoke with the principal, who happened to be a lefty. He reversed course, saying detention for this was ridiculous, as well as suggested pens he uses that smudge a lot less.

Another time, in high school, I was in art class. Everyone would keep their sketchbooks in the desks rather than take them home. One day, someone drew a bunch of swastikas all over mine, and then reported me. Originally, I was going to be expelled. After explaining I didn’t draw them, and how anyone could access the book, they reduced it to 3 days suspension. After my mom got involved, it was reduced (“reduced”) to 10 days of detention. This was catholic school, so detention was kneeling for an hour in front of a wall.

Also in catholic school, I got detention for arguing with my theology teacher that eating eggs means he supports abortion. I deserved and enjoyed detention that day.

… I got in trouble a lot in catholic school