I think teaching is weird and wonderful work. You get to teach and love and shape a generation of kids, and if you do it right, you end up with a whole lot of awesome people who love you.
It can also be trying – between parents and administration and kids being kids, there’s a lot that goes on in a day that’s not going to be a highlight, exactly.
Like taking away things kids brought to class that they shouldn’t have.
If you think nothing can surprise you, step into the shoes of these 17 teachers, who have had to confiscate some pretty weird stuff.
17. Nothing about this surprises me.
Forks. Yeah, for real.
I had to take away all the plastic forks at lunch time until the sixth grade boys stopped shoving them down the butt cracks of their friends.
Fun times!
16. I can’t believe no one had smelled it already.
It was December or January and we were having one of those “lockdowns” where the police come in with dogs to sniff for drugs. We were all locked in our classrooms and no students were allowed out, even to visit the restroom.
One of my students was white as a ghost, very afraid. I asked him what’s the matter, but it was obvious he was afraid he was about to get busted. He said “Do you think the dogs will go to my locker?” I said “I don’t know, do you have something to be worried about?” He said “There’s a ham and cheese sandwich in there.”
I scratched my head a bit, “I’m sure it’s no problem to have a sandwich.” He said, “Yeah, but it’s been in there since September.”
15. He was just hungry.
A whole salami.
Kid kept walking over to his backpack and sticking his face in to take secret bites without me noticing….
I noticed.
14. Wow. I have a lot of questions.
Another student’s tooth. That he had fished out of the trash can.
That he was going to add to his tooth collection.
13. I can’t imagine why.
This is my brother’s story, and he was the kid.
It was a sandwich bag full of spiders. He collected them during recess, and one of the monitors probably got freaked out.
12. I…have no words.
Eyeballs. I worked with a blind student with autism.
When he would get angry, he would pop out his glass eyeballs and throw them across the room.
They were expensive, so mom asked that we put them in a plastic bag in his backpack if he threw them….
No more eyeballs for you today!
11. I need to know why.
There was a boy in my seventh grade class that wasn’t allowed to have coins because he’d eat them.
10. When you’ve had it up to here.
My mother was a primary school teacher. One day many many years ago she was working as a supply teacher filling in for an absent teacher.
It was late 80’s and Casio watches were all the rage. Every hour, on the hour, many watches would sound a chime to signal the start of a new hour. My mother had been hearing chimes and alarms going off all day and she announced “the next watch I hear beeping is coming home with me tonight”.
Moments later a watch chimed. It was my brothers
9. I am rolling my eyes.
First thing that came to mind – a drawing of a peanut.
One kid said he had a peanut allergy, so a boy drew a peanut on a piece of paper, and started shoving it in the other boy’s face and being a general dick with it.
8. Of course it was a boy.
Not me, but my co teacher tells the story of having to take a vibrator away from a student during band class.
The only reason he knew the kid had it was because the kid tried to play the xylophone with the thing.
7. We need to have a chat.
Handcuffs.
From an 8 year old girl. Not quite police grade, but more than just some “adult fun” cuffs.
Sent that down to the counselor.
6. Kids, am I right?
In middle school we had a special currency that they’d hand out to students for helping out or being kind that would then be able to be used to buy books or other small trinkets.
Somehow during the year I obtained a bunch of dental plaque pills. They turn the plaque on your teeth a certain color to help you brush your teeth I guess (in this case it was a dark purple) and I didn’t brush my teeth very well at the time so taking one would make my entire mouth a deep purple color. I thought I’d freak out my school friends with one and they all thought it was really cool and wanted to know how I did it. So I bring some more the next day and give a couple out to friends who then show other kids and tell them that I can make their mouths purple too.
So next day I brought all my plaque pills to school and start charging 1$ in school currency for 1 pill. Sometimes if a kid didn’t have money I’d make them give me whatever cool stuff they had that I needed (keychains, pencil sharpeners, whatever they were willing to trade). And of course all these other middle schoolers didn’t do a good job of brushing their teeth either so every kid I sold a pill too ended up with a dark purple color coating their entire mouth.
Well a bunch of kids mouths turning purple was quickly noticed by multiple staff members (who would’ve guessed) and apparently I went to school with a bunch of little narcs because very quickly I found myself in the principal’s office. They took all my pills, my school money and most of the other items that they were able to prove didn’t belong to me (even though I traded it fair and square). Principal was livid.
All I remember of the end result was waiting in the office getting yelled at by the principal zoning off as I imagined all the ways I was going to get my a$s beat when my dad eventually came to pick me up and this angry principal told him all about my little operation. But miraculously some lady came out of a room saying “Hey Principal your meeting is starting right now we can’t wait any longer.” and the Principal looking frustrated but telling me that they would be right back and that I was still in a lot of trouble. And as soon as they walked into another room my dad walked in and asked if i was ready to go which was answered with a very hasty “yup”.
The rest of the year felt like some weird twilight zone. None of the other kids mentioned it again. Dad never mentioned it. Staff never mentioned it. Never talked to the principal again (and made sure to avoid them like the plague). I NEVER GOT IN TROUBLE. And I will never understand how.
5. Seems like a fun experiment.
We had a fifth grade student of a police officer cuff his friend to the play structure on the playground a few years back.
Had to call the campus cop over to figure it out; poor lad didn’t look any worse for wear, just had to chill alone outside for a bit while his friends got back to class.
4. I would not have liked that.
An entire menagerie of live insects. One afternoon my class decided that they should see how many bugs they could capture and keep alive in my classroom. The next day, I returned from covering lunch duty in another part of the school and noticed that one of the cubbies had paper towel taped over the front like a curtain. Before I could investigate, I noticed several Tupperware containers hiding in desks.
Dozens of worms (that was the cubby) Many assorted beetles Uncounted ants 4 bees A wasp And, most upsetting, several flies which were crazy glued to index cards and had their wings removed.
That was a long day in a long year.
3. Jimmy got a reprieve.
A small trinket box (about palm sized), decorated with gems and glitter, with a live mouse inside.
The mouse was named Jimmy and had been caught in the child’s house.
2. Seems legit.
Instant pudding.
My student was mixing it in a large Cool Whip container, using milk from lunch, right in the middle of a lesson on Macbeth.
1. What else would he do with it?
Christmas ornaments.
They were throwing them at each other and it eventually caused a fight.
Next to that would be a curtain rod.
He found it and kept hitting people with it.
Kids never cease to amaze me, and I mean that in every way possible.
If you’re a teacher, add your weird item to this list in the comments!
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