Most people carry around a school memory that has stuck with them forever. For some, those are happy moments, like meeting their lifelong friend or graduating first in their class. For others, they are equally as memorable, but not in a good way.
Netizens in this online thread were recently sharing “the incident” that happened at their school, and boy, do these stories get scandalous. From teacher-and-student flings to calls about bomb threats, they remain etched in people’s brains, living there rent-free.
To find the freshest school gossip that brings us back to the good old days, all you have to do is scroll down!
While you're at it, don't forget to check out a conversation with one of the top memory experts in the world and a two-time national memory champion, Ron White, who kindly agreed to tell us more about how negative incidents tend to linger in our minds longer.
#1
Star quarterback got in a fight with the quiet kid, lost. Quiet kid shattered QB's throwing shoulder.
132points
#2
This happened after I graduated, but there were rumors about it when I was still there. I thought it was just kids being a******s.Three male teachers in one year got caught doing that thing you're not supposed to do with your underage students.
One of them used the following defense: We just kissed and stuff, I waited until she was 18 to have sex with her, so I didn't break the law. The other one used *his school- issued laptop* to contact his victim and beg her not to tell the truth, because it would ruin his livelihood and his kids' lives.
During the aftermath, another teacher came into his classroom and said something to the effect of "If you're wondering why I was absent yesterday, I was being questioned by a few guys in suits." One of the kids asked why, and the teacher pointed right at the victim and said "because of her." Yeah, he pointed her out in front of everyone (supposedly no one knew which girls were involved) and got charged with witness intimidation. His lawyer told the news "hurting someone's feelings isn't a crime."
It used to be considered the "good" school district.
100points
#3
It was discovered that my high school principal was having an inappropriate sexual relationship with one of the students. He was married and his son was also a student at the school which made matters way worse. The principal was arrested and released on bail, but he ended up committing suicide. It was traumatic for the students because we’d always known him as a kind man and respected principal. I felt horrible for his son, who moved away shortly thereafter to escape this nightmare. I wish it was more of a lighthearted incident.
95points
White tells us that negative events have the tendency to be remembered more than positive ones because of the emotion involved. "For example, if you are in a car accident, 10 years later you will be able to give all the details of the accident, from the time of day to the location, without hesitation," he says.
"But you couldn't tell me where you drove last week. Last week had no emotion or action. The car accident does. Another example of emotion impacting what we recall is that humans can get 100 positive comments about something they did, but the brain will focus on the negative because it hurts, it wounds us, and because the negative hurts us more than the positive uplifts us, we will remember it more."
#4
13 year old classmate was secretly pregnant & had a baby in 8th grade. We all found out because the principal & vice principal came into our classroom & announced it to the entire class. They didn’t use her name, but it was pretty easy to put 2 & 2 together.
Years later I ran into the girl & we talked briefly about what had happened. She told me her mom had just about sued the daylights out of the school admin for what they had done. Never found out what stopped her from suing.
92points
#5
Explain this one before but f**k it... Holiday season of 2003 Someone hacked into the intercom and played p*rn parodies version of Christmas tunes. It caused a lot of students to be sent to the nurse's office, mostly for breathing problems from laughing hard. It turned out, it was rather easy to due into the intercom system because of the wiring system was a standard phonelines. Me and a couple of mates found who was the ring leader, but we didn't snitch because we thought it was one of the funniest things we had to handle. That ring leader now works for some IT company and saw an increase in demands during COVID.
81points
#6
Kid took acid at a pink floyd show and jumped into a lake. In winter. Died of hypothermia.
Suddenly every girl pretended he was their ex to ride the sympathy train, and all the papers said he was a good kid with straight A's who never did d***s before....but the truth was he was about to flunk out, and nobody ever talked to him except to buy the d***s he was dealing.
Showed me that people prefer a story over the truth
80points
White tells us that there are no particular negative events that get stuck in our memories longer than others. "Any event that gets your emotion will be encoded more. Negative events capture our attention because they shock us. Attention is the first step in memory. The last step of memory is review, and if something negative happens to us or is said to us, we will tell that story over and over. This review locks it into our memory!! Be careful what you give your attention to!"
#7
3 HS seniors broke in one night and trashed the resource officers office. A photo of the officers recently deceased son was the main thing destroyed. Students and staff all loved the officer, everyone was upset/devastated. The 3 kids weren't allowed to attend Graduation.
Report
75points
#8
Group of boys were bullying a kid at the bathrooms and actually drowned him on a toilet, that was horrible.
71points
#9
Chronically bullied kid shot himself in the head after pointing the gun at one of his bullies. Happened while I was at lunch one day. A crowd of screaming students came running into the cafeteria all of a sudden and one of my friends that had been down the hall from it, sat there panicking and hyper ventilating and told me what had just happened. We got released early that day and it was all over the news the next day. His name was Brian Head btw. Poor kid. Back then school shootings weren't really a common news occurrence.
70points
That said, remembering unfortunate incidents can be beneficial to humans. For example, "Our ancestors saw one of their group eaten by a lion. They remember how they escaped or what to avoid. Put your hand on a hot stove. You may do it once, but your memory will prevent you from doing it twice," White explains.
"Remembering negative experiences can save you. You fall victim to a con, and it robs your bank account, and your memory remembers it. The next time you don't fall victim. Our memories will remember negative experiences as a form of protection!"
#10
Nutsack in the yearbook was discovered AFTER 1300 copies were distributed.
69points
#11
Class of 1962. One of my classmates senior year was taking flying lessons. Took off on a solo, disappeared. No trace since then. He was a nice, smart person.
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67points
#12
Someone kept calling in bomb threats every single day when I was in high school. It turned out to be one of the teachers who worked with the mentally handicapped kids at the elementary school. The police caught her because she kept dialing in the threat from the same phone booth.
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64points
#13
Every year the graduating class did some kind of prank. At the end of the school year. One year they build a maze you had to walk through to he into the school and all dressed up funny and did jump scares. Stuff like that. Then one year one class deciced it would be funny to spray kids with water pistols. Not that funny to sit in class soaked but okay. Year after that they apparently thought we can do better and not only used water pistols but again build a big entryway with plastic walls. And they, out of sight of the teachers. Dumped flour on all the already wet students. Some also brought eggs and the whole thing turned into a massive fight. Other schools got wind and came down to fight. Police had to break it up. That class ruined last day of school for many years to come. Of all the schools, no one expected the wizzkids school to be the one to ruin it lol.
57points
#14
A girl who had been out of school for a couple of years due to medical issues came back for senior year at 19, and got together with a teacher. Teacher was pretty young, like fresh out of his degree and was a long term sub for someone who had a baby.
It wasn’t illegal, and they were “age appropriate” for each other, but it was obviously a massive ethics violation and he was let go.
Report
54points
#15
Back in the late 90s I was supposed to go to this one particular high school that was notoriously bad for various reasons. My mom did not want me to go there and put me in the lottery for a better school. Luckily, I "won" or whatever and went to the better school. Not long after I started my freshman year, some poor kid got m*rdered at the high school I was originally supposed to attend. He was bludgeoned to death and they never found out who did it.
54points
#16
Girl at my school got arrested for m*rdering her mom. Reporters were all over the school trying to get info on her.
51points
#17
A kid held a pencil straight up on another kid's chair when he was standing up and not looking. When he sat down it went through his pants and directly into his a*****e. He had to go to the hospital.
51points
#18
There was a history/theater teacher who was very well liked. Girl wasn't happy that he gave her a bad grade or a detention or something (this was years ago so my memory is foggy), so she falsely accused him of r*pe. He lost his job, his wife left him, totally ruined his life. This girl's brother was valedictorian a couple years prior, so everyone believed her. This went on for about a year or so before the girl graduated, admitted it was a false accusation, then moved across the country and deleted all her social media accounts. Nobody knows what happened to the teacher, but it's widely believed that he may have k*lled himself.
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51points
#19
Ex-art teacher sent a lewd love letter to a high school student. It wasn’t well known because the school kept it very secretive but it was a well known rumor.
50points
#20
20 kids kicked out my senior year for various reasons when normally they had things like 'Camp Motivation' or complete dorm room lockdown. This was a private school. Three years after we graduated, someone in my class m*rdered his ex-girlfriend by shooting her eight times near a lake and is serving life right now.
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46points