25 Teachers Share The Inappropriate Things Their Students Did That They Secretly Thought Were Hilarious

According to u/Grouchy_Factor, the inspiration for their thread on r/AskReddit was the 1981 teen comedy, 'Porky's.' The male students are caught peeking in the women's showers and are sent to the principal's office. "Yet the male student suspects are giggling so much at this absurd situation that the principal couldn't help but laugh at the end," the redditor told Bored Panda.

They also shared a couple of extremely memorable and funny situations from their school days. "When I was in '80s high school accounting class, the teacher was discussing 'contra-assets,' or assets that are entered in books as a negative amount. He asked the class what other words used 'contra-' as a prefix, he must have been expecting 'contrary' or 'contradictory,'" they said.

"However in my thought process, the first word to quietly slip out of my mouth was 'contraceptive.' The teacher and other students near me immediately burst into laughter, and other students who couldn't hear me said, 'What? What did he say?' I was pretty embarrassed."

That's not all, though. "Also in high school math class, he was talking about how the absolute value is represented in writing. That is, chopping off the + or - sign and just showing it as a positive only. This is done by placing the expression to find absolute value within two vertical lines, like |-6| = 6, or |-2x| = 2x. On a xy graph, this has the effect of plotting only positive points for y, or right of center vertical axis. A normal parabola made from y = x² results in a plotted graph that resembles two curved arms joined and reaching up from the 0,0 point. If you change the formula to y = | x² | the result is a single arm on the right side," redditor u/Grouchy_Factor shared the context for what came next.

"The math teacher was of Italian origin and had the reputation of being somewhat loud and flamboyant in class. He asked (shouted) to us: 'First there are two arms. Then there is one arm. Where is other arm??' A classmate of mine immediately blurted out: 'Ask Mr. O______ !' Mr. O at our school was another math teacher but for real he had only one arm. It was obviously a very insensitive comment but I still found it absolutely hilarious in context," they explained what happened.

"I had to cover my mouth with the palm of my hand to force the laughs inside, and thus don't remember the reaction of the teacher or other students. I felt that if I laughed out loud, I would look just as guilty as the perpetrator and may even be at risk of punishment. Definitely a memorable moment in high school. Ironically, this person was well respected and became the valedictorian of my graduating class and he's a successful doctor at present."

Humor actually helps you retain information better. If educators feel like their students have a hard time remembering difficult information, they can try explaining everything with a dash of comedy. The funnier it is, the more likely they’ll be to remember it!

Meanwhile, laughter helps reduce stress and tension, boosts your immune system, relieves pain, and can be a weapon against anxiety, as well as depression. All in all, it’s essential that you remember to laugh throughout the day—and keep others laughing, too!

Humor and laughter provide so many benefits. And there’s definitely a spot for both of them in the classroom. Of course, there have to be certain limits: it’s best to avoid swear words, raunchy jokes, and making teachers’ lives hell just because they’re in a position of authority. Remember: they’re human beings, too.

Some level of discipline definitely has to be maintained in the classroom. If every single kid says and does whatever they want, there’s not much point in school at all: there would be chaos and nobody would learn anything. Oh, it’d probably be fun, but the things that the students would learn would be very limited.

At the same time, school shouldn’t be a place where students are scared to speak their minds or express themselves. There’s a balance to be found here, but it really depends on the institution, the educators who work there, and even the kind of expectations that parents have for their children.

If you ever happen to find yourself in a situation where you let slip something funny, but it's completely inappropriate, your goal is to embrace whatever awkward or embarrassing feelings that bubble up. Running away from your embarrassment or pretending that you did nothing wrong can lead to deep-seated feelings of shame. On the flip side, showing signs of mild embarrassment makes people respect you more because they see that you're honest about what happened.