At the time it may have felt like the most important thing in the world, but most adults probably look back at their school days with some degree of humor. Teachers going on power-trips on the most ridiculous things, dramatic stakes that were not really that important, rules, norms and behaviors that, in retrospect, are just funny.
Someone asked “What is the dumbest thing you got in trouble for at school?” and people shared their most hilarious stories. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.
#1
Not me but one of my best friends. Was drinking a Snapple at lunch and it slipped out of his hand and shattered. 100% an accident.
But the new vice principal lost her s**t and went off on him accusing him of throwing it as a weapon. He got suspended and his parents had to pull him out of school. He was shocked and crying (dude was NOT a trouble maker, one of the smartest kids in our class at that).
Until about two days later the vice principal checked the security tapes that obviously clearly showed him dropping it by accident. Lots of apologies but he was obviously more than upset. At graduation I heard him tell her to go f**k herself when she was shaking hands and handing out diplomas. Only time I heard him seriously swear. .
Image source: zulutbs182, verry1990 / flickr (not the actual photo)
#2
I mooed when my grade 8 teacher called us cattle as we left the gym. Two detentions.
Image source: Hectordoink, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#3
I drank water from the fountain next to the classroom door. When the bell rang, I turned to walk in and my 7th grade English teacher slammed the door in my face. I stood around hella confused and knocked and I could hear her taking attendance. Mind you, I had already put my stuff inside. After she took attendance she let me in and told me she marked me tardy for not being inside when the bell rang. Asked her how I was late when she’d seen me walk by her desk and put stuff down and then turn to go to the water fountain, and instead of answering me she just wrote me up for ISS for “being rude.” It was the first time I’d even been punished in school for anything.
To top it off, when I told my mother what happened amd being sent to in school suspension, she made me get in the car and drove back to the school. Turns out because of my sickle cell anemia and the need to stay extra hydrated, I’d had a standing note in my file from my pediatric specialist noting that I was to always have the ability to get water when I needed it. My mother verbally dressed down the Principal, VP, and that teacher for what seemed like forever.
Image source: luo1304
#4
Blowing my nose. I had a horrible cold so I kept needing tissues and the teacher yelled at me and gave me a detention. So next day I stuffed my bra FULL and aggressively dug in there anytime I needed one.
Image source: queenoforeos, Andrea Piacquadio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#5
Kid in my high school got suspended for drinking…with his parents…on vacation…in a country where he was doing it legally…again, WITH his parents. Came back from vacation with a picture of him drinking a beer with his folks at dinner. Teacher saw it, reported him. Boom, 5 day suspension. Explanation: “the rules of the school supersede those of the outside world.”.
Image source: neddybemis, ELEVATE / pexels (not the actual photo)
#6
Public nudity. I was in a locked bathroom stall and I was peeing.
Image source: I-am-not-a-robot1, / unsplash (not the actual photo) / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#7
For drinking water in class without asking the teacher.
Image source: anon, halfpoint / envato(not the actual photo)
#8
Had a teacher who I really didn’t get on with in secondary school, and I swear it got personal
I got detention for the following crimes:
*being last in the queue to collect a textbook
*taking my jumper off
*sitting in an alleged sarcastic manner
*getting full marks for homework (allegedly should have been near impossible to do)
*asking for homework not to be given for the next day as I was working that night.
Image source: DonaldTrunt, Ron Lach / pexels (not the actual photo)
#9
For responding “no” in elementary school when the teacher asked “are we all ready to move on the next step?”.
Image source: Ok-Duty-6377, Arthur Krijgsman / pexels (not the actual photo)
#10
I threw a snowball…during a snowball fight…that the teachers started. It was my senior year of HS and I had recently committed to play baseball in college. The teacher who tried to give me detention said I should be smart enough to know not to partake in the fight because I threw too hard and someone would get hurt. (A) I had just lobbed the snowball up in the air and (B) WTF? He was quickly overruled by several other teachers.
Image source: HoopOnPoop, Cami Henry / pexels (not the actual photo)
#11
Whispering “stop it” to a kid who kept throwing paper balls at me. I guess the sub thought I was a troublemaker because I was in the back of the room? I got sent to another class for the rest of the period to set an example.
Jokes on him, I was the “smart kid” and sending a big nerd out of the room doesn’t really send a useful message to the class.
Image source: thatpearlgirl, Max Fischer / pexels (not the actual photo)
#12
Literally got a 2hr after school detention for saying “what” bc I didn’t hear the teacher.
Image source: Acceptable_Ad_4958, Thirdman / pexels (not the actual photo)
#13
Reading my own copy of Romeo and Juliet in the library while we were studying it instead of a school library copy.
Image source: External-Day962, Oladimeji Ajegbile / pexels (not the actual photo)
#14
I kid you not, I got in trouble for LITERALLY HAVING A SEIZURE
They banned me from all football games because I “traumatized the students” by having a grand mal. Also nobody was around ?? It was after the game when almost everyone left, I stayed behind to meet up w a friend.
But the VP walked by during my seizure and I s**t you not she tried to yell at me right then and there (I’ve been told) but the paramedics told her to leave.
Anyway. I was banned from all future games, not allowed to participate in any extracurricular for the rest of the year, and for three days detention.
That VP and I go wayyyy back she hates me and it’s mutual 💀.
Image source: Mac8cheeseenthusiast
#15
I was in the hospital for five days. When I came back, I was unable to keep up with all the work I missed and my high school expelled me.
Image source: RockVonCleveland, Marcelo Leal / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#16
I got in trouble for calling my dad after school to organize a pickup. We were not supposed to use our phones on site, no exceptions. My dad was pretty pissed that he had to park and come to the principal’s office.
Image source: anon, vozdvizhenskayadina / envato (not the actual photo)
#17
We were practicing for our year six graduation and the teacher asked if everyone understood where they were meant to stand. I said no, because, well, I didn’t understand. I got lunch time detention for being “purposely insubordinate”.
Image source: contact-stupiditis
#18
OOooohhh i will take the cake with this one.
So i got in trouble, and got a weeks worth detention because, and here it comes….
Because i didn’t talk back to a teacher while another student was. They where going at eachothers throats while i sat there quietly trying to not garther any attention. Afterwards he called me a sneaky bastard (best translation i could think off). And the other guy didn’t get in any trouble.
Now i can hear you asking what did i do for him to mad at me? Because i didn’t speak up. That’s why i got a weeks worth of detention…
Image source: poobboob, Kenny Eliason / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#19
Playing Magic the Gathering at the lunch table. The teachers thought it was “gambling”.
Image source: undrtke316, Wayne Low / unsplash (not the actual photo)
#20
My kindergarten teacher sent me for a timeout (that reason was legitimate) and placed me in the art supply closet for it. Got in more trouble for playing with the art supplies but my defense is your honor what was she expecting?
Image source: hypo-osmotic
#21
I dropped out due to ableism and mistreatment by staff. I was gossiped about by the assistant principal when she thought I was gone, my English teacher was verbally abusive, and the school psychologist refused to evaluate me for autism because a non-mental health professional, some random staff member, said I made eye contact. Then, my parents were blamed for not knowing about resources we were never informed about and we’d been seeking help for…Oh, I don’t know, A DECADE. I had mental breakdowns all the time at school and have been invalidated for my severe anxiety since I was around 8. Rather than helping me, I was constantly scolded even though I did nothing that should get me in trouble. I was made to feel wrong for my mere existence for the majority of my days in school and rather than helping with the 504 plan or IEP, they basically labeled me an enigma and forced me to fend for myself. Since dropping out, my dreams have come true. I’m a professional musician now and I’m a lot happier too.
Image source: parosmaniac
#22
The clothes I wore didn’t meet their standards. I went to a school where at least 80% were rich kids, and my parents broke their budget to pay for our tuition, so we didn’t have the money to buy the right clothes.
I had my older sisters’ cast offs, and I did manage to sew some clothes for myself, even though I just figured it out on my own, so I wasn’t very good at it. They couldn’t even afford to buy me the material or patterns to sew more clothes. It was really embarrassing!
Image source: Xylorgos
#23
Out of nowhere in 11th grade, I got pulled out of class by the principal and was told that “they knew I hacked the school’s firewall.” They said some kind of proxy had been run off of my student login and was accessing…..
Facebook. I was being threatened with expulsion because someone had bypassed the firewall to go on Facebook.
Long story short, I ended up asking the librarian for help, and she was able to see that all of the logins came from a classroom that I had never been in.
Some people in the programming class (there was only one) randomly started getting into other peoples’ student logins and loading something from a flash drive to bypass the firewall, and yep, go on Facebook.
She stood up for me to the principal, and I was off the hook. I never heard if the people who’d actually done it were caught.
Years later, that principal saw me at the grocery store and tried to come up and be buddy buddy with me. I told him to f**k off and walked away. Legit the only time I’ve ever been mean to a school employee, but that was beyond ridiculous. Certain grudges are worth holding.
Image source: MrLanesLament
#24
Drawing a hamster smoking a cigarette.
Image source: Paintguin, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#25
I was always in trouble because my pants were “too tight.”
Look, I had a 25 inch waist and a big a*s – the only way those f*****s were staying up was if they werw tight across my a*s.
Image source: LizardPossum
#26
Filling up my water bottle at a water fountain. It was in between classes when every student was walking from one class to the next. If i remember correct i was given detention or possibly even suspension.
Image source: gnarlsson
#27
Yawning.
To be fair, I sound like a Whoose (whale/moose), and this was in study hall. I get yawn streaks that can last 10+ yawns in a row. I can’t really stop it, and the teacher wouldn’t let anyone leave the room for the period.
Reading the word yawn, hearing someone yawn, someone says yawn, or just thinking about yawning makes me yawn. I can’t escape it.
If a serial killer was chasing me and got tired, I’d be dead in minutes because they’d find me wherever I was hiding.
People look at me like I’m crazy; this cryptid howl out of a tiny girl, louder than you’d think capable from such a small lung capacity.
I wish I was joking. I can’t even count how many times someone’s gotten mad, told me to shut up, all because of several very loud bellowing yawns in quick succession.
I’ve been yawning even as I type this. It’s hard to see the keyboard when all you can do is yawn.
I can’t even use voice to text, it would come out as gfidnrjtjddnfndirejgdbej.
Btw, this is all true and even my kids yell at me to shut up 😅.
Image source: sexywallposter
#28
Telling a teacher he was giving me a headache because he was just yelling while teaching.
Image source: Shawty43, Craig Adderley / pexels (not the actual photo)
#29
There’s this local festival every year in spring in my town. My 9th grade girlfriend and I spent all weekend outside at this festival that year. She got a bad sunburn. The following Monday morning we were in the Commons area of the school hanging with friends before class started. I was standing there blowing in her sunburnt shoulders. Harmless. A teacher walked around the corner and saw me and took us both to the vice principal’s office and had us wrote up for public display of affection. He said I was standing there kissing on her neck and feeling her up. Me, her, and 2 of my friends told the vice principal what was happening and she acted like she understood and dismissed us both. No write up or anything. About an hour or so later we got called back to the office at separate times. She got off with nothing and I was given 2 days of asr (3 hours detention after school).
Also not me but a friend of mine got a 1 hour dentition after school one time for saying “poopy in my pants” lol.
Image source: CaptainCreepwork
#30
I got kicked out of 6th grade English class for trying to woo a girl by quietly reading lines to her from a paperback copy of The Hobbit. .
Image source: Playful_Dot_537, Madalyn Cox / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Follow Us
