We recently asked the lovely teachers of the BuzzFeed Community to share the weirdest thing they have ever seen a student do. And all I can say is, teachers deserve all the things!!!
1. "I teach middle school band and I specialize in teaching brass instruments to beginners — we work a lot on 'buzzing' our lips into the mouthpiece to make a good sound. One day I walked into our instrument storage room to find a trumpet beginner trying to fart into his mouthpiece to make it buzz.
2. "My fourth-graders were cleaning out their desks, and one little boy had been collecting and trying to breed snails. They ate through his workbooks, all the papers in his drawer, and were trying to escape into other students' drawers."
3. “One of my students would shove his hands down his pants to his crotch, smell them, then smile and nod to himself.”
4. "One day I noticed a stuffed cat sitting beside my student's desk. Not a fluffy one you buy at the store — a legitimate taxidermy cat. When I asked him about it, he said his cat died earlier that week and now he could always have Buttercup close.
5. "During my first year of teaching freshmen, I thought a girl in my class was sneakily using her cellphone in the back row. When I walked up to her to tell her to put it away, I realized that she was actually shaving her legs. Completely dry.
6. "I saw a student sneeze into her hands and then lick them."
7. "I caught a kid masturbating in the art room. He'd cut a hole in the pocket of his shorts and was going to town. When the other teacher called him out on it, he denied it while maintaining eye contact and keeping up his rhythm."
8. "I teach fourth grade and I overheard a boy tell his friend how he would peel his skin off after a bad sunburn and eat it. His friend said, 'That’s weird, bro. Don’t say that.'"
9. "I walked into my classroom to find one of my students had filled up a pair of swimming goggles with water and was attempting to 'swim' around the school. He was 15 years old."
10. "I found a student drinking chocolate milk out of his shoe."
11. "My students were learning about area, so I had them trace their hand and foot to see which was bigger. Most of the kids took off their shoes and socks, but one girl took it a step too far. She started biting her toenails off in the middle of the classroom, then chewed on them."
12. "A student of mine used to complete his work by sticky-taping a pencil to his cheek and writing."
13. "I’m a middle school science teacher and I’ve seen lots of weird stuff, but the weirdest by far has to be the time I caught a student feeding oats to a rat she had been keeping in her backpack for a week. Apparently she found it in the school bathroom and named it Hermione. She cried when I made her release it."
14. "One day, another teacher at my school decided to bring in her dog. The dog started going ballistic outside one of my students' lockers. The teacher opened the locker to find at least three months' worth of moldy, rotting, rancid sandwiches. It turns out the student didn’t like ham and was afraid to tell his mom that he didn’t like her sandwiches."
15. "I currently have a student who sneaks mustard packets from the cafeteria and then tries to eat them on the sly during class."
16. "One of my first-graders tried to sneak in his dog’s eyeball (lost due to cancer) for show-and-tell."
17. "I had a student who would take nibbles out of her EOS lip balm throughout the day."
18. "One time I caught a couple of my second-graders trying to give each other the Harry Potter scar. I told them if I ever saw anything like that again, I’d ban Harry Potter and anything related to it from our classroom. Problem solved!"
19. "One time while my class was taking a test, I saw something that I will never be able to unsee: a student practicing cunnilingus.
20. "One of my third-graders farted in his own face. During break time, I asked the kids to make a circle and stretch. I taught them some basic stretching exercises, and when we finished, he lifted his legs up in the air, put his bum in front of his face, and farted. Then he proudly told everybody that he could fart in his own face."
21. "I teach middle school, and the most spectacular thing I've ever seen is a young lady who figured out how to get herself off on the edge of a desk. We had to have a talk about only doing that in private...but secretly, I’m jealous! I’m 34 years old and I can't get off like that!"
Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.