Not a teacher story, but just to lighten the mood: When my son was 5, a boy named Juan Franco had a birthday party and invited all the neighborhood kids. S asked me how old Juan Franco was going to be. I said he was turning 6. So after mulling that over a minute, S said, “then why don’t they call him Six Franco?”
I went to S’s class in 6th grade and was chatting with the teacher. He was half-heartedly grumbling that he couldn’t chase S & his buddies out for recess. They insisted on staying inside and building operating hand and other body parts using popsicle sticks, string and tape, while knowing each part they constructed. They LOVED that teacher–he was awesome!
This thread is terrific.
@Cheeringsection
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My children had the same excellent K teacher four years apart. It was not enough time for me to forget that the first time I met her she told H and I exactly when she lost her virginity.
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Holy smokes! Can’t imagine any topic being discussed with a K teacher where that tidbit would appropriately come up!
Another non-teacher but funny story-I used to drink Diet Coke. A lot of it. Instead of coffee, I would start my day with Diet Coke. H started calling it “Diet Crack” because, well, I didn’t do well without it. One morning as we were driving me to work and D to preschool, she said with alarm, “MOM! You forgot your Diet Crack!” I told H to stop calling it that because any day now, her teachers were going to want to have a talk with me about my crack habit…
After the third day of kindergarten my daughter’s teacher pulled me aside in the pick up line and said “I just want to tell you about something that happened in class today.” Never a good sign. Her class had been working on the class constitution, the list of rules by which they would all agree to abide. The kids raised their hands to add a rule. “Be nice to the other kids,” “Don’t run in the hall,” “Use indoor voices”…
My sweet 5 year old’s contribution? “Never say F&^%KER!”
Luckily the teacher had a sense of humor and knowing my child had a big brother at home reassured us that she had been through something similar with her own teenage boys. At least my 5 year old was right. NEVER say f#$%ker!
Pre-school teacher: I think your son should wait a year before starting kindergarten.
Me: Why? He’s already reading chapter books.
Pre-school teacher: Because his printing is messy.
Me: Well, I guess my husband isn’t ready for kindergarten either.
S was very sensitive about violence when he was in preschool. He cried and hollered when the teacher read the “Three Billy Goats Gruff.” After that, he was the barometer and his classmates (and teac would always watch him when the teacher read and let her know when he was upset. He’d get to go to the principal’s office and browse the books there instead. The teacher told me I had to “toughen up” my kid, but honestly I had no clue how to do so, so over time he figured it out himself, but not at 3 or 4 years of age.
Fast forward a few years and H & I were at an open house for D in middle school. We all introduced ourselves and the social studies teacher suddenly stared at us and said, “Oh, you are the parents of MY WRITER.” We looked at one another puzzled and she continued, “Your D has a great vocabulary.” We got home and asked D about the teacher and she said, “Yea, the teacher thought I was a plagiarizer until she finally realized the words I used in writing are just how I normally speak.”
When we have conference with S’s preschool teacher at age 3, the teacher said she had never had a student who was so concerned about what particular era each dinosaur lived in and whether they were herbivores, omnivores or carnivores. She said our S would have the omnivores and carnivores kill each other off and play with the herbivores.
My first grade teacher once decided to teach our class to sing “I’m a Little Teapot.” I got very excited, because I already knew the song, having learned it the previous summer from the counselors at my day camp. Very proudly, I sang it to the class:
I’m a little teapot, short and stout.
Here is my handle, here is my spout.
When I’m boiling over, hear me shout:
“Sock it to me, baby, let it all hang out!”
My teacher later told my mother about my unorthodox version of the song, and said that I was trying to challenge her authority… lol!
This is not my own story… but the funniest one I’ve ever heard. A little kid told his teacher that his mom was a “stripper” and “worked at home”. The teacher was relieved to learn the mom actually did furniture stripping/refinishing.
When my daughter was in third grade, they had a project where each student had to start a “business” by making a product to sell at a “town market.” The teacher’s role was to be mayor of the town. They all got fake money to spend at the market to buy the other children’s products.
My daughter decided to do a comic book that parodied her class including the teacher. (In all honesty, I think my daughter was more than a little influenced by Captain Underpants.) Well, the teacher was offended by the comic book, and, in her role as “mayor” of the town, banned it!!!
I marched down to the school to give the teacher a lesson in the first amendment and the teacher gave some mealy mouthed explanation about it not being appropriate. The only thing that was even remotely offensive in the comic book was a reference to a movie called “The Wonderful World of Dung.” Thinking my daughter had made the title up, I conceded to the teacher that that one frame might have gone a bit too far. The teacher told me that the class had actually watched a movie with that title on a rainy day!
The best part of the story was what happened next. After the comic book was banned, an underground market formed. Kids showed up at our house that night offering to buy the comic book for real money! I told my daughter to go ahead and sell it to them.
A friend of mine teaches first grade. She asked a student who had been absent the day before, “X, how are you feeling today?” He replied, “Oh, I’m fine! My parents were too hung over from Super Bowl to get me to school.”
When S had an interview to enter a private HS, the teacher who had interviewed him told me that S puzzled him. I asked him what he meant and he said He asked S to tell him what he read and he was at a loss for titles. I responded that its probably because he literally reads whatever he can get his hands on, finds around the house or web, including books and magazines H and I borrowed for ourselves, all of the Lord of the Rings books, and any author that catches his fancy.
The teacher was also puzzled by S’s reticence in talking to the teacher. I explained that S had been burned badly by a teacher he had in middle school who was upset when S asked a question she couldn’t answer on the 1st day of school and ignored him for the next two years. (She was the sole GT teacher and he had her for two years.)
Happily, S was admitted at that HS and that teacher became one of his favorite mentors and champions.
Oh yea, S had a teacher in 2nd grade that said at the parent teacher conference that she couldn’t understand the book reports S turned in about the chess books he read, though she knew he read them–she wasn’t a chess player. 
When my friend’s son started K or first grade, I forget which, the assignment was to draw your family. So he did: Mom and dad and him, but off to the side was Aunt Mary, with planes zooming down from the sky attacking her.
The teacher was concerned-- why all the animosity for Aunt Mary? What had she ever done?
The answer, of course, was that they had just moved to the midwest from Long Island. Aunt Mary had run down 30 flights of stairs on 9/11 and gotten out of the World Trade Center.
Another story: my nephew had the same assignment when he started school. He drew mommy and daddy and himself. But daddy had only one eye.
The teacher called my sister in for a conference. Was Ray concerned that daddy only saw half of what he did? Did daddy not love him enough to see him? It was time to call the social workers and fix this poor broken family.
Nope. Daddy had just lost an eye to cancer. The picture was accurate; he had only one real eye.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, ya know???
Last night over dinner I read some of these posts to my family. We all had a good chuckle. I esp. laughed over what the OP posted - about possibly dropping her child on his head. We have joked over the years that our youngest must have been dropped on his head - why else would he want to be a hockey goalie?! No sane person would choose to get in the way of a speeding puck!
My youngest loved the post by @justonedad about the kid who had a teacher who wanted him to repeat kindergarten because he didn’t know his colors perfectly. My son is color blind and loves funny stories about being color blind - and he has plenty of his own to tell. He actually posted that story on his FB last night.
“The teacher was also puzzled by S’s reticence in talking to the teacher. I explained that S had been burned badly by a teacher he had in middle school who was upset when S asked a question she couldn’t answer on the 1st day of school and ignored him for the next two years. (She was the sole GT teacher and he had her for two years.)”
And this was a GT teacher? I thought the idea of GT programs was supposed to avoid this kind of thing that often happens with regular teachers…
Reading some of the other posts, I have to say I laughed, more than a few of them hit home (loved the one with the preschool and holding the kid back because he printed badly, the poster’s H and I have that in common, I probably should be back in preschool!).
I admit to being a little uptight with my first child. At his first conference in preschool his teacher had great things to say about how he behaved and enjoyed music time etc. “But I’m very concerned because he cannot use scissors properly to cut on the lines when we practiced scissor techniques”
Of course I got all upset - does this mean he will be living in our basement til he’s 50? Will he ever do a science project?
My in laws coincidentally were coming up the next day. When they arrived my FIL ran in the house yelling, “We got here as soon as we heard the news!! I’m here to help with the scissors fiasco”
My mom told me this one. My mom went for her first conference with the first grade teacher. When my mom introduced herself, the teacher said " YOU are Thumper’s mom?" My mom replied, “Yes, why do you ask?”
Teacher replied…" Well I was expecting a MUCH older woman based on your daughter’s description of you."
My mom was all of 28 years old.
Actually that particular GT teacher really upset S because she honestly totally ignored S and refused to call on him or address him at all. She also would have field trips late at night during the school week and not keep track of which kids were where and how they’d get home safely. She also took a few of her favorites traveling to DC with her.
S had a teacher in HS who called me in for a conference. She was incensed that S was not a fabulous creative writer, since he got perfect verbal SAT score. Of course that score is a perfect indicator of creative writing talent!