Yelled “toilet” three times in the corridor, just outside of the classroom as school was ending. Ended up into nearly two hours of detention, which ended when my parents came to look for me.

Apparently the teacher had another class and forgot about the detention. I was in the first grade.

Got a negative report because some students were being loud in the corridor before the teacher came in. I (and a few others) were doing my homework, but the entire class got punished 🙃 If I had more courage back then, I would have marched straight to the assistant head’s office and refused to get it signed by my mum. It was only 5 points, but I hate when quiet people minding their own business get unfairly blamed because they happened to be in the same group as those causing chaos.

Called the kid who groped me in music class (and also liked to harass and try to dry-hump my friend at recess) a baboon, and before that I moved from the chair onto the floor so he couldn’t touch my ass with his feet, but the teacher of course bitched at me for that. Fun times. (:

I already knew how to read when going to the first year of school. My parents were worried I’d be bored during classes, so they convinced the teacher to allow me to bring a book to read for myself when I’m done with any reading work. She probably thought I’d bring some fairy tales, and agreed.

When the class came, I finished the reading exercise and pulled out the book I was allowed to. It wasn’t fairy tales though - it was a dinosaur encyclopedia. The teacher got very angry and took the book away, as “it’s not an appropriate reading material for a first grader”.

I refused to speak with the teacher for the rest of the semester.

I was caught making out with my girlfriend.

I should mention that this was an all-girl Catholic cult school in the early 80s. Not only was I expelled but my parents moved us to a different country because they were so ashamed.

I was disciplined for ‘disturbing’ the class by correcting my teacher when she said the elephant was the largest mammal in the world… And no, I did not say ‘yo mama’…

On 9/11 we were told something bad was happening in the US, but no details. The teachers decided there would be no class for the rest of day, instead we’d have in-class recess until school ended. We were not informed about what was actually going on, just told to play.

I got in trouble for having fun while playing, because it was disrespectful.

Me and another kid got detention for fighting.

At my house.

On a Saturday.

Eating chips in a class we were allowed to eat in. Other kids were eating when I got sent to the office and I got in more trouble for pointing that out. Painting my nails. I was told to stop, asked to go to the bathroom, and got in trouble when I came back with my nails fully painted. And in a situation where the whole class was told to be silent, but the teacher refused to look at any of us, I noticed someone (who was the type that never got in trouble) was pretty impatiently waving her hand around, so I told the teacher she needs something and was sent to the office. OH now that I’m writing I’m thinking of more. Some kid groped me in the middle of the cafeteria and I was scolded for pushing the issue because “he’s a good kid who was just “being silly” and these kinds of things can really follow someone ya know.” He later spent time in prison. And there was a girl who was a huge bully that I told to stop picking on someone who was afraid of getting hurt (I truly had a death wish, the girl was 3x my size) and she threatened to jump me in the bathroom. She harrassed me for weeks and I definitely aggravated the situation because I refused to be intimidated. I’d announce when I was going to the bathroom, tell her nows your chance etc. I was asked to leave her alone bc if she were to get into another fight she would be sent to juvie. She is currently in prison. Really backwards logic in that school

I beat a teacher at a typing test (speed, which is raw speed with mistakes subtracted; aka WPM, words per minute). He said it wasn’t fair that I found a “better” way. Right fingers on Shift and Enter (and maybe right thumb on Space), and left hand doing the rest of the work. He said that’s not the right way to type, even though he couldn’t type as fast as me. So he took me to the office and said I cheated on the typing test. To pass the class, he made me learn the “normal” way of typing. So I did, and I beat him again, this time with office staff watching.

This was in the early to mid-1990s. No computers, no phones, no Google. I don’t envy today’s kids.

In the sixth grade I got my first detention ever because I picked up my baseball cap.

We were on a field trip and we went to visit some museum in the capital by train. While we walked back to the train station, our teacher stated that “no one is to step out of the train before her permission or they will get detention”. I was the last to get on the train and my cap hit the backpack of the classmate in front of me and fell out of the train doors. I instinctively turned around, leaned out whist holding onto a safety bar and picked my cap. And stepped back on board.

I was a calm kid and had never broken any school rules or gotten into any trouble whatsoever. So when my classmates saw me putting one feet outside the train they simply flipped: “TEACHER, LORINDÓL STEPPED OUT OF THE TRAIN! YOU’RE GETTING A DETENTION!”

I was utterly dumbfounded. My “friends” had betrayed me and the teacher was approaching and looking angry. With tears in my eyes I explained what had happened and reminded her that we still had more than 10 minutes until the train doors would even close. Her face went from angry to sad and she silenced my heckling classmates with a few strict words. She told me that we would discuss this when we were back at school.

When we got back, everyone else got to go home and the teacher asked me to our classroom with her. “Lorindól, I’m very sorry. I have to give you detention because you did step out of the train, even if it was for all the right reasons. I understand you acted instinctively and did not mean to break any rules. But I must keep my word or it will lose it’s meaning. As stupid as this sounds, the purpose of this detention is not to punish you. It’s purpose is to show the others that my word is the law in this classroom, with no exceptions. I hope you can understand why I must do this.” I thought about it for a while and said that I did.

When I told my parents about the detention my dad couldn’t stop laughing. “You finally get a detention and it’s for NOTHING!”

Mom was so angry that she wanted to call the teacher and make her call the detention off. I managed to talk her out of it and didn’t hold any grudge against the teacher. I learned a lot about the world of adults that day.

I needed to pee. I had to bring a doctor’s note saying that, yes, I needed to pee.

It’s a universal thing I think. So many little injustices that stay with us well into adulthood!

I have two. One goes way back to when I was 6, some 42 years ago.

We were on a field trip to a beach in the summer, which, given we live on a group of small islands, wasn’t exactly imaginative, but I guess the teachers just wanted out of the classroom.

Anyway, the task was to collect seaweed. I came back with a bit of kelp, with the ‘leaves’ missing, so I guess it looked a bit like wood.

The teacher seems to think so, and insisted that it was just a wooden stick. It clearly wasn’t, as anyone who paid the blindest bit of attention would know. My dog could tell the difference. Proof:

But she dismissed my weak protest and that was that. It was at that point, I guess, I learned a valuable lesson: some adults are fucking stupid.

The other incident was when I was 9. I was a good, polite boy in school and was never cheeky. Anyway, at the end of each day, we had to stand and be quiet for 30 seconds before we could leave class.

On this occasion I had the hiccups. The teacher held me back for half an hour and lectured me on respecting authority. She genuinely thought my hiccups, which are involuntary by definition, we’re put on deliberately to provoke her. Needless to say, that reinforced the lesson I’d learned with the seaweed.

Calling my teacher a dog after he called me a horse. This is no joke, my mother was called in.

I asked my French teacher what a comment he’d written at the bottom of one of my test papers said, because I couldn’t read it.

Apparently it said: “Your handwriting is atrocious.”

He refused to believe I wasn’t taking the piss out of him and I ended up having to ‘explain myself’ to the head.