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What makes you laugh?
We recently solicited humorous anecdotes from the classroom through our e-update and were pleased with the excellent response. This is the first of selected highlights, and we hope to continue this “fun feature.” If you’d like to share your most amusing classroom experiences, please send an e-mail or give us a call at (888) 879-8282.

I had grown tired of the students complaining that I did not have any tissues in the room. I figured after some time, they would learn to bring their own and invest in the travel packs of tissue or learn to use a handkerchief. So, one day, I used my Sam’s membership to buy facial tissues. It so happened that I had come to the Sam’s straight from work, and I still had my ID badge on. As it turned out, the facial tissue was the only thing I bought, because Sam’s bulk sale of food doesn’t work for a single man with two cats.

The cashier saw the purchase of the tissues and noticed my badge. “Man! They must have given you a snotty bunch of kids this year,” the cashier remarked. I laughed, not commenting on the verity of the statement. “Good thing I hadn’t bought toilet paper,” I mused.

Michael Saberian, Grade 9 math teacher
Lehman High School, Hays CTA, Kyle

I had a man who called and asked if I had the results of his son’s pap smear tests. He meant the TAKS test results.

Mrs. Jon R. French, 6th grade science teacher
Liberty Middle School, Member-at-Large, Daisetta

I asked a student one time if he could use the word “gulp” in a sentence. He said, “You know, like the gulp of Mexico.”

Odette Hill, PPCD teacher
Wheatley Early Childhood Center
Member-at-Large, Port Arthur

One morning one of my third grade girls came into my classroom at 8 a.m. and immediately asked to go to the restroom. I said, “Yes.” A few minutes later she returned panic stricken. I asked, “What’s the matter?” She replied, “Boys have been using our restroom!” “How do you know?” I asked. She answered, “All the toilet seats are up.” I explained that the custodian had cleaned the toilets last night. They left the seats up, and she was the first girl to go into the clean restroom. She was so relieved that boys had not been using the girls’ restroom. Later I asked the custodians to put the seats down after cleaning the girls’ restroom.

Ulana Ratley, Grade 3 teacher (for 29 years)
Spring Garden Elementary School
HEB CTA/TCTA District 11 Director

In our kindergarten classroom this year, we have been studying dinosaurs. I was leading a discussion on extinction and what it meant. While trying to lead the children into defining the term I asked, “Why are only the bones of dinosaurs in the museums?” A student raised her hand and said “because the dinosaurs would break the glass!”

Helen Hendrix, Kindergarten teacher
Spring Shadow Elementary School
Spring Branch ISD, Member-at-Large, Houston

While teaching a world history unit on the middle ages, I asked the students what does nobility mean? No one volunteered an answer. I asked again. One young man finally gasped and exclaimed, “I know, I know!”

He explained, “it’s like when the coach tells you that you have ‘nobility’ to play basketball, baseball, or football. ‘Nobility’ at all.”

Beverly Sontag, Special education teacher, content mastery
Kountze High School, Kountze CTA

I teach high school chemistry. In December last year I had a chemis-tree that was a small live Christmas tree. One student asked if it was alive, and I said yes. He looked at me with surprise and said, “Do ALL Christmas trees start out that little?”

Vicki Knipp, Chemistry teacher
Wylie High School, Member-at-Large, Plano

I am a special education teacher. One of my students is mostly mainstreamed but tests individually because of his tendency to read the test aloud and announce the answer. We had been working on the skills needed to stay in the classroom to test such as reading silently, staying in his seat, no breaks and especially not announcing the answers to the other students. He had begged and begged to be allowed to test in the classroom with his classmates and finally his teacher gave in and allowed him to stay instead of sending him to my room. Well, I was called to his classroom which means he was in trouble and refusing to come to my room on his own. I get there and I can hear him reading the test aloud. After a minute or two, he got up and came with me all the while denying that he was “talking” during the test. I told him that I heard him from the hallway. His response was “But I wasn’t telling the other kids the answers I was telling the teacher.”

Samantha Phillips, Special education/behavior unit teacher
Smith Elementary School, Member-at-Large, Harlingen

My students were taking a math benchmark and of course I reminded them to use their strategies. Well, one of my students used his strategies - reading strategies. He labeled all his math problems nonfiction. I wasn’t sure if I should be happy after all he used his strategies or upset because he was confused!!

Julie Bennett, 2nd grade teacher
Houston Elementary School, Mineral Wells

Web posted: 04/01/08 from The Classroom Teacher, Spring 2008