In honor of the last day of school: Favorite middle school stupidities

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

DeathLlama and I teach middle school (different schools and districts). Some look at our kids and the endless moments of stupidity and attitude and think we’re insane; we look at our kids and the endless moments of idiocy and resulting entertainment and know we’re insane–but enjoyably so. I love 6th graders, I really do. They’re just effin’ hilarious.

DeathLlama jokes we all have our turn at the stupid booth. We go up, get smacked with the stupid mallet, and move on. Eventually we return to the line to await another turn at the booth; middle schoolers–particularly the boys–are perpetually in this line.

Some highlights of the year:

  • Boy is chewing gum in class, a huge no-no. He is reprimanded and ordered to spit it out, then given the mandatory gum detention form. We go to brunch. He comes back to class CHEWING GUM AGAIN. I actually say, with great incredulity, “Are you actually chewing gum AGAIN?? Seriously?? What, do you LIKE detention??” His classmates giggled, and I had to keep from busting out in laughter myself. He was very embarrassed and red-faced, although that might have been from getting hit so hard with the stupid mallet. Derrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

  • From DeathLlama: Boy insists to his gym teacher that someone stole his lock. PE teacher asks if he just didn’t leave it unlocked (they are confiscated when that happens). Boy insists, over and over, “No no no, I locked it!” Teacher goes to the pile of confiscated locks (which are closed to keep them from becoming entangled), holds up the boy’s and asks, “Is this your lock?” The boy, feeling justified, “YES! See, I told you I locked it!” Derrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

  • ON A PAPER HE TURNS IN about choosing a career and what steps to follow, boy writes “slut” in the center of the brainstorm bubble, then is red-faced with a Stupid Mallet print when called on it. What, you didn’t think I’d notice it?? Derrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

  • Boy (noticing a pattern here??), in the middle of class, holds up a paper to his friend who giggles. I ask that he bring it to me. He plays like he’s been hit too hard with the stupid mallet…“What paper? What? I don’t know, I was just, erm um derrr…” He finally brings it to me, where he’s written “Mrs. Ruffian sucks dick.” Inside I think…“Occasionally. And pretty darn well, I might add.” Outside I have to write him up on a referral. What, he doesn’t think I’d notice him flagging down his friend that blatantly in class??? Derrrrrrrrrr…

Oh my goodness, I could go on, but those were my favorite moments. Don’t get me wrong, the girls are rough too–but they aren’t so much in line at the Stupid Booth as the Nasty Booth. They can be very vicious to their friends. Given a choice, I prefer idiocy to cruelty. Their referrals usually have something to do with the contents of their notes that I either confiscate or discover left on desks (that probably counts as a moment in the stupid booth, too).

There are plenty more moments like these–most common is the catch-them-red-handed-doing-something-dumb (make inappropriate gestures, throw something, etc.) and they act like you have been hit so hard with the stupid mallet you were struck blind. “I was just handing it to him” or “I was just waving my fingers around…” Mmm-hmm. Yeah. sigh

Thanks for the laugh; now get back in line, kiddo, and I’ll see you in September.

#2

Our district is opening a 4th junior high in the fall. Of the 17 principals, and assorted A.P.'s I deal with here, the ones I spend the most time with are the 3 Jr High AP’s that deal with discipline at their schools. Easily 75% of the bus discipline referrals we get here from drivers are the junior high kids.

  • The 7th grade girl that, on the last day of school, poured half a can of warm soda down the back of the driver’s seat when she got off the bus at her stop. She’ll start the year with a 2-week bus suspension, and a week of detention.

  • The 8th grade boy that took a wide point Sharpie and painted his little sister’s face while two of her friends held her arms down.

#3

You owe me a new monitor, you randy middle-school teacher. :smiley:

Wait a minute…you mean, once upon a time, *my *middle-school teachers… :eek:

#4

Ah, yes, the middle school years. :stuck_out_tongue: The boy child, clowning around in class, managed to slam a front tooth into a table so hard it snapped in half. (Think Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber for the visual.) Derrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Another bigger boy with a crush on her kept pulling my daughter’s ponytail on the bus till she turned around and decked him so hard his contacts popped out. Derrrrrrrrrrrr

#5

My father, once a small boy (or so they tell me) broke his arm in middle school playing an unauthorized game of football. He didn’t tell anyone about it, of course, since he didn’t want to get in trouble for playing football. All was fine for two weeks until one day at school he turned around and put his elbow up on the desk behind him to talk to another student…and couldn’t get his arm back off the desk. Because of the break. And then tried to claim he had no idea how his arm “suddenly” broke. Derrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

My mother teaches sixth grade as well. She had a girl come into her classroom bawling her eyes out. The other girls had been mean to her on the playground, calling her names. My mother attempted to console her, telling her that old canard about sticks and stones. “But, Mrs. Jones!” she wailed, “they called me a…a…a VIRGIN!” (She had no idea what it meant.)

#6

If so, I have a teacher story. Two of them.

  1. Mrs. Murtagh, our science teacher, was showing us some slides of the “expedition” she and her husband took over the summer . . . something to do with the sea or something. All I can remember (and anyone else in that class) is the slide her husband (accidentally?) included of Mrs. Murtagh in the shower. Projector turned off, to stunned silence. “If any of you ever tells anyone . . .” This is actually the first time I ever have.

  2. Our alegra teacher, Miss Doran, was from England. Two boys came in late for class. Miss Doran, angrily: “I know where you two were: out in the parking lot with a fag in your mouth!” Two seconds of stunned silence, then about 40 minutes of hysterical laughter.

#7

I’ve got to add to the list of adults in middle schools who got hit by the stupid mallet.

In junior high, the cafeteria was an inside room with no windows. One day, we had a power outage during lunch. While there were emergancy lights at the doors, they didn’t come close to lighting the whole room. The kids started getting a little rowdy, so the vice-principle (the man in charge of discipline for the school) grabbed a flashlight and walked into the room. Light target, dark room, kids with food. Duhh!!

#8

OMG Eve…your stories RULE! The “fag in your mouth” comment kills me. Kinda reminds me of the time my mom (a high school English teacher that NO ONE messed with, and that no one dared cuss around) said, “Please open to page 144 of Fuck Hinn.” Stunned silence. Stifled snickering. Mom: “Okay, fine, go ahead and laugh.” Class: Hysterical laughter.

Y’all have some great stories–I was just picking my favorites from this year. Reaching back further–focusing on student idiocy (parent, teacher, and administrative idiocy are other threads all their own)–we have:

  • the boy who bought a pocketknife to school because he couldn’t find scissors (he was genuinely innocent and naive about it, poor dear…he was immediately suspended)

  • the boy who drew a stick-figure picture of himself screwing a fellow student doggy style, complete with names in case anyone couldn’t tell who they were, on the back of a paper he turned in. (Bonus stupid points for the parents, who refused to believe Darling had drawn it because he claimed he didn’t. It took over a week, but he cracked and confessed eventually.)

  • The boy who, first day back from suspension, made a lewd gesture (think two fingers on either side of the mouth and tongue out) to another boy (derrrrrrrrrrr) before being sent right back to the office

  • The I’m So Cool boy who thought it would be Cool to show off and crawl up and down horizontally through the monkey bars like a worm…then got stuck in the bars, wailed like a baby, and had to have the paramedics come to untangle him and whisk him away in an ambulance (he was fine)

I have more stories, but they’re all boys and I feel like I’m picking on them. Really, the middle school boys are hysterical in their boy-wants-to-be-a-man-ness, and I love them for it. I have to have stupid girl stories, I must have them…but again, it’s more stories like this that has to do with girls being stupid (DeathLlama’s experience this past year): a girl in his choir stops signing. When DL tries to make eye contact with her in songs, she deliberately turns her nose up and looks away. She icily avoids him. He doesn’t care–except she HAS to sing if she’s in choir. He asks her about why she’s not singing. She says–can we be more stereotypical: “Oh, I think you know!” :rolleyes:

DL had no clue, FTR. This goes on for OVER A WEEK before she finally says, “You know EXACTLY why I’m mad at you. You MOVED me!” …yes. Away from the girl you WON’T SHUT UP TALKING TO. Ah, youth. The “Oh, I think you know” is just effin’ hilarious to me…

#9

I work in a middle school and was in the main office talking to the secretary once and glanced down at the sign in sheet for late students that was laying on the counter. For watever reason I started reading it… [NAME] John Smith [ARRIVAL TIME] 9:45am [REASON] tootoring

Me: Hey Cathy… what’s this??? (as I pointed to it)
Cathy: Oh yeah, John… he can’t spell. He goes to a TUTOR before school.
Me: wow, his parents should get refund.
Cathy: Yeah, I know. He’s been writing it like that for months.
I also find it odd that the kid has a “tootor” in before school… hence making him late school and missing classes… thus probably making him need the “tootor” more.

#10

that was supposed to be “whatever”

Ah, I post a message about a kid spelling something wrong and what do I do… grrr. Stupid.

#11

When I was in either 7th or 8th grade (can’t remember), this kid in my class, Nick, stuck a paperclip in the electrical outlet along the wall. It shot off sparks, one of which landed on another student’s hand, and shorted out.

I think he earned a three day suspension for that.

#12

. . . which reminds me of an ad I clipped from a local NJ paper: someone looking for “an after-school English tudor.”

I so wanted to dress up like Anne Boleyn and go apply for the job.

#13

My brother, in 8th grade, bent a paperclip so it fit in two holes of an outlet and then turned on the power with a pencil. Blew out the electricity to most of the building. He was in electronics class. His story is that they were reviewing a test and he was bored. My mother marched up to the school and insisted they fail him for the class because clearly he had no concept of basic safety. He was cleaning the labs as punishment for weeks.

The really entertaining part is that someone in my grade, a grade lower than his, thought this was so cool that he had to try it himself at home and by his report got something of a nasty shock. We called him Sparky for the rest of his school career.

#14

I will never, ever forget the day Ryan threw a pair of full-sized scissors - not the kiddy kind - at Graham, while he was sitting at his desk. The blades embedded into the 1cm thick wooden side of the desk seat. A centimetre higher and it would have been embedded in Graham’s back. The thing was, they weren’t even mad at each before, Ryan just threw the scissors for no reason at all.

There was also the urinal stick. The dreaded broomball stick that the guys stuffed into the urinal before playing the game. Everyone tried to avoid it, but you couldn’t always remember which one it was.

#15

Michael Caine once nearly got into a lot of trouble when he first came to America for a movie. Got off the airplane, went outside and ask the cop where he could go to buy a couple of fags.

jocularity ensued.

#16

Hell, I’ve only in the past few years realized I need to never say “I can’t believe you don’t know; if you don’t know I’m not going to tell you!” again!

My brother was in high school when he stuck the tweezers in the electrical socket in the science lab.

I threw scissors at him when we were around 10 or 11.

I guess we were a little behind the curve.

#17

One of my best friends and I used to write notes during middle school. Constantly. Incessantly. And we thought that we were the James Bonds of note-passing.

So imagine our shock when the note–which our uncoordinated selves were passing around like a freakin’ football–lands right at the feet of the teacher we were writing about. We then proceeded to claim it wasn’t us. This didn’t really fly. For one, we both had pretty distinctive handwriting, and were in her science class. Second of all, she’d just caught us passing notes two weeks before. Finally, we had been none-too-subtle about passing it back and forth; she’d probably been watching us for the past ten minutes (we were waiting for our bus, so it was okay to pass notes. God knows why we didn’t just talk.

Another time, I’d gotten out early from lunch, and had gone to my locker to get some books. My wouldn’t shut afterwards (this was probably the result of all the crap I had jammed in there). I started to kick it shut. The girl a few lockers down–who made it her life’s purpose to annoy and torment me–told me not to kick my locker. I then expressed my feelings concerning her potentially canine genetic makeup.

Just then the shop teacher–who knew my grandpa :eek: though they weren’t really close friends–happened to walk by. I told him that the aforementioned comment had been directed at my locker, not at the girl; I seemed to think that this was grounds for not getting in trouble. Alas, I should have known better.

FTR, I’m a girl, and both of these happened in 8th grade.

#18

They didn’t send letters one year detailing the end of school. I had to be in about 4th grade. The school teacher tells everybody the details about the end of school to relay to your parents. I missed the last three days of school, and they only called up my mother after the third day to ask why I wasn’t there. I got to go to the class picnic and clean out my locker. Dumb adults.

#19

This thread reminded me of the Practical Joke That Never Was. When I was in 8th grade, I had heard about putting Saran Wrap on toilet seats. I was intrigued by this idea, but had, in retrospect, no idea how to execute it, and neither did my two cohorts.

Our friend Marna always used a particular stall in the girls’ room. I told Meena and Julie about this prank idea. They were all for it. So on one break between classes, we descended on the girls’ room and put Saran wrap… on the toilet seat. As in, wrapped it around the seat itself, not covering the hole in the slightest. We lured Marna in, she went into the stall as usual, did her business, flushed, made no comment… and that was that.

Meena and Julie asked me what was supposed to be so funny. I just shrugged and said it was supposed to work.

Man, we were idiots.

#20

The nation, indeed, the whole world, needs more mothers like yours.