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.

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.

We discovered our teacher had a secret water bottle that was actually full of alcohol and called her out on it. She couldn’t write us up for anything ‘official’ but we were suddenly getting written up for dozens of incredibly ridiculous things.

I got written up for looking bored in class.

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.

Grade 6. I had the correct info on a book report (from the World Book Encyclopedia) but my teacher refused to accept them as correct. I “disrupted class” by telling her she was incorrectly giving me a D, and read the relevant passage from the encyclopedia.

Sent to the principal, who said “You’re right, we’ll have your grade changed, but go have a seat out there for a bit and wait so she doesn’t feel insulted”

One of my truly radicalizing moments about speaking truth to power.

The reason isn’t really silly, I get it, but the punishment was.

In high school I spent a lot of time reading. Basically every lunch, every study hall period, etc. I read a fairly significant chunk of the library.

Problem was that I also tended to read during boring lectures in class, which pissed off a couple of my teachers and resulted in not great grades.

But all of their punishments were designed to punish people who hated to read. So my math teacher finally snaps and sends me to in school suspension… where I sit in a room and the monitor on duty is absolutely delighted that I sat there the entire day to read and even lets me go early for such good behavior.

I was later kicked out of honors courses and put into a remedial study hall situation. Again with a monitor who was supposed to make sure people were actually studying. Only way to get out of this was … a library pass. Where I could freely read whatever I wanted. Never did spend much time in study hall.

Somebody set fire to a wall mounted bin with a firework inside it.
The deputy head went to put the fire out, the firework went of almost blowing his face off, allegedly, I didn’t see it as I was already in detention for an unrelated incident.
The deputy head storms straight into where I’m sat on my tod for detention and asks what do I think I’m playing at almost killing him.
The headmaster gets called in and everyone’s grilling me to confess for setting the bin on fire while I was in detention the whole time!

I got in trouble for wearing a trenchcoat while it was raining shortly after the whole columbine thing. There are some absolute morons working in schools.

It’s a rain coat, asshole.

It’s raining.

Do the fucking math!

4th Grade - my friends and I used to fold up pieces of paper into ‘guns’ that we would play with. They basically looked like a big L. It was right when zero tolerance policies started to get implemented, so of course I got 3 days suspension for my paper. That same year another kid got the same for an action figure gun.

11th Grade - in computer science class all of our exams were written only. I finished my test early, then went to a computer to work on my coding project for that week. The teacher I guess first thought I was cheating on the test, so called me to the front to make an example of me. When she learned I had already turned in my test she changed the charge to using the school computers for non school activities. When I demonstrated that I was working on my project she changed again to say that using the computer was against the agreement we all signed at the start of the year regarding appropriate use of the school computers. I asked to see what part of the agreement I had violated, and she pulled out the sheet to show me. When that didn’t back her up she again changed her approach, this time writing me up for Saturday detention for “not bringing my book to class”. I went to the Vice Principal to contest the entire issue, but he just told me to go to the detention anyway. I ended up spending an hour cleaning marker off of the walls.

In the fifth grade we were doing some group project thing where we had our desks grouped together while we were working on it. There were probably four of us in each group. One of the girls (we will call her Ashley) in my group was acting wildly, and I blurted out loudly “Ashley is having an orgasm!”

There was a pause of silence and an eruption of laughter and a scolding cry from the teacher calling me to her desk and out into the hall. She marched me to the principals office. I am utterly confused at this point. I sat outside the principals office for what felt like an eternity while my teacher and her were discussing what to do with me.

They called me into the office and had my mother on the phone and handed the phone to me and made me tell her what I said. I am still so confused, and I asked them and they all told me what I said was highly inappropriate and I received a three day suspension for sexual harassment. You see, I did not know what this word I had said actually meant, what I was trying to say and mean was “spasm” but neither authority figures nor my mother believed me. If you’re wondering if this was too harsh, this was in the bible belt south in the mid 90s. Not in an exactly progressive state in the US. Fuck those bitches, im still bitter about that!

• Got in trouble for painting, or rather inking, a still life assignment in art class in black and white.
• Was threatened with a zero and write up for “lack of effort” for handing in a typed book report at the end of the same class period in which it was assigned. Don’t get mad at me because you assigned a book I’d already read and refused to allow me to choose another.
• Threatened with expulsion after being called onto the carpet in the principal’s office for a Very Stern Talk with a policeman present and everything for having a doodle of a benzene ring on the cover of my chemistry class notebook, because this was apparently “bomb making plans.” A demonstration that the school issued textbook for this very same class was just chock-a-block full of not only this but illustrations of similar molecules was not received well by the administration (“backtalk”) but ultimately I escaped unscathed.
• Sent to detention for my first and only time for gainsaying my biology teacher during a tirade delivered to the class early in the semester on the topic of, “Microscopes are important because you can’t see no cells with just your eyes [sic],” and I responded by not raising my hand per se, but rather holding up a hard boiled egg from my lunchbox.
• Subsequently determined undetentionable during that selfsame detention due to the mandatory assignment therein, which was a photocopied form letter thing which was obviously designed to make you feel very very sorry and very very guilty about what you did with a writing prompt at the top demanding a minimum of three full paragraphs on the topic of, verbatim: “Explain why you are here.” No further instructions. I started with the big bang and worked forward from there, and I got to about page four of meticulous blackletter script on both sides of each sheet of paper before the teacher supervising the detention room finally noticed (probably due to the bold text) and whisked one off of my desk, briefly skimmed it, and then threw me out. I was not allowed to keep what I had written. For all I know it’s still pinned to the wall in the staff room, decades later.
• The reason for the blackletter script was because I wrote everything with a mildly customized vintage Sheaffer fountain pen specifically to annoy that same teacher. I imagine this also annoyed several others, although one or two were appreciative. For instance, my 11th grade math teacher bribed me with extra credit by having me hand letter titles on things for her that she’d photocopy and use as handouts, or whatever. Numerous attempts were made to bring the hammer down on me for this in some form or another, none of which were successful.

I have more. These are the most amusing ones.

Yes, I was an incorrigible little shit when I was in school, mostly because I won’t countenance bullies of any stripe. Being bullied by other kids is bad enough; If you’re a teacher, do better.

Changing a monitor’s resolution from 1024x768 to something useable.

I got a detention for looking at a teacher “weird” in 9th grade. I was the only one in detention and he stared at ME weird the whole time, then tried to block the door on my way out. I slugged him in the stomach to get by and he never reported it, so that confirmed the creepy.

I got sent out to the hall whenever I had hiccups in 8th grade. They were too loud, apparently, and the teacher thought I was faking in order to disturb class.

Catholic school with uniform including khaki pants. I started my period and bled thru. I swapped to sweatpants. Most teachers just figured I must have some reason and didn’t bother me. A couple asked after it, one accepted my reason and offered to to let me out of class to have a little more time to cleanup or call home or whatever I needed to feel comfortable. The last one gave me detention for being out of uniform.

School administration reversed it when they heard why I was being sent to detention. I was advised to just go to the main office if it ever happened again so they could help me instead of having to deal with each teacher myself.