I have something to confess: If I had to suddenly ditch my entire writing career and start anew, becoming a teacher would be among the last options on my list. Nothing wrong with the job per se, it’s a noble profession, but I’ve never been a fan of tiny beings darting around at lightning speed while scheming mysterious plots. Unfortunately, besides bugs, kids also fit this description like a glove. I can barely keep my apartment tidy, let alone be in control of a room full of miniature humans. Not to mention when the kids are older — as a former teenager, I have to say we can be pretty terrible with adults.
But then, the Bored Panda team finds things like this Reddit thread, packed with humorous anecdotes told by teachers, and suddenly the idea doesn’t sound THAT bad. In fact, it may even be kind of… fun? Seriously, the sheer hilarity of the things that come out of kids’ mouths can be insane. Maybe it’s their lack of filter or their fresh perspective on the world, but either way, kids are comedy gold. And teachers are the lucky ones who get to witness it all firsthand.
We’re thrilled to share the best teacher stories with y’all, fellow Pandas. From kindergartners with their funny test answers to high schoolers who deliver the most epic comebacks, these teacher-student interactions had us in stitches. Despite how hard it can be to deal with them sometimes, these pint-sized humans have personalities, a sense of humor, and a wit that can rival any comedian.
So to all the teachers out there, thank you for the laughs. Thank you for sharing the funny things your kids said — and for reminding us that comedy can be found in the most unexpected places. Here is a collection of funny student answers as told by their teachers. Remember to upvote your favorite pieces of classroom humor to see them rank higher on the list!
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"Phys. Ed teacher here - I always wear shorts teaching. Parent-teacher conferences roll around, grade 1 student comes up to me with her parents - "Mr. Famous1187, I've never seen you wear pants before". I've never responded quicker to a comment before in my life to clear that up."
"I asked my students to draw a picture of a ninja chicken on an exam. One student drew nothing and pointed out that the chicken was such an effective ninja that he was invisible.
Checkmate."
"I asked 'when is a time you have used integrity?'
He wrote down 'I wash my hands after going to the bathroom, even if no one is in there'."
"I teach English to Vietnamese kids. I asked what is the population of Vietnam? The kid quickly surveyed the room and said "More than 15" This guy is going places."
"My first-grade class was learning the word powerful. Kids came up with examples of powerful things and people, like elephants and superman. Then one boy said, "babies are powerful because they can cry and get whatever they want"."
yadoya said:
"The assignment was "Write the following numbers in all letters"
The kid answered:
3: four.
15: sixteen.
21:twenty-two.
And so on. I gave him full points."
PlzGodKillMe replied:
"He wrote the FOLLOWING number. It wasn't a joke, the kid just followed instructions."
Some kids may take instructions literally, this may be an example of this. Once told a kid he needed to pull his socks up...
"In nutrition class at CC, the teacher asks "what's one of the first things you throw out of the window when you drink alcohol", this kid just mumbles: "standards"."
"Name two ways to determine the height of a building using a barometer that is exactly one meter long:
1) Take the barometer to the top of the building, drop it, and time how long it takes to hit the ground.
2) Find the owner of the building and say: "Hey - I have this really awesome barometer I'll give you if you tell me how tall your building is"."
I’m sorry but what is that little thing sticking out from the glass building? It ruined the sleek physique.
"(On a 3rd-grade Charlotte's Web quiz): Give 2 pieces of evidence that support this statement: "Charlotte was a good friend to Wilbur"
"She comforted him and she didn't let him become pork"."
"In a class, that deals with electricity, I asked the students to name a good conductor.
Leonard Bernstein."
"My music teacher was showing us how to use a xylophone and said "Only hit the black keys, not the white keys" and my friend instantly replied with "Miss that's racist"."
Hyper_Fujisawa said:
"I've taught English in Korea and Japan, and while maybe not that funny one student who wanted to say something like "afterward" or "in the end," wrote, "the after was here". I stopped for a moment and just stared off into space after reading that."
ProceedWithLaunch replied:
"I tried so hard
And got so far
But the after was here
It doesn't really matter."
"Teacher, I need a pencil.
Where do the pencils live? (I have a bucket of sharpened pencils for them to use.)
Pennsylvania?"
"World history class for 5th graders. End of the Unit test on the Middle Ages.
The question: "Why are the Middle Ages, in Europe, often described as the Dark Ages?"
The answer: 'Because lightbulbs weren't invented yet.'"
"I worked in a special needs class for a year and there was one kid with a textbook case of Asperger Syndrome. Very bright, very tough nut to crack.
I tried to tell him a corny joke once and he was not having it.
"Why did the chicken cross the road?" "He likely had business over there or was compelled by force."
Well, ok.
Easily my favorite memory of that class."
"There was a buddy of mine in college, J, who was legendary for his witty responses in class.
We were training to be RAs and the residential life person asked, "What are some things that as an RA, you shouldn't do in your dorm room?" People were saying stuff like drinking, etc.
J raises his hand, gets called on, and says, "Practicing medicine without a license."
The trainer was like, "Uh, yeah, I guess that's true."
The same guy was in a film class. The teacher asks, "What technique defined the scene we just watched?"
J raises his hand, gets called on, and says, "Long, awkward silences."
Teacher: "Could you give an example?"
J: "...""
one loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong awkward silence comin up! any challengers?
"Teaching grade 5. Students were fooling around during group work so I said sarcastically, "Do I need to stand here and watch you do your work?" to which the student responded even more sarcastically, "Well you don't have to stand, you can grab the chair and sit"."
"Not a teacher, but something my brother answered for homework.
My brother was in year 1, and his homework was to draw a balloon "blown up". He drew a picture with lots of squiggly shapes spread out across the paper. He took it as the balloon blew up, like a bomb, so he drew the leftovers of an exploded balloon. His teacher loved it and gave him full marks!"
Kids are so literal at times and it always leads to something funny.
"In 7th grade on a test, the question said "Why do some people see some technology as positive, and others see the same technology as a problem?" and a kid simply put, "Because some people are Amish"."
"I teach English in Japan.
When teaching my students, I asked "What do we say when someone is being too loud?"
One smarta** says "Shut up forever!" (More like, 'for-EHbah').
I had never said this. No clue where he learned it either. I nearly lost my s**t, but he wasn't wrong.
The correct answer is "Be quiet, please," which I told him was more polite. He just grinned as if he knew, but didn't care. Smart kid. I'll miss him when I change jobs."
"Question: what ended in 1856?
Answer: 1855."
KontraKode said:
"Why are you late?"
"The bell went off before I got here."
CaptainFourpack replied:
"Why are you late?"
"I had trouble with my bike."
"what was the trouble?"
"I didn't get on it early enough."
"ESL teacher. I had my students do an activity where they had to give directions based on a map and situations I had chosen. The final question was more complex, and one of my students wrote, "Way too difficult, take a cab"
BroccoliHotdish said: "Me: "The quiz tomorrow will be on..." Student: "Paper!" Everyone laughed and I rephrased the question." user no 2 replied: "Well, it's better than stone tablets, eucalyptus leaves, and blood ink."
"I wrote an exam where the question was "Can you name three *models of DNA replication?"
she wrote, "No.""
DontYouTrustMe said:
"I asked a kid "why does the mother moose eat the placenta?" And the student replied " to gain its powers"."
Girlinhat replied:
"The placenta is the powerhouse of the moose."
aughtomaton said:
"The preschool teacher here. For Father's day we did a cute little journal thing where we asked the kids their favorite things to do with dad along with some other stuff. One question was "what does dad like to do?". Most answers were average but one little girl told me her dad "loves to drink beer and smoke cigarettes all day"."
1LostInSpaceAgain replied:
"My son wrote "sleep" as my favorite activity for a giant poster he had to make about me. That poster spent several months on the wall in the kindergarten hallway."
"I was doing my student teaching, and there was a boy that got his recess taken away I was the one supposed to be punishing him. His problem was that he talked and talked and talked. So I ask him "what could we do to help you focus better?" He thinks for a solid minute and replies "ice cream" couldn't help but laugh."
"Not a teacher but someone told me this.
'What side of the road do people in France drive on?'
'miss, they drive on both sides.'"
"Not the teacher but witnessed this in class:
Sociology Prof: "Why do you conform?"
Student: "It has always been my goal in life to blend in."
Soc Prof: "No more questions for you"."
"As an EA, I gave a group of second graders a worksheet about the main idea and detail. In the instructions, they were told to circle the main idea and underline the details. One child returned the paper to me very promptly, having underlined the phrase "the main idea" and having circled "the details" in the instructions. She knew exactly what she was doing when she turned it in... she's a clever one. She did just fine when I asked her to complete the assignment as expected."
"Not a teacher but a witness. In high school history class, the teacher asked "What was the peace treaty that ended World War 2?" This was a trick question because there wasn't a single treaty that ended the war. This one kid blurted out "The Manhattan Project." The teacher laughed so hard he went and got the other history teacher and had the kid tell him the answer too."
Very peaceful! It ended the war by blowing people up! A lot of people! Peaceful! Hahaha
"Elementary school kids saw the answer key. He swore he came up with, "Answers may vary," all on his own."
"We were talking about the Fukushima nuclear plant being hit by the tsunami. The (brilliant) young lad that was most engaged wanted to exclaim his understanding of the situation, but his slip of the tongue led to: "Nuclear pants are dangerous." We all agreed. And wrote the quote up on the board as a keeper for the rest of the school year.
Shout out to "Hotwheels." That was not his only board-worthy quote."
"Not a teacher, but I remember I had to take some kind of verbal test when I was about five. The proctor asked what is the relationship between cats and dogs? Little science loving five year old me said, "they are part of the same food chain." I am pretty sure I got credit for that question."
"When I was in high school my art teacher teaching her first semester started an abstract art assignment but did not supply any sort of grading rubric when I asked. I scribbled randomly on the page and when she asked about it I simply said it was too abstract to be easily explained. I got 100%. I also got away with adding a few dots to the background of a drawing of a falcon in a bowl of punch and saying he was in space when she told me that I was missing a background. We got away with lots in that class. Apparently, she was super strict every year after that haha."
Egrizzzzz said: "I've got a story from my fiancee's childhood. They were testing her intelligence or awareness and showed her an image of a tv in a room. The tv was turned on, showing a cartoon, and had a plant on top of it. Q: What's on the Television? A: A plant. Apparently, she just kept insisting in utter frustration until the administrator bothered to look at the image and not the answer sheet."
"When I used to teach anatomy:
"Anthony, name this bone."
'Uhh, femur.'
"Is it a left femur or a right femur?"
'Yeah.'"
"I teach forensic science.
We were going to be using iodine to fume fingerprints. Iodine vapor is no joke, so I terrify the students and use only two volunteers with goggles and respirators at the chemical hood. But, we still all go over the MSDS, PPE, and equipment.
I spent maybe five minutes talking about everything and the chemical hood to my class of thirty. Toward the end,
"So. Someone tells me: what is a hood?"
A hand shoots up.
"Yes, [student]."
"It's, like, the place where you grow up."
I facepalm, the class laughs, and I'm unable to pivot his answer at the moment. (He's on the autism spectrum and wasn't trying to be funny)."
"Not a teacher but just a witness to this hilarity. In science class in high school, our teacher was talking about electricity and lightning and the effects of being electrocuted. He asked if anyone happened to know what is the first sense you lose when struck by lightning. Without missing a beat, a girl put her hand up and answered in all honesty, "your sense of humor?" The class had to stop for a few minutes until everyone could regain their composure."
BigScaryLizard said:
"Not a teacher but a friend of mine couldn't remember what country wasn't a part of the UK on a test so she put Mexico."
Cheatcodek replied:
"Oh, yea I forgot about that! I remember when the great Mexican nation joined the UK in 1500 under the great reign of Suleiman I."
"I asked a 3-year-old what "love" was for a Valentine's Day card to his parents. His response: "Maybe love is what tornadoes need."
We call him "the professor" because he teaches us new things every day."
Am I the only one who thinks Valentines Day becoming about loving your parent etc too is weird. I mean, I don't like the original concept either but still.
Raaava said:
"Not a teacher but one time a teacher asked "What is a seven-letter word, that starts with an A and means to stand out and unusual," someone said "Awesome" and the teacher laughed and wasn't sure if he should accept that answer."
rionhunter replied:
"Did the teacher need help with their crossword?"
"I teach and coach baseball. After our short stop got thrown out on second for the third out, I told someone to "pick up Will", in baseball terms meaning get his glove and hat so he can go out to the field. This kid who was new to baseball, a big lineman-type football player, claps his hands and goes "it's okay Will, you'll get them next time." I cried laughing. Will was the name of the shortstop. The kid who "picked him up" was genuinely being nice and thoughtful, but coming from this big intimidating kid it was really funny."
"Name a compound word."
"Asphalt."
"Ok so this story totally doesn't translate to English, but I will give it a shot anyway:
In German, there is this little drawing game called "das haus vom nikolaus" consisting of drawing a house without lifting the pen or drawing the same line twice. Well, the act of drawing something without lifting your pen is called "in einem zug zeichnen" which literally translates to "drawing in a train".
So yes, one kid actually drew a house. In a train."
We loved drawing that house without lifting the pen when I was a kid, but there was never a name for it in English that I knew of, but there really should be because even trying to explain it now seems too complicated.
"Extra credit problem on a test that was very difficult. Like crazy difficult. It involved many steps and probably had to do with finding out the rate of oxygen consumption of reptiles. I hadn't made the answer key yet.
Very few students tried ANY of the extra credit problems and one answered all of them but for that last one they just put "I don't want to do this problem"
Neither did I. Gave them the point."
"Not a teacher but I work with kids.
Trying to delicately explain to a 3-year-old why she should be kind to her mommy.
"You shouldn't say those mean things to mommy when she's sick. Who looks after you when you are sick, and makes you feel better?"
The doctor: "....... well f**k"."
“Who will look after you when you’re sick and don’t have a few thousand dollars to shell out”
"Let's see... One day, my opening question was, "If you could be any animal for a day, what animal would you be?"
One kid said, "Humans are animals."
Another kid said, "Technically, the devil's not an animal... so I'd be a faun"."
An animal for a day.... Hmm, that's difficult to decide between a unicorn and Elon Musk
ReddishWedding2018 said:
"Same kid on the same quiz:
Q. Describe the bus ride at the beginning of the chapter.
A. It was a bus ride filled with action, but also with emotion.
Q. What happens at the end of the story?
A. The story ends.
Kid's going to be a politician someday."
Reddit user replied:
"I am telling you this bus ride was the best bus ride I've ever had! Listen to me! Listen! People come to me and say 'Have you ever had any bus ride like this?' and I honestly say to them 'No, that is the most incredible bus ride ever!' Just amazing."
"Subtraction problem in elementary school. The question asked, "what is the difference between these two numbers?" And then gave 2 5- digit numbers.
A student wrote, "they're different numbers. This three is different and that five"."
goblinqueen1513 said:
"Oh, this just happened today! I wish I could upload the picture I took of this response. Long story short, as part of a vocabulary-building activity in 9th-grade English, the students were supposed to draw a visual representation of one of this unit's vocabulary words. A student turned in a drawing for the word "tyranny." The drawing consisted of a stick figure teacher labeled "Ms. GoblinQueen" (me) in front of three stick figure students. I laughed out loud when I saw it. He isn't technically wrong; most days, I am more of a tyrannical dictator than a democratic leader of the class."
dkgameplayer replied:
"Goblins aren't known for having a democracy..."
"The kids were practicing their twos times tables and the question said something along the lines of, "John lives in his house with his mom, dad, brother, and grandpa. How many total hands do the people in John's house have all together?" The answer they were looking for was 10 and they wanted the students to show that 2×5=10. This young man instead wrote, "Not enough information. What if someone lost a hand?" He wasn't wrong. My wife just wrote, "Good thinking" on his assignment and gave him full credit. The kid was bright and knew his times tables, so that wasn't an issue. She also had his older brother as a student and said they were both smart, but jokesters. My wife now teaches kindergarten (this was when she taught 3rd grade) and said she misses the funny responses on test. She used to have a full word document of the funniest answers. Edit: Apparently my use of "full word document" isn't correct. Y'all can stop messaging me about that. She had a word document of crazy things kids have said over the years. I don't think she has it anymore."
"Not enough information. What if someone lost a hand?" - Yup, that totally sounds like me, lol. I say such things a lot!
pretty_pineapple said: "I teach 7th-grade math. Our first unit is on integers. There is a question on the test that says the temperature on Monday was -3 degrees and on Tuesday it was 4 degrees. What is the difference in temperatures? Every year, at least a couple of kids answer that one is negative and the other is positive."
J1NxxY replied: "No offense but I don't remember 7th graders not knowing that the difference between 4 and -3 is 7."
User No 3 replied: "You overestimate middle schoolers in large numbers. there's always at least ONE kid that'll answer that way, either to be facetious or because they don't understand entirely what the question is asking for."
As a former seventh grader seventh graders aren't the smartest
"I used to teach preschool.
One time, when we were eating lunch, one little girl called another kid in the class "stupid." A third preschooler -- who was a stickler for the rules and a bit of a tattle tale -- overheard and began admonishing the name caller.
"Don't call people stupid," she exclaimed. "Stupid is a bad word, and we don't say bad words."
A fourth child, Henry, overheard this announcement. Henry was always getting into trouble -- the smart ones are troublemakers at that age. He was my favorite student.
He looked directly at me, raised one eyebrow, and said, "Oh yeah? B***h and f**k are bad words too. We don't say those either."
I died."
I work in an alternative class (12/13 yr olds) - not ALN or special needs, just different. Once I was with another class and a kid from mine was mentioned. A boy said 'that boy is soooooo stupid' another boy challenged this - 'you don't know if he is stupid, or has a learning difficulty or some other reason he can't do stuff ' first boy thinks and says ok, but he is a d**k. All kids in the area thought a bit, then nodded. To be honest, I thought it was fair too.
When I was working with a classroom one of the boys with ASD came up to me and threw me a question I'll never forget. He said "Imagine you're walking your dog on the beach and its leg falls off (great start.) Do you: a) Stick it back on with superglue b) Take it to a vet or C) Wait for a new one to grow back His answer was A.
My art classes relied on donations because of a very small school budget- $1.00 per student a year. We were doing Valentines for their parents. (Elementary) So we were glueing fancy lace around their cut paper hearts. One girl raised her hand and said it was the kind of lace her mother sews with. I asked her what she was making with it. She said Bras! Collective Ewwww! From everyone!
When I was working with a classroom one of the boys with ASD came up to me and threw me a question I'll never forget. He said "Imagine you're walking your dog on the beach and its leg falls off (great start.) Do you: a) Stick it back on with superglue b) Take it to a vet or C) Wait for a new one to grow back His answer was A.
My art classes relied on donations because of a very small school budget- $1.00 per student a year. We were doing Valentines for their parents. (Elementary) So we were glueing fancy lace around their cut paper hearts. One girl raised her hand and said it was the kind of lace her mother sews with. I asked her what she was making with it. She said Bras! Collective Ewwww! From everyone!
