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.

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.

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.

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.

High school bathroom during lunch. 15 or so guys, handful smoking. Saw a guy making a smiley face on the ceiling with a cigarette lighter. It just leaves a soot mark that wipes away easily.

No sooner do I attempt to do the same thing, the principal walked in and saw me...

"YOU!" he yelled. "You're going to HQ!" Like he was a cop or something.

Cops came, he said that he wanted me charged with attempted arson. He took the cops to the bathroom. When they came back, the cops were kind of laughing at the principal.

Got charged with criminal damage to property, but it got dropped, because the mark could be wiped off easily.

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 sent to the wall for going down the slide. I was never told why going down the slide was punishable this time, but thanks for teaching me to have a healthy mistrust of authority early in life

I got beat up by a guy twice my size who was just in a pissy mood. "Participated in a fight, in school suspension"

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.

Sweet tap-dancing christ, this whole thread. If there's anything I've learned today, it's that some teachers are the most petty dictators that cannot tolerate being proven in the wrong, nor can handle having their decision making skills challenged. They're out there doing real lasting damage to people and their ability to think critically.

It's almost enough to make me want to go into education, just to displace one of these tyrants.

Sincerely, I'm sorry all of you had to go through any of this. Here's hoping you have support and find closure.

6th grade bully crushed my bag of chips, i retaliated by dumping my water bottle on him. I'm the one that got in trouble.

we were building a snow fort and I was punching a hole into a snow block

next thing I know, a teacher is telling me I have to go inside because I punched a kid in the face

I had to sit in detention, as like a first grader, and have the older kids guide me through it. I was so confused. pretty sure I was crying. no adult helped me, that I can recall.

either this kid hated me and made some shit up, or they were so fucking stupid and enough of a little bitch that they walked right behind and stuck their face where I was repeatedly punching the snow and got hurt without me feeling the impact.

and on that day, my mistrust of authority was born. no amount of insistence would sway them. I must be punished.

I was walking through the canteen with some classmates. One of them stole a sugar cube intended for coffee from the canteen. A teacher, apparently feeling Biblical, punished the whole group with an hour of detention.

This was in elementary school. It was pretty cold, even inside, so I was blowing into the inside of my elbow to get warm air into my sweater. I'm not sure how, but I messed up the alignment or something and ended up making a loud fart noise. And without getting any opportunity to explain, I was made to stand in the hall.

Worked in school. One of the teachers gave a paper to be signed by the parent at a kid because he didn’t tie his shoes, which was ridiculous because he didn’t have time to get out of his winter clothes.

I got in trouble for doing homework at school. Homework is supposed to be done at Home, not at school, I was told.

One of our teachers said you have to learn some things by rote because "if you throw enough mud at a wall, eventually some of it sticks". We were investigating this for science on the (windowless) back wall of the gym and we all got detention. We had got quite a lot of brown smudging but very partial and blotchy coverage.

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.

We had a music teacher who, without fail, yelled "What's the point of this class? You can just as well leave" during every class.

So one class, all of us left.

We got detention and had to write lines. One of the girls had an entire box of scented pens in different colours and she put them all on a table. Then each of us wrote an entire page of stinky, multicoloured lines. I'm sure he didn't read them all but I bet he had a headache in no time.

I was in second grade, it was for reading. I don't remember what book anymore, but it was age appropriate. I was just reading the wrong thing during reading time.

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.

Principal threatened to expel me senior year because I was fidgeting with one of those switchblade-combs because it was a facsimile of a weapon. The only reason I had it was because we used it as a prop in the school play the week before.

When I saw in first grade I was held back for pronunciation problems and in my second time through Math at a 1st grade level I completed a lot of the homework because I remembered math pretty well. My teacher caught me doing this in class and she started flipping through the pages, I had finished about 15 pages of upcoming hw. I got written up and my parents had to come in, I don't remember a detention because it was 1st grade but it could have happened.

In third grade I was at recess playing with a friend and I lightly tapped him, like a friend tap, on his cheekbones. I remember it being in jest and good faith. He then reported me to the teacher and then the principal. I received a detention for playing with my friend by my friend.

I usually just received detentions for regular things like not doing homework. I guess I was jaded because i got detention for just existing.

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 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.

Infamously hated student dean at an otherwise pretty normal HS was known for sitting in her office and watching students on the security cameras so she could dole out punishment for incredibly minor stuff like being late to class, running in the halls, and covering your face (was seen as an attempt to thwart the cameras or security) etc.

However, she was visibly in a more angry mood when on physical rotation like watching the Cafeteria during lunch, so people would avoid any interaction with her like the plague.

Anyways, one day during a very cold winter lunch one of my friends entered into the cafeteria from outside with his hood up, hands in pockets, and visibly covered in snow from walking outside. Rest of our friend group was already sitting at our usual table as he's rolling up. Student dean has already clocked him and within maybe 10 seconds of entering the building, is asked to remove his hood.

Buddy replies with "oh sorry, I was cold"

We watched as the dean proceeded to tear into him for "talking back" and "insubordination" before he got hauled off to the main office and was given a weeks worth of after school detention.

Funniest thing was we were warned about the atrocious Dean by the previous year's Valedictorian. No one liked her.

Not exactly in trouble but in middle school we got yelled at a lot for staying inside during recess. We were supposed to go outside and leave the hallways empty. For context, in winter the school turned on the heating (at a minimum) for about 2 hours out of the 6 we were there. The rest of the time the building had a similar temperature to outside. So we'd take advantage of those hours and, during recess, we'd just flock around the radiators in the hallways and stand there talking instead of freezing outside. Some teachers really didn't like that and made it their job to shoo us away.

I can think of two stupid ones right off the top.

In my highschool freshman year, in our multimedia & webpage design (a very barebones graphic design/learn how to use Microsoft Office class), I got in sent out of class for doing all of my work at home (I used GIMP and a pirated copy of Sony Vegas at home). That same teacher also gave me a long lecture about viruses for visiting downloadmoreram.com.

In middle school, maybe 6th grade, we were split into groups to do some group project. Everyone was talking, working on their posters, chitchatting, normal kid stuff. For reasons I do not know, I had like sat down and shifted weird, and my throat made a strange, quite loud, involuntary noise. Kind of like a weird yelp? I did not mean to make this noise, but regardless, everything got super quiet, and the teacher asked "who yelled?" I stood up, explained that I did not yell, and accidentally made that noise. Teacher didn't believe me and sent me to the office. I'm still confused about that one.

got suspended for calling some kid a dickhead (who deserved it btw). Seems a bit harsh

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!

I got in trouble for putting eye drops in a teachers coffee.

I had the flu that day, the day before, and the day after.

Got suspended for 3 days and told to write an apology letter.

Rumors are fun my friends.

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!

Grade 12. A few of us knucklheads heard there was a golden locker at North Toronto High school, the exact locker of Neil Young. So we rode up there on 3 motorcycles to see for ourselves. Got in trouble with principals at two schools and the local newspaper referred to us as a biker gang.

• 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.

I sang the pledge of allegiance to the tune of happy birthday, started multiple food fights, sucked the ink out of a gel pen, and taped library books together to make bigger books.

I 'won' both my disciplinary hearings.

Freshman year, I beat a bully so bad his family had to move somewhere he could get PT for his crippled hands.

I showed up to that one with a PD detective, whos sone was also a bullying victim. He threatened charges against the Vice principal for aiding and abetting the assault of a minor/ potential attempted murder which i had successfully defended my friend from. (Bully had said he was going to choke out my friend until he was retarded- and was in the process of doing so when jumped him) i had told the VP himself the timing and specificity of the threat, hence the possible charge.

This turned the meeting pretty quickly into one about school negligence and culpability, and triggered policy changes that included mandatory dismissal of staff for failure to intervene. We also got a SRO, whos first statement was that he was a resource for students, especially if staff was failing in their duty to them, and that he was not another disciplinarian. (To his credit, and before the ACAB crew, who i agree with, he did live up to that- guy was genuinely a good guy got a bunch of certs in child counciling and advocacy. In his 20 year tenure, according to his recent obituary, he arrested 1 student- for a rape on school premises that he stopped. )

That Vps carreer ended a couple months after, partially at the hands of the SRO. He punched a student who wouldnt give up his hat. Unfortunately, it was a football player, who knocked him out with his helmet. The SRO watched the whole thing, told the players to get to the field. VP left the school handcuffed to a stretcher.

Junior year I had a sillier one. My GF and I were in AP calc. The teacher gave me a blank copy of the midterm, to copy her near perfect exam as a study guide for the upcoming final. I was doing so in study hall, when the english teacher grabbed both off my desk, accusing me of cheating. This led to another disciplinary hearing, scheduled for Friday afternoon. On Thursday I talked with the math teacher, who told me she had been told she was not allowed to attend, and her 'input was not nescessary'.

At the time, I had a job filming for public access TV, mostly school sports, but also the school committee meetings. So, after the meeting that evening, I spoke with the superintendent of the school system, and expressed my concerns.

Next day, I go into the meeting alone, and sit down, facing the principal, flanked by the VP and the english teacher, feeling pretty screwed. The VP (not the original one from last story, but his replacement is the same disciplinarian role ) starts things off yelling about how bad cheating is, how ive ruined my academic career, and can kiss college goodbye.

He has just hit his stride when the door opens. The Superintendent walks in, along with one of my favorite teachers.

First words out of the Superintendents mouth are "what the fuck is wrong with you? go take a walk, before you have an aneurism!" And he sends the VP out.

They then take a seat on either side of me, clearly marking his side in the adversarial meeting, and asks the english teacher exactly what she saw. he the asks the principal to pass the tests in question over. He then asks her mockingly, "do you know what a midterm is? They were 4 months ago! and these papers clearly say midterm in very large letters. Look, this one (holding up my GFs) even has a grade on top, a 98%, end a unicorn sticker, well done Lauren! (my gfs name, also the math teacher was a total geek, and famous for putting cutesy stickers on good grades)

He the continues on, "still, cheating is a serious accusation." Switching his attention the principal, "I suppose you did a thorough investigation before this meeting. Have you discussed this with the math teacher? Did she say there was any credit to be gained from this assignment?, by the way where is she?
At this point the principal knows hes in a bit of trouble and is looking down at the table and barely responding. The superintendent goes on for a minute about how its wasnt very sporting of them to have 3 people gaming up on me and not to even have the math teacher there to defend my side.

At that point, he turns to me, and asks how I felt about the ambush. And I start off with "well, I dont really get how we got here in the first place- you have to be incredibly fucking myopic..." (I was going to say to assume copying the answers from one page that says exam to another must always be cheating ) but i was interrupted by the principal who seeing an out, had jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over, and was pointing at me, yelling

"HE SWORE! HE SWORE! HE FUCKING SWORE" he looked like a giant toddler, and the superintendent and my teacher burst out laughing at him. They laughed for an uncomfortably long time. Until he calmed down and sheepishly returned to his seat.

Finally, it was the art teacher who spoke up. He goes "well, rules are rules, you did swear. The maximum penalty for a first time for that is a 1 day suspension, do you have anything important tomorrow?" I shake my head no, and he says "good, why dont you take a three day weekend while we all consider what to do about this whole debacle." He looks over at the superintendent, who nods, and we leave the room.

On monday i found out the decision had been made to remove me from the english class, with the art teacher allowing me to hang in his room. I was offered my 95 grade average to be entered in as my score for all future assignments, getting me out of both a final exam and a 10 page paper, which suited me fine.

Later I found out the english teacher got demoted back to teaching middle school. The principal was apparently put on their version of double secret probation, with a caution that one more complaint and he was out, and the VPs contract was up already not renewed (i can only assume both of those were final straw descisiond, although the school system generally tried to stagger each schools leadership turnovers, and the principal only had a year left before he was leaving )

We were always late to our class after lunch and the teacher was fed up with it, so gave us before school detention. Thing was, we otherwise were on good terms with him and did well in class, so detention was sitting around and watching part of a movie of our choosing. I think it was more a show for the class that we weren’t favored (which we absolutely were).

We still weren’t on time after that, but never got detention again. Moved on to the next grade and a different teacher for that subject the next year.

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.

I've told this story before and I'll tell it again.

4th grade Teacher of the Year winner and current sitting member of the school board Mrs. S. had a strict rule when lining up after recess:

"Straight line, no talking, no touching."

The bell would ring, and we'd all run to our respective, numbered spots on the playground, in a straight line, without talking, and certainly not touching, one another. Then, Mrs. S. would walk out to us, and we'd recite the line:

"Straight line, no talking, no touching."

And she'd lead us inside.

One day, returning from recess, the kid in front of me, Joe, was crying while standing on his number. Foolishly, I set my hand on his shoulder, and asked, "Are you alright?" Mrs. S. arrived just in time to rectify the situation. I watched as she strode up to me, staring daggers into my soul, and I yanked my hand off of my fellow student's shoulder, but the damage was done. Towering over me, inches away, she shouts to the class, "Class, what is the rule?"

"Straight line, no talking, no touching."

"Papalonian, what is the last part?"

"No touching."

"No... Touching."

I received my first and only citation for the rest of my elementary school years. Ever thankful will I be for learning the lesson that empathy (towards someone I didn't even like) shall never be tolerated when the rules forbid it.

Zero tolerance era. Grade school (I think 4th?) I'm reading one of those books that's just like "Medieval History" with a bunch of pictures and the history on what the items was. (I think this one was about spies or James bond or something). Kid comes up to me actively reading and says "I was reading that, you took it from me!" Basically escalates it to "I'm gonna fight you" and starts sort of dragon ball z style punching me in the stomach a bunch of times really fast. Parents told me not to let that slide and to fight back, so I cock back and punch him in the face. Right as the teacher walks through the door. I was in 4th grade, I didn't deck the kid, but I did hit him. Whole deal, go to the office, explained what happened. "Zero tolerance, 3 day suspension"

Dad asks what happened, explained, got 3 days off school at home fishing and playing video games. Best time I had at that school, also completely broke my faith in that system, so win win.

I once got detention for not getting a practice test signed by my parents. I'd scored a 92, but apparently everyone else bombed, so they wanted everyone to get theirs signed, I figured that since I'd done well that it wouldn't apply to me. Oops.