Middle school teachers are a thing of wonder. They adore an age group that most people run from screaming. They can withstand the smell of teenage funk and the leftover immaturity from elementary school. For so many students, their middle school teachers are a rock in a turbulent, hormone-laden time in their lives.
Most impressively, they are able to accidentally say things like, “What made the erection of 1800 so noteworthy?” and continue teaching.
We love you, middle school teachers. Check out the cringeworthy comments they shared with us (names have been changed to initials to protect the guilty).
“I told a 7th grade boy to sit down and take the squirrel out of his pants.”
“There was an awkward silence in the class and then everyone burst out laughing. Needless to say, getting that class back on track was tough.”
—J.R.
“I asked one of my 7th graders if they ‘finally found the perfect ‘D.’”
“We were doing an art project and he was having a hard time finding a font he liked for the letter D.”
—E.F.
“I taught a student named Jack. During nutrition break, I saw him climbing on the desks and hollered, ‘Jack, off! Now!’”
—D.J.
“During a lesson on punctuation in narrative writing, I spontaneously wrote ‘I’m coming’ to show how different inflections change the meaning of the conversations.”
“As I turned from the board, I was met with many pairs of wide eyes and some snickers. Yup, changed the example.”
—J.B.
“During science class while attempting to say ‘organism,’ I instead said ‘orgasm’ to a class of 7th graders.”
—C.B.
“One time I was going over sample test questions the day before a unit test.”
“Before sending the grade 8s off to do some work, I said, ‘You can just study, or you can pair up and use the questions to drill each other.’ Yeah, no.”
—M.A.
“My partner teacher told a 6th grade class, ‘I see a bunch of little peckers in here.’”
“She was trying to get them to stop typing on their Chromebooks using one finger.”
—T.M.
“I worked a few years at an after-school program and then started as a substitute teacher in the same district.”
“One of the 5th grade girls from my summer group (used to seeing me in shorts and T-shirts) sees me in slacks and shirt and tie and screams at the top of her lungs, ‘Oh my God, George, I’ve never seen you with clothes on before!’”
—G.P.
“Tuesday, I told a regular math student I was doing an algebra student that afternoon.”
“I meant I was doing algebra tutorials with a student. The ELA teacher listening in corrected me. 8th grade. OMG.”
—V.I.
“During recess, I’d blown the whistle for kids to pause and be silent, and a couple kids were still dribbling basketballs.”
“Without thinking I yelled, ‘Everybody hold your balls!’ I teach eighth grade.”
—K.B.
“I was doing a health ed unit with 7th graders about bones and I was trying to do it in Spanish.”
“Instead of saying, ‘Donde esta su huesos?’ I said, ‘huevos’ … they were literally on the floor laughing.”
—E.K.
“One of my friends was using Kahoot while covering someone else’s class, and they all decided to give themselves new names.”
“She nearly cried after she had shouted out, ‘Mike Hunt is winning!’”
—R.W.
“Wrote an announcement that went over the high school PA in the morning: ‘Ask anyone who has a heart on to say something romantic for Valentine’s Day.’”
“A WHAT?! Heart. On. Enunciation is so damned important.”
—J.T.
“I was out in the parking lot helping to get middle schoolers to their buses.”
“A couple of them started climbing a light pole so I shouted, ‘Hey, get off the pole! Make better choices!’”
—S.F.
“Once there was a sub driver and the students hadn’t found her yet.”
“She told me she was the sub for bus number 69, so I shouted across the parking lot, ‘Anyone looking for 69?!’ Both times I didn’t realize what I had said until I looked over and saw a group of principals, teachers, and students laughing hysterically!”
—S.F.
“I teach geometry. More than once I’ve said ‘circumcised’ instead of ‘circumscribed’ shapes.”
—P.F.
“I explained how to use a brad to 7th graders by saying, ‘Put it in the hole and spread the legs.’”
—T.M.
“A lot of my students like to drum on things—desks, doors, lockers, whatever.”
“The kids call it beating. So one day, I’m outside the 8th grade boys’ bathroom and they’re drumming on the doors. So of course, I say very loudly, ‘You have one thing to do in there and it doesn’t involve beating anything.’”
—B.G.
“I made a slide to be projected during an assembly of the whole school only to see that it said ‘shit size’ instead of ‘shirt size.’”
—J.L.
“While talking about light and color, I meant to say, ‘Like, if you were to paint your walls brown.’”
“What I actually said was, ‘Like if you were to paint your balls brown.’”
—H.L.
“The other day (while I was being observed, BTW), I said ‘coochie catcher’ instead of cootie catcher.”
—M.M.
“Meant to write ‘whole or,’ but wrote ‘whore’ instead. 7th grade math.”
—M.C.
Honorable mention (not middle school but still amazing):
“I told a second grade boy, ‘Put away your meat sword,’ because I wanted him to quit hitting his friend with the giant Slim Jim he was eating for breakfast.”
—L.S.
One more thing we love about middle school teachers: They can laugh at themselves. Clearly.
