Stories only teachers can tell

When I dropped my daughter off at school this morning her teacher was telling another parent a story that quickly prompted me to jump in with the response “things you only say in child care.” In this particular instance the teacher’s quote was “whose pants are these?”

She followed this up by telling us that the instructor who was teaching her continuing education courses had told them that child care was the only field where it was entirely appropriate to leave a pair of underwear at the front desk to be claimed. I laughed out loud – but it’s so true.

I can’t even tell you all of the crazy things that have happened to me over the years. Sometimes people are appalled when I share my stories, but parents of young children usually understand completely.  And other teachers all have the same wonderful stories – in fact, for a while I followed a facebook conversation that was simply teachers completing the following sentence: “We don’t lick _________” with statements that they had actually made in their own classrooms.  I could certainly add quite a few of my own responses to that one!

It’s a bond that ties us all together, no matter what age you teach you have stories.  These are things that astonish you, things that make you laugh, and things that make you go “huh…”.  When I’m doing trainings we often get off-topic on these types of tangents. They usually start with “I will never forget…” or “You would never guess…” and they end with everyone nodding their heads because they’ve been there too.

What are your favorite teacher stories? Share them in the comments!