Remembering Inappropriate School Assignments

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HelendeVine@reddit

Not one inappropriate assignment - I was one of the lucky ones; I’ve heard of some crazy, bad assignments that others got. Just lots and lots of dioramas. So many dioramas.

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Grade 9 music class. Our overly Christian music teacher had us playing heavy metal albums backwards listening for satanic messages. We had to pick an album and do a report on it. I still remember that I had Iron Maiden's Powerslave as our album.

So things like this may be normal in the southern Bible belt, but this was Ontario, Canada in '88.

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By chance was this in Mississauga because it’s sounding awfully familiar

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rangeo@reddit

LOL Neighbour to the North Brampton

Same board

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JulianWasLoved@reddit

Insane right…

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rangeo@reddit

Amen?

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JulianWasLoved@reddit

In one of my yearbooks, amongst all the cute photos of ‘caught ya when you weren’t looking’ in the hallways, is a picture of a guy holding his arm out and his hand in the formation of a g**, well back then, likely 1985/6 ish, we all laughed, because it was Mississauga around Burnhamthorpe Rd. Canada, eh?

But now, that shit wouldn’t be a smile on anyone’s face, anywhere.

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titianqt@reddit

My high school did this. Auctioned off the freshmen. I was in the last year that they had it. They finally stopped the “tradition” when a black family moved to town.

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rangeo@reddit

I'm black....I was an auctioned slave in grade 9...true

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eastbaypluviophile@reddit

I want to upvote this but not because I approve of what happened to you. I am so sorry.

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rangeo@reddit

Ya know....not gonna lie we had fun but my experience with slavery might be....is very different...than many other people. Enslaved people come from all over and is still very prevalent today.

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This_Daydreamer_@reddit

I was at a U2 concert in the 90s when I got my first chance to puff puff pass.

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VacationBackground43@reddit

“Everything you know is wrong.”

“Watch more TV.”

An appropriate venue.

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This_Daydreamer_@reddit

BELIEVE -> LIE

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TheOGcoolguy@reddit

Grew in near Philly. Had an 8th grade class trip (long weekend) to Williamsburg Virginia. To prep for it, our social studies teacher gave students chewing tobacco. That way we could understand the cash crop from the time period.

I had a high school English teacher who had previously been the women's swim coach at the other high school in the district.

That is downright predatory! That must have felt awful!

1990 - All Girls Catholic High School ~ 50% of the graduating class had experienced teen pregnancy (either adoption, abortion, or were young mothers) *** I was not one of them ***

Tenth grade French - studying Maupassant’s short stories. I was assigned Confessing.

Summary of the story:

A young woman became pregnant after accepting free rides from a coachman in exchange for intimacy, and her mother devised a plan to continue receiving free rides without revealing the pregnancy.

🤨🤨🤨

Went to Catholic co Ed high school in the 1980s, we received a comprehensive sex education, all facts no religious overtones or morality. Because science was science. Now in religion class we discussed and I do mean discussed the morality of pre marital sex, birth control and abortion.

Yes it was liberal in a liberal city in a liberal state.

Not just cows. Also done for sheep(lambs) and pigs.

I had show rabbits. At 11 or 12 we had a workshop on butchering rabbits. Killed with our bare hands then hung and dressed them.

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mommy2libras@reddit

It's not messed up, it's industrial farming. What's messed up is grown ass people who still today don't make the connection between the roast they buy at the grocery store & the pigs on a farm.

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notabadkid92@reddit

Totally normal here. Live in Ag country.

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silkrover@reddit

Years ago, I knew a guy who was a buyer for a national meat-packing company.

They made a special point of going to livestock exhibitions and shopw, to buy the cattle that had been raised by 4H farm kids.

The meat was great, but he said that the crying got to be too much.

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temerairevm@reddit

This is like every farming community everywhere. I remember feeling so lucky our farm was mostly plants.

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theOriginalBlueNinja@reddit

Were you going to some preschool for assassins?

One of the legendary? Alleged? Training techniques for Soviet Cold War assassins was to have them bond with a pet at the beginning of their training they would have to raise and care for the puppy for the first year or so of their training and then were told to kill it… Usually barehanded… Or so the legend goes.

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Level21DungeonMaster@reddit

When I lived in Greenpoint it was a very Polish community. I like to try customs of my neighbors, I learned a little Polish, shopped at the meat markets for perogi, etc… when Christmas came around one of the Polish markets were selling live carp for Christmas.

There’s a Polish tradition of keeping a live carp in your bathtub a few days proceeding Christmas Eve and then killing and eating it.

My kids enjoyed playing with who they called” fishy” for a few days before I had to catch it and kill it they were horrified and carp taste like shit.

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momckc@reddit

Appropriate! And a song that we really enjoyed with our kids.

https://youtu.be/Yy4fcWshKYQ?feature=shared

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HoneyWyne@reddit

That's nuts! Lol

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Level21DungeonMaster@reddit

Haha that’s great

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Chess_Is_Great@reddit

Probably the oddest thing was our grade 8 teacher getting all the boys to reenact the ancient greeks so we did all sorts of track and field (shotput, high jump, etc) naked. It was St Marks School of Texas. 1983. None of us were ever the same. Our teacher would “chill” in the locker room while We changed. At the time, we were too young to realize what was happening. I never found out if any of my classmates were abused - but it probably goes without saying that some were. I wish someone would have known about this.

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Such-Opportunity6490@reddit

I love it.

I went to high school on LI. My 10th grade English teacher took us on a class trip to the Met Museum. Of Art. Mind you, this meant herding 120 kids (by one single teacher acting as the “adult supervision” no less) to the Long Island Railroad on foot, kids them purchasing individual tickets at the one window, then onto a train, attempting to keep us together squished into one train car for the 40 minute train ride to Penn Station, navigation through Penn Station and onto a subway, transferring subways twice to get to the upper east side and then walking however many blocks it was from the subway station to the steps of the Met.

This is leaving out the part where the class trip was on a Wednesday for which the Met is and has been closed famously for decades, information which my teacher had no idea until literally rolling up to the front door.

It was the best day ever. Teacher turned around at the crowd of kids, shrugged his shoulders and said something to the effect of “should we try to find an open museum? No? Fine, but can you all just please be on the 5:20pm train home as planned?”.

Pretty sure 99% of us spent the “class trip” running into each other whilst day drinking at downtown Village bars where carding is just not a thing.

I was in 9th grade math class, second period. Such a terrible tragedy. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it's always been in the back of my head that it was no accident.

On a more positive note,ablut 10 years ago, I took my kids to see the Space Shuttle Endeavor in California. I cried as I walked around it. The whole space shuttle program was such a large part of our lives. It was amazing to see it in person. It's definitely a core memory.

https://californiasciencecenter.org/exhibits/endeavour-experience/space-shuttle-endeavour

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Onyx_Lat@reddit

I don't remember watching the launch itself but afterwards class was basically on hold as we sat on the floor watching the news and waiting for Alf Landon to speak.

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timewilltell2347@reddit

I was in second grade and it was a big deal at my school as my teacher at the time was an alternate to go on the launch. She had gotten so far in the selection process and was truly a little gutted that she didn’t get to go. Then… she took the rest of the day off and we watched a movie with an admin babysitting us.

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seccpants@reddit

We didn’t watch the actual launch but after the explosion they took us to the music room and sat us all on the floor where watched the news for a few hours. Watching the constantly repeated video of the explosion.

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The_UX_Guy@reddit

I remember this. I was in 5th grade. The launch coincided with recess and I had detention to work on an assignment I hadn't turned in. Mrs. Smith was excited to watch because she knew the teacher, Christa McAuliffe. She and I watched it together, on rolling cart grainy TV. When it exploded I looked over at her and she put her hand over her mouth and started crying. I went and hugged her for a few minutes and we didn't speak. 30 minutes later the other kids came back inside. I don't remember us ever talking about it.

It still breaks my heart and I think she's the only teacher that I still remember.

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MyNameIsntFlower@reddit

Not an assignment, but when I was in the 7th grade, my Earth Science teacher was getting flustered that we couldn’t remember which way horizontal and vertical were.

I remember he yelled, “whores lay on their back… so they’re horizontal!”

While this might sound straightforward, it was anything but. Every student adored this teacher, this class, and this assignment. The twist? It allowed for espionage and sabotage. Stealing state secrets (details from other “countries”) was fair game, often involving rifling through backpacks or breaking into rival lockers. Some even went as far as sneaking into houses or cars to uncover plans. Bribery was another tactic, where you could pay off members of rival countries for intel. Or you could nuke a nation into oblivion, again with various consequence. And then there were the “assassinations”—carried out with water pistols on school property, provided there were witnesses. However, assassinating political leaders came with severe consequences, often resulting in devastating global sanctions for your country. It was a near-certain death sentence for your nation’s survival unless you were among the last standing.

In the end, only one country could emerge victorious. My team claimed that victory—not through economic dominance, but by sending an assassin squad to the lunchroom to eliminate our final opponent. It was a dramatic and unforgettable conclusion to an incredible assignment.

Could you imagine attempting something like this today? Not a chance in hell. Honestly, I’m still mourning the loss of Battle Ball.

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Wulfkat@reddit

Look up the NSDM game - https://nsdmgame.org. The group does 3 cons (DragonCon, GenCon, and idk what the third is) and also go to schools with the game.

It teaches more about governance then I learned after a year long civics class in 4 hours. Crazy fun to play and it forces you to think critically about stuff that is literally never in your radar.

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SELamby@reddit

My family moved to Wisconsin for a year during 7th grade. This was the first school I had attended that required changing into gym uniforms. They were this one piece shorts jumper, mostly modest looking.

However, after gym class, you had to strip completely and gather in this big shower room with two poles that had an abundance of showerheads on them. Everyone had to shower together and leave the shower dripping wet to get a towel from the (female) teacher, who was standing behind a half door to a closet passing out the towels. There were a couple single shower stalls only for girls who were menstruating.

Um...ok.

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tasteful_aardvark@reddit

I had a teacher in 10th grade who would slam his fraternity paddle against the metal side of his desk when we were taking tests. Scared the shit out of everyone.

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gumdrop83@reddit

Our high school chemistry teacher walked around one day with a cattle prod and shocked our chairs. I guess the seat and back material wasn’t conductive, so nobody actually got shocked, but it was pretty nerve-wracking

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JacPhlash@reddit

What a psycho.

My Lit teacher actually became one of my favorites. He was a total wackjob and I came to love him for it.

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LV2107@reddit

Field trip to tour a prison LOL

Absolutely terrifying. They had us walk down hallways while the prisoners yelled at us behind the doors. Then we sat in the dining hall while a couple of the lifers talked to us about their crimes. I vividly remember one dude who had been at San Quentin during a riot gave an extremely detailed description of the murder of several of his inmates.

I lived in a podunk town in northeastern North Carolina and we managed to learn about Anne Frank and the Holocaust without a fucked up reenactment. What in the hell was this teacher thinking? Shit is crazy is some places. 😳

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ArcticPangolin3@reddit

Texas?

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justlkin@reddit

This would make the national news today and the first teacher would have been fired.

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ShutYourDumbUglyFace@reddit

Fun Fact: the Stanford Prison Experiment has been largely debunked.

https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-experiment-fraud-psychology-replication

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RattledMind@reddit

That Vox article is dubious. The author sites Twitter, Vox, and Medium opinion pieces as sources, and misrepresents some of the information coming out of Twitter for the narrative. He quoted David Amodio who actually said he didn't believe it was "fraud" in the traditional sense.. I wouldn't hold it as anything more than an opinion piece.

Thibault Le Texier is more credible. But I don't completely agree with his findings. As Amodio said, SPE was used to teach more about ethics. All the professors I had would point out questionable scientific validity, and question the merit.

I can't speak for all academic institutions though, so maybe I was just lucky and had good professors.

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ShutYourDumbUglyFace@reddit

I think the "fraud" was in that the people involved were somewhat coached on how to behave.

I don't think that the concept has no merit, just that particular study was flawed.

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Affectionate_Song_36@reddit

5 pound bag of flour baby.

My friends and I had hits on each other’s babies. I kicked the fuck out of that baby and there was flour everywhere. We both got in trouble.

fake-august@reddit

Not really an assignment but we had “Senior Slave Day” to raise money for the prom.

Yes - the seniors lined up to be auctioned off to fellow students and then had to be their slave for a day.

This was at a boarding school and the post-grad boys (taking a gap year before college) bought me and I had to clean their dorm.

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lazeelaura@reddit

Our middle school’s big annual student counsel fundraiser was a salve auction. Usually popular kids, popular teachers, and a few outcasts were nominated as the “slaves”. The school would hold a huge assembly in the auditorium to hold the auction where the students would then bid on them. The winner would then have a slave for the day to carry their books, lunch trays, and things like that. This was in South Texas in the early 90’s.

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OrionEleni@reddit

Our whole 7th grade class practicing racism and discrimination for two whole days (scheduled)! Day 1 one random half was the privileged group and was encouraged to be demeaning and abusive to the other half....

... and Day 2 was actually cancelled because the administration was afraid of people retaliating when they were on top.

And just to make it more surreal, they used the Dr Seuss Star-Belly Sneetchs as the inspiration and had us wearing stars for the difference marker. Five-pointed stars, but... damn, someone was not thinking.

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Spodson@reddit

In high school, my religion teacher (I went to Catholic high school) asked us on Friday who had blue eyes. I raised my hand as did three other students. On Monday she started treating us like shit. Belittling us, condescending to us, even sent one kid to the dean's office for doing nothing. She literally yelled at me, like three inches from my face, for not having a pencil out. Turns out she was just prepping us for a unit on racism and discrimination. The entire class, was just about in open revolt by the end of the period.

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quaintlotus@reddit

Did anyone else have freshman slave day during homecoming where upperclassmen (maybe just seniors) "bought" freshmen as a fundraiser? Then during "slave day" the upperclassmen could make the freshmen do all sorts of hazing style stuff???

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sometimesnowing@reddit

I had to do a debate, to argue that my country was only for my countrymen. Immigration bad. I was so young, probably 15, and had no idea how to argue something I didn't believe in. Plus no internet to search for ideas. I would obviously argue completely differently as an adult and spin the whole topic to my advantage. Zero guidance from a teacher or my parents though, and I was so introverted. To stand up and argue against my beliefs was horrible and humiliating and I wish I had the backbone to say I'm not arguing this. I would have failed the assessment of course but because I couldn't see another way to interpret the topic at that age, I would have preferred that.

He proceeds to tells us that he was looking for money to get more drugs so he broke into this house. The family came home from church and surprised him. He beat and then stabbed everyone to death and then burned the house down. He only got $50.

He’s charged with arson and 4 counts of capital murder. In Mississippi, that’s the death penalty. However, someone on the jury felt sorry for him, so he didn’t get the unanimous vote for the electric chair. Life in prison it is. No chance of parole.

Then he’s talking about how horrible life in prison is. Graphic, graphic stuff. Violence, rape, beatings, shankings, and on and on. Two hours.

Apparently, word about this assembly got out and some parents were outraged.

At the time, I was like, “hmmm, this is better than math and social studies.”

When I think about now at almost 50, I’m like “this assembly was super inappropriate for 12-13 year olds.”

I also really wanted to know who decided that an actual inmate serving time for MURDER would be a great person to talk to kids about staying in school and not doing drugs?

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rippytherip@reddit

This was Grade 3 in Canada. My science teacher was a big outdoorsman; think hunting, fishing and bushcraft. Great right?

Well, he bagged a deer one November and we got to make jerky out of some of it. That would be fine except to dry it, he setnup a big rack at the front of the class with strips of jerky hanging on it. It was several months of seeing and smelling the jerky before we were allowed to finally taste it. It was horrible.

I also have a picture of the whole class eating lunch on the railroad tracks near the huge lake that we went fishing on. So much for rail safety (also illegal to be on a rail right of way).

He was the principal of the school so when it was pay day, he'd go around and hand-deliver the teachers' paycheques. The only thing is, he demanded a kiss on the cheek first. Fun memories!

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The_Girl_That_Got@reddit

What province??

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My high school history teacher was a WW2 veteran. His class ended with a brief mention of the Korean war. Dude was old enough that Vietnam seemed like "current events" to him - and I suspect he didn't want to risk saying anything that someone might find controversial, because at least some of our parents were Vietnam era veterans.

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feder_online@reddit

I was a freshman and one day my school counselor showed up in US History in his li'l sweater vest and nylon tie. Then he talked about being on the back of the boat on the second landing in Normandy and how only the last 5 guys actually got off that boat. Then he told us about going to free the port (they went inland and turned right toward Cherborg). My counselor was scouting a place to crash with his unit, turned a corner without looking first and ended up shooting a German in the chest from the distance of me to my monitor. He told us he had 13 confirmed kills in battle.

After Cherborg was mostly captured, they heard from a frenchman about a lady who would make pies for soldiers, so he and 4 or 5 buddies decided to go split a pie and (hopefully) get some coffee. They knocked on the woman's door, and a German captain opened it. He just put his hands up, and they caught 4 POWs that day...and never got pie.

I never knew what this was like until "Saving Private Ryan" changed my reality. Then I had the thought...this was the guy who helped me choose classes like Tom Hanks character was a teacher...

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Individual-Spirit765@reddit

Was he secretly The Comedian?

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katiekat214@reddit

We had an assembly where they brought in death row prisoners who were in their late teens and early twenties from the super max prison about an hour away.

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eastbaypluviophile@reddit

Say what?? How did they do security??

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katiekat214@reddit

Prison guards were there. But yeah, it was bizarre

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feder_online@reddit

We had this too but were 15. The guy was hit by a phosphorus grenade and fell into the water. He talked about the guy who died saving him and his recovery. Then he pulled off his prosthetic nose and ear.

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MaximumJones@reddit

Did he show you the pocket watch he saved by keeping it up his ass for two years?

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CaligoAccedito@reddit

First thing that came to mind for me, too.

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QueerGardens@reddit

One of the disciplinarians in HS was a POW in Vietnam. I believe juniors every year had an assembly where he told his story. There was a reason he wore colorful clothes all the time. Refused to wear anything black or gray.

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cinnamongirl73@reddit

I had an AP history teacher for all 4 years of high school. Fridays, all he’d talk about was his binge drinking that he’d be doing that coming weekend. Every Monday, the lights were off, the shades drawn because he was hungover. Then Tuesday through Thursday, we’d be doing assignments at warp speed. I loved that teacher.

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GoodByeMrCh1ps@reddit

Not unusual in Blighty.

Teachers usually meet in the pub for a lunchtime pint to get away from the kids for an hour.

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cinnamongirl73@reddit

When I was in (a Catholic) middle school, we had a priest that CONSTANTLY smelled like whiskey and cigs. We’d constantly see his ass out there puffing away. He got moved the year I went to High School. The creepy part about that, is he and the other priest for the Catholic High School I got accepted into both got moved at the same time. Found out on a Netflix documentary that high school dude 💀 a nun and the priest for our school was all part of that.

I harbored so much angst because my parents decided at the 11th hour I wasn’t going to that school, and they put me in public school. Then I saw that, and thought damn, my parents saved me in more ways than one. My first day of middle school there was a scheduling conflict, and my Mom couldn’t pick me up. My Dad pulled up on his bike and wearing his cut with several of my “Uncles” from the club. Pervy priest gave me a very wide berth after seeing who my Pops was. He literally crossed himself. 🙄

Cool teacher was in high school, he probably kept a bottle to nip between classes. Because we may have been nerds, but we were definitely rowdy! 😂😂😂

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macphile@reddit

The holocaust once sounds ineffective… one of the only things I remember was when my history teacher was out and a coach had to fill in. You know, that old chestnut. He showed us Patton. I don’t remember if it got reported or not now, but I mean, the thing is chock full of cussing. So yeah, it was kind of funny.

StLdogmom72@reddit

Our 10th grade bio teacher had chickens. She killed on by putting it in plastic trash bag and blowing her car exhaust into it. Then brought it to class for us to dissect. Dedication!

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SnarkCatsTech@reddit

That's a thing. 😳

My 11th grade year one of the science teachers brought in a ROADKILL RACCOON that he'd seen on his way in that day. Put it on a lab table & dissected it a bunch. Here in the US, raccoons carry rabies. He had to get rabies shots (in the 80's so it was a round of shots in his belly) & a couple kids did also bc they touched it. He'd disposed of the carcass so it couldn't be tested.

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AMTL327@reddit

I grew up in north Jersey and that’s exactly what I thought the lyrics were until just now 😂😂

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Altruistic-Target-67@reddit

There’s a Union version that full on mocks Dixie. I grew up with a grandfather that used to sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic to me as a lullaby. I remember being flabbergasted when I first heard someone describe the Civil War as The War of Northern Aggression.

Away down South in the land of traitors, Rattlesnakes and alligators, Right away, come away, right away, come away. Where cotton’s king and men are chattels, Union boys will win the battles, Right away, come away, right away, come away.

We’ll all go down to Dixie, Away, away, Each Dixie boy must understand That he must mind his Uncle Sam, Away, away, We’ll all go down to Dixie. Away, away, We’ll all go down to Dixie.

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Far_Reality_8211@reddit

We also had tons of questions about this song! We just couldn’t understand where Dixie was supposed to be. They told us “in the South.” But we thought - aren’t we in the south? (Southern California). There nothing more south than us without being in Mexico.

They said there was a different south and it was different there. ????

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Exact-Pause7977@reddit

1973: 4th grade music: “jump down turn around pick a bale of cotton”, performed at music concert complete with choreographed dance.

“Pick a Bale of Cotton" (Roud 10061, sometimes "Pick a Bale o' Cotton") is a traditional American folk song and work song first recorded by Texas inmates James "Iron Head" Baker (1933)[1] and Mose "Clear Rock" Platt (1939)[2] and later popularized by Lead Belly (Huddie William Ledbetter). Johnny Cash, as well as others, have released adaptations of the song. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pick_a_Bale_of_Cotton

no wonder I still have to work at fixing my emotions every day.

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Eve_In_Chains@reddit

Grew up in a French immersion. The music teacher decided she would translate current pop songs into French for us to learn cuz she was 'hip'

I can still sing the chorus of Let's Get Physical in bastardized French. Because that was considered the appropriate song for a group of 11 year olds.

Just for those curious, it went from I wanna get physical, physical...a song about sex to je veux m'amusé (my spelling and Grammer are not good fyi) which basically means I wanna play with myself.

My Catholic School principal called me down to the office over the PA system. When I got there she told me she couldn’t find the janitor and needed someone to vacuum the rug in front of her desk. Shocked by the demand I could only comply. Then she corrected my technique along the way and sent me back to my class when I was done. Getting back to class I immediately told the teacher what happened in front of the whole class. My teacher’s jaw dropped but she didn’t say anything and told me to take my seat. The guys in the class started calling me a future wife, which I think was behind my principal’s play in the first place. She’s dead now. I smiled when I learned about it.

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Original_Flounder_18@reddit

Had a psychology teacher senior year. Literally the entire year we watched documentaries about the holocaust, with footage from the camps.

That was it. Nothing was actually taught.

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wipekitty@reddit

Perhaps more of an experience than an assignment...

One day, we turned up to history class, and the teacher wheeled out the TV and VCR. This was not abnormal - the teacher was a basketball coach, so we watched a lot of boring history documentaries during basketball season.

What was weird is that it was Red Dawn. Class was only an hour, so we did not finish it.

The next day we turned up to class, and the history teacher continued on through the regular lessons as though nothing had happened. At some point one of the students asked: 'Are we going to finish Red Dawn?' The teacher got angry and confused. He had absolutely no idea what we were talking about.

As it turned out, the teacher had some kind of pain pills for a joint problem and decided to take a lot of them the previous day. He was high as fuck and honestly did not remember. In case anyone is wondering, we never did finish Red Dawn.

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EggandSpoon42@reddit

Oh gosh, I read a news article recently about someone taking their school class to a plantation to pick cotton.

In the fifth grade, rural Florida at the time, and we had to go to the Taco Bell Farms and pick something. I don't remember what, I remember the fields, the trailers of the peoples homes that we toured, oh my gosh . It was definitely green and bushy and in a farmers field. I want to say corn, but I might be inserting that into my memory.

But that was pretty fucked up. Extra especially because we met with the children of the immigrant workers, and then we did some school lesson with them, and then we got to go out and pick stuff that their parents were in the field doing, and I felt so awkward even at 10 years old.

The good part about that though is that I ended up working in Central America peace course style for six years after high school. And I directly contribute that life direction to this field trip.

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boringlesbian@reddit

Not an assignment, in Kindergarten, some days, the teacher would line us all up and swat/paddle every single kid in class, whether we had done anything bad or not. She would say that when one of us was bad, we were all bad, or sometimes she would just say that we were all little sinners. I was a good kid who followed the rules and the injustice of it broke me every time.

In first grade, the teacher would pick an extra special kid each day that got to sit on her lap while they did their work. In hindsight, I’m really not sure what was going on there but I remember feeling weird about it as a kid.

I’ve scrolled down and haven’t found my experience yet - but it must have been fairly common!

8th grade Bio, public school. Teacher said the state mandates I teach you evolution but I’m not doing it: I believe God created us. I wasn’t angry at the time, just mystified.

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DurangDurang@reddit

One of our teachers tried to recreate The Wave, not realizing that it was the topic of an After School Special and we all knew what was going on.

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ErnestBatchelder@reddit

This was in the early 2000s, community college. In order to teach the class on what the color caste system (casta system) was in Latin America, our Latin American history professor asked one student to line up the rest of the class in the front of the classroom from palest to darkest skin tone. I happen to be Jewish, and I was older than the rest of the class (late 20s), so when they wanted me to stand, I just said I would rather not participate. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Meanwhile, I watched a bunch of Hispanic kids and a few black kids self-categorizing themselves based on their skin tones.

It was freaking off-putting. That professor was Latin American, but pale and more Spanish-looking, and I watched him the whole time. I swear he was getting off on the whole thing in a weird way.

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500ravens@reddit

Anyone else play the Escape to Freedom Computer game where you play an escaped slave on the run?

Also in 93-94 we had a school assembly where the speakers were a straight married couple where the husband had HIV/AIDS...that was a twofer... premarital sex = bad, and HIV/AIDS patients were real people that still had lives to live...(we were a tiny rural school in Wisconsin). That was still a controversial topic.

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brightlocks@reddit

Lol our HIV/AIDS speaker went off the rails talking about prostituting for heroin. Also the speaker was a dude so he got a bit graphic about what he did for money.

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Euphoric-Device11@reddit

Not an assignment, but 3rd to 5th grade male PE teacher asked who had on their “underoos” today and he would pick one kids to go to his 70’s creepy van with him so he could see them. 😳

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Responsible-Test8855@reddit

I will never forget this till the day I die. Ever.

We had a teacher who was a former student, who in her day was a cheerleader/popular twit in her class. She was a senior around the time I was in second grade. She came back to teach Business after college and of coarse became the cheer sponsor (not coach, that was someone else), and she was EVERY bit as immature and stuck up as she had been in high school and her cheerleaders were at the time during my senior year (93-94). She was teaching a lesson in what she called dialect, but it was more about pronunciation. It goes as follows;

A farmer came into town to see an attorney about a "day-vorce" from his wife. The attorney started asking questions.

"Is she a bad housekeeper?"

"Is she a bad cook?"

"Does she spend all your money?"

He asked a few more questions, with the answer being no to each one.

Finally he asked "Is she a nagger?" The farmer answered back."No, but the new baby is, so that is why I want this here day-vorce!"

It was the 90s in a rural Arkansas town of less than 2,000 people, and even then, I was truly shocked. However, I was also friendly with all kinds of people, including the gay guys. We had absolutely no minorities in high school minus the Spanish teacher, and the one African American child was still in elementary school. She is still there up until at least a couple of years ago and may be still.

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brightlocks@reddit

We had a biology final project where we could “pick” a bunch of possible mini projects to total 100 points. One of the options was “Make dandelion wine”. If you brought in a permission slip, you could drink the kid-made dandelion wine.

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Fuzzy_Attempt6989@reddit

For me the family tree assignment was hell. My abusive mother wouldn't let me put my father's side of the family on it because she was insane, so I got a bad grade on it and she punished me for the bad grade! I think those assignments are terrible

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SarcasticGirl27@reddit

I had to do a family tree in my French Class Junior year in high school. My parents were divorced when I was 5. When it came time to add my father’s side, I pointed him out & said, “Je ne sais pas?” No one else in my class knew what I said, but my teacher laughed.

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azhockeyfan@reddit

Kind of an assignment. In 9th grade gym, the "coach" would not turn on the showers until every single person was naked and in front of a nozzle. So creepy

In 92, we went on a band trip and stayed in the barracks at a military base in SoCal. There were just big shower rooms, which was fine except the band director showered at the same time as the students.

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Ecjg2010@reddit

my 8th grade history teacher was a dead head who was fired for talking about blow jobs. My high school photography teacher used to get high with certain students in the dark room.

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rangeo@reddit

We came in one accord?

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Solo_is_dead@reddit

You have to watch the video where the guy details his 5th grade class. He's black and in the South and they took the whole black class to a cotton field to learn to pick cotton for the day. Afterwards he had to turn the cotton in so he basically picked it for free and got nothing out of it. Smdh

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klef3069@reddit

3rd grade. We had 2 reading groups, the Rabbits and the Turtles.

I was a Rabbit. Did I read above my grade level? Yes. My parents were both readers, I was always surrounded by books and magazines. I could pick up reading quickly on my own....that ADHD diagnosis at 55 might explain that.

The Rabbit group had to "help" the Turtle group with reading.

What. The. Fuck.

I was what, 8 or 9, but I was mortified for the Turtles. They had this dumb name that told everyone they were slow and now because I read fast I'm supposed to help?

LadybugGal95@reddit

Junior year Advanced English (1994) - My teacher introduced the unit where we read One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by walking into class a few minutes late (completely out of character), sitting on a stool, and lighting up a cigarette. All of our jaws hit the floor. (She told us at the end of the period that she had gotten admin approval for it.) She then proceeded to talk about people behaving in ways society doesn’t deem appropriate.

Our assignment that weekend was to do something outside of societal norms and report back to the class on Monday. It was actually pretty fun. I went to the movies with my sister and friend. When we arrived, I counted every row and chair to sit in the exact middle. My sister and friend went to the bathroom and I moved seats (along with all our coats and crap). They came back and told me to get back to our original spot. I repeated the counting process to return to the middle seat. Then they went to get popcorn and I repeated the whole thing. It was starting to get pretty packed by that point. So, they stayed put. It seemed like every guy that walked by had a hat on. My sister muttered sarcastically that she was going to say nice hat to the next guy who walked past with a hat on. Next guy who passed was a balding guy with no hat. I, very loudly, commented, “Nice hat!” My sister and friend told me my assignment was over at that point. Lol

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RedditSkippy@reddit

Actually, that sounds pretty damn cool.

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In 9th grade US history, we were asked to write about our ancestors coming to America. Most of my ancestors came to America in slave ships.

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britknee_kay@reddit

Not school assignments necessarily, but your Holocaust assignment reminded me that for nearly all 4 years of my high school history classes, we couldn’t keep history teachers (I went to a private school and I assume we couldn’t keep them because some of the kids were the typical spoiled private school brats). Our VP/gym teacher was German, so each year, he stepped in and finished out our year. He was a self proclaimed holocaust expert, so every year, he gave us the option of doing our scheduled curriculum, or doing a Holocaust “curriculum”. We chose Holocaust every year. I remember one year we took a field trip to the Holocaust museum in Dallas and we were locked inside one of the actual box cars used during that time. It was still stained with blood, urine and feces. One of the most moving and humbling moments of my life.

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ohkatiedear@reddit

Jesus, that's horrifying.

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britknee_kay@reddit

It was humbling. We all became very appreciative of the life we lived.

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I gave a "pro" homosexual speech with Q&A with the encouragement of my speech teacher in a Catholic high school.

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it_rubs_the_lotion@reddit

Some group like students against drunk driving or something decided to teach us the dangers of it.

On a spring day kids driving and busses came to the parking lot to see one of the students, who had a very identifiable car, was all smashed up from an accident. We watched in horror as the fire dept, police, and ambulance used the jaws-of-life to open the car and take the kid out looking all bloody and gross. Like three people knew this was going to happen the rest of the high school and junior high (shared a parking lot) thought Josh had actually wrecked his car and was dying.

We went half a day with kids freaking out, crying, etc until teachers complained they couldn’t teach with so many kids losing their minds. A mid-day emergency assembly was called to tell us it was an anti-drunk driving skit and he was fine.

I’m not sure what the real plan was without an emergency assembly to let us know he was fine and it was a message, but it upset a lot of people. His girlfriend especially, who hadn’t been told it wasn’t real.

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BoggyCreekII@reddit

Lmao, wow. That's quite a story.

In high school drama, we did Lysistrata, a play that would NOT pass muster with any school administration nowadays. It's basically 100% sexual innuendo. We had a great time with it, though.

Shout out to my 7th grade social studies teacher. We did "Night of the Notables," when we had to pretend to be some famous person from history and all the parents had to guess who we were. Mr. Duncan gave the class a very serious talk ahead of time about how, if we were white and chose to represent a Black figure from history, we should not use makeup to try to make ourselves look Black! Then he gave us a very heartfelt lesson about the history of blackface and its ties to institutional racism. It was the first time I'd ever heard an adult talk about racism as a feature of our society and it really made an impact on me. Mr. Duncan was an old white man, too! A rare stance for a person like him in the early 90s.

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Projectguy111@reddit

Forcing us to dissect a frog was bad enough (I'll never forget the smell of formaldehyde), but it paled in comparison to when they took us to some victorian house/pseudo farm.

They had a slaughtered pig hanging upside down, eviscerated , with its guts and organs on the table along with "head cheese" which was its brain.

I'll never forget one girl in class who was a huge animal lover had a complete meltdown. I've never been able to get that image of the pig out of my head.

Keep in mind this school was in a suburb maybe 30 miles outside of NYC not some back woods farm land. I'm guessing we were maybe 10 - 13 at the time?

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This_Daydreamer_@reddit

In elementary school we all had to do an essay on "The Meaning of Christmas". Public school. I wasn't raised Christian. I was the last to read my essay and the teacher caught me making it up as I went along. She didn't bring it up in front of the class, but but nice going with the separation of church and state there!

In high school we had to break up into groups and then those groups were split in half. We had to debate a topic that was assigned to us and we couldn't choose the topic or what side we took. I had to stand up in front of the class and tell everyone about the evils of abortion. Fuck. That. Noise. I felt so slimy during the whole thing.

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organizedrobot@reddit

The caste system in India simulation would have definitely gotten my teacher fired in present day.

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lgoodat@reddit

8th grade History class in north central Iowa - class was divided into slaves & slave owners, we had an auction. Owners had different amounts of money because you know, some were richer than other back in the day. Slaves had to do their owners bidding for the week. My bff (asian) and I (mixed) were assigned to be owners...weird.

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speakswithherhands@reddit

Early 80s — first year Latin students were auctioned off to upperclassmen. Even the Black kids were auctioned off. All of us clueless kids just thought it was ha-ha funny.

It was fucked up.

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I would say watching my 7th grade science teacher spray syringes of different strengths of hydrachloric acid on to the skin of an anethsitized live toad in order to demonstrate the autonomous nervous system is right up there at the top of my list of casual sadism in the public education system in the late 1970’s.

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Zetavu@reddit

Assignments themselves were fairly straight forward but we definitely took them to the next level.

There are kids in gradeschool that did book reports on things from the Blues Brothers (yes, a book came out) to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. No one did anything by Bukowski, which I would definitely do if I was given the chance again.

In High school physics, we were doing some laser prism experiments, and would use chalk dust to see the lasers (smacking erasers together). By 6th period, the erasers were pretty spent, so one bright young kid suggested going to one of the other teachers and asking for a couple of cigarettes so we can blow smoke to see the lasers. They actually let us.

Don't worry, we didn't inhale.

For anyone from that era, that was the common line for politicians that admitted to smoking a joint, but it was ok since they didn't inhale.

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This_Daydreamer_@reddit

One specific politician comes to mind...

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No_Goose_7390@reddit

I remember spending a whole day (maybe it was part of a day. I was a kid so it felt like a long time) with our fifth grade teacher where he just played old records for us and we talked about them. We thought it was so cool! I still remember some of them, like "Last Kiss" by Wayne Cochran, about a young couple on a date who have a car accident and the girl dies. He gives her a last kiss. I still remember the words! It felt like such a special day.

He was a weird teacher though, prone to anger, very controlling. I'm a teacher now, and looking back, I feel like he was priming us for a bunch of emotional abuse by making us think he was cool first. My parents ended up HATING him. So did other parents. Kids were having nightmares. I don't want to go into it.

My public speaking class had a similar assignment. Something personal, etc. Then we had to share with the class.

Kid talked about his father killing himself. I talked about my best friend trying to kill herself. Twice. Teen pregnancy. Abortion.

It was heavy and super personal sh*t. It’s a miracle no one was bullied for it.

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I didn't necessarily have fucked up assignments, except for the odd religiously themed stuff every once in a while that is, of course, so illegal in public school... But I was harassed by a history teacher in High School because it drove her NUTS that I missed her class often due to school related events like winning national science scholarships to attend Space Camp where I had to go to the local Air Show to accept the award. I also loved to read between classes, and she HATED that. She would make me sit in the hallway if I had a book open, even though class wasn't in session yet.

Just FYI, I was a straight A, National Honor Society NERD who played 7 instruments between band and orchestra.

In college, I received a call from a lawyer that they wanted me to come and give testimony in a trial. Turns out this same teacher harassed another student who had very politically connected and wealthy parents over her parents' political leanings. They saw my grades in her class and knew I was one of the best students from that year in my school, so they figured I would be a great witness for the defense.

I had to explain to that poor lawyer all the fantastic ways she had harassed me and that she deserved to lose her teaching license and deserved whatever else happened to her.

Needless to say, they no longer needed my services.

I have no idea what happened to that woman because I just didn't care enough to find out at the time. But karma has a way of getting people in the end.

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MowBooVee@reddit

In 5th grade I went to a school where I and one other girl were the only white students in my class. It was a majority black and Hispanic school. On Fridays during Black History Month, my teacher sent me and the other white student to the library to do book reports all day "to make us the slaves" while the other students got the whole day as free time. I never told my parents because I knew their involvement would only make me a bigger target to this teacher. I'm a teacher myself now and I could never imagine even thinking about doing such a thing to any student.

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xdreamer03@reddit

I did a demonstration speech where I showed how to disassemble and clean a shotgun- with a real visual aid. Kept it in my locker until class time and walked with it in the busy hallway.

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ShaneFerguson@reddit

Turning Holocaust education into a game of hide and seek. Yeah, that will help the kids understand the seriousness of the lesson

🙄

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ONROSREPUS@reddit

I have been out of school so long how the heck am I supposed to remember when I barley did the assignments which in school. lol.

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You didn't go to Consol by chance? Jesus, we had some fucked up teachers in the 80s!

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Zealousideal_Let_439@reddit (OP)

Nah, graduated from MacArthur in San Antonio. And yes, definitely. I had a teacher cuss me out and tell me I didn't deserve to be in the advanced classes, and if she was still in charge I wouldn't be.

I was ten.