Jimmy Fallon’s Followers Who Confessed Their Unforgettable Teacher Stories
We’ve all heard of killer teachers. These are those who give pop quizzes every class and grades your essays against an impossible rubric. Those who never seem to be satisfied with anything you do and who seem to belittle you every time you give the wrong answer in class. But, there isn’t much credit or publicity given to funny teachers. They are those who make going to school bearable. Their classes are ones you always look forward to because there is always some sort of shenanigans involved in the lesson. To commemorate these educators, Jimmy Fallon asked his followers to tweet him their personal stories about their teachers with the hashtag #MyTeacherIsFunny. Some of these tweets made it to the #Hashtags segment on his talk show. If you’re looking for a pick-me-up, here are some of the funniest teacher stories from Twitter.
Morbid or funny?
Let’s start with a pretty jarring one. When we said “funny,” we didn’t specify the particular sense of humor. Some people just have a morbid sense of humor, like Twitter user’s @megrosehoop’s chemistry teacher. Take a look at what he did on the first day of school.
Imagine being a junior on your first day of school, excited that you don’t really have long before college. Then your Chem teacher makes you watch a cow eyeball disintegrate in acid, albeit to demonstrate the importance of safety goggles. Would you be immediately put off or interested?
The fun teacher
There is a thin line, if any, between a funny teacher and a fun teacher. If a teacher is fun, he usually is also funny. The kind of chaotic energy that @Hatchley’s teacher exudes resembles that of the kooky teacher stereotype usually seen on Disney Channel or Nickelodeon.
Parents and fellow educators may frown upon this kind of behavior from a teacher, but you’d be surprised how much this can positively impact a struggling student. Funny teachers are the ones you will inevitably tell your children about when you’re older.
Work/life boundaries
Have you ever bumped into your teacher somewhere outside of school, like the grocery store, and realized, “Oh, he’s human just like me.” Yup, teachers have lives outside of teaching, and sometimes they want that life to be as private as possible.
It is a little funny that this person’s teacher would literally pretend like he doesn’t know his students outside of school. But maybe that’s just his way of maintaining healthy work and life boundaries. Wouldn’t want him to go crazy!
The joker
We all know a teacher who likes to joke around. There’s really nothing wrong with that. But teachers have to be aware that students are so receptive that they take anything their teacher says very seriously at a certain age.
Well, guess this teacher completely misled his students into believing Forrest Gump was based on a true story! This may be funny in hindsight, but it must not have been so funny to the students or teacher to see all the bad grades on the exams!
Motivation
A good teacher knows how to motivate their students to study harder. Sometimes, they will do anything it takes. Learning a new language is challenging and can be mind-numbing in itself, but this one Spanish teacher knows how to kick it up a notch.
An adult teaching children how to curse? Probably not the best behavior coming from a teacher. However, it does motivate the students to get extra credit, and that boosts their grades. Plus, technically, they’re still learning Spanish. So really, is there anything wrong with that?
The cool teacher
If you’re a funny teacher, chances are students will also think you’re the cool teacher. Twitter user @meuyve had one of those teachers in school, and lucky for them, he taught chemistry. What better way to make chemistry fun than bottle rockets?
Arguably, bottle rockets aren’t very innovative in terms of a science lesson as they’ve been around for a long time. Most students probably already know how they work before taking the class. But, they make for a fun day out in the yard instead of in a classroom.
An outlet
While some teachers like to keep their personal lives private and completely separate from their life at school, others talk about their private lives with their students. Still, other teachers like to wear their hearts on their sleeves and sing about their personal struggles.
Twitter user @mikesistak’s 7th-grade teacher was going through a lot back in the day. Divorce isn’t easy to go through, but music can provide an outlet for the pain. We can see why students would find this funny, but we hope this guy handled everything well enough!
The threat
Some teachers use threats as a way to scare students into doing something they’re not supposed to. Each teacher has class rules that they want to enforce, and @tikanique’s teacher Mr. Adonizio does not like it when his students chew gum in his class.
This is a really gross threat, and it’s safe to say that it definitely worked on the students. However, the thought of a jar full of used chewing gum just sitting there in the front of the classroom is making us sick.
The prankster
There is probably nothing more disrespectful and disappointing for teachers than having a student fall asleep in class. Unfortunately, this happens way too often, no matter what level of education you’re in. @ccash314’s teacher came up with the perfect consequence for this.
You can tell that this guy is a bit of a prankster! Most teachers would just wake the student up and either punish him or berate him in front of the whole class. But not this teacher! He made it fun for all the students.
Traumatized
Students aren’t the only ones being traumatized by a class or a teacher. Teachers often have such bad experiences with a student that they are glad to see the student go when they finally graduate to the next grade.
Twitter user @ryanguard very clearly made his home economics teacher want to give up on the vocation. We don’t know what he did to make teaching a living nightmare for this old lady, but he became the reason she retired early!
Miss Coops
Don’t you just love it when a teacher doesn’t take herself too seriously? It makes for a better learning environment for the students. Miss Coops here may be annoyed that kids are asking to use the bathroom during class, but she took a fun approach to the problem.
Rhymes are always an effective way to get students to learn and memorize things quicker. In this case, the rhyme is more of a technique to embarrass students and discourage them from going to the bathroom in the middle of class!
Hungover Monday
Did you ever have those teachers who would just behave weirdly, and you never really questioned it as a child? But as an adult, you start to understand why that teacher did those things? Jimmy Fallon himself shares his funny teacher moment.
Teachers who closed the blinds on Monday mornings and told you to do a bit of self-study during the first period were most probably hungover. They probably had a crazy Sunday evening trying to forget the fact that they had work the next day.
The threat, part 2
You would think that professors wouldn’t really care about you using your phone during class in college. At least, you wouldn’t get in trouble for it. But @RyanBartholomee’s college economics professor apparently despised it when phones would go off during class.
This threat seems a little unnecessary, especially using the pickle juice in a jar. Is he really going to keep his word and dunk any phone that rings in that jar? Could he not just remind people to silence their phones before class starts?
Mr. Potato
One of the only good things about moving classes online for safety measures is the ability to use filters and backgrounds on Zoom. It can make Master’s accounting classes interesting instead of a bore, as this one teacher who went viral has proven.
This is actually hilarious! We don’t know how these Master’s students were even able to focus on the exam review when this is what they’re seeing on their screen for an hour! We just hope everyone passed with flying colors.
Teachers need naps too
Yes, you read that right! Students get to fall asleep during class and then maybe get detention. But when do teachers get their shut-eye? They are always going one hundred miles a minute from the moment the first bell rings to the last.
@Elyse7Nancy’s teacher finds a way to get his nap in school. Yes, he’s napping during the time when he’s supposed to prep for class. So, maybe this isn’t the best thing to be doing. But if he needs a nap, he needs a nap.
Technically history
Sometimes, students get away with things on a technicality. Other times, it’s the teachers that do. This history teacher got away with watching ESPN in the morning to catch up with any game from the previous night. His reasoning? Yesterday is history.
This must be a fun class for the students who are sports fans. Watching ESPN shaves a few minutes off the actual lesson for sure. But were they really surprised when they found out about the teacher’s gambling problem?
Have fun with it
There is nothing better than a teacher who knows how to have fun. It doesn’t matter if it’s not exactly the kind of behavior to look up to. Twitter user @cachalfan’s teacher made him look like a superhero with this one request.
Looking at this photo, it almost looks like these are just two students messing around in the hallway during class and just waiting to get caught. You would never guess that the person in the back is actually a teacher. But hey, at least he prioritizes his safety by wearing that helmet.
Technically science
Here’s another teacher that got away with not teaching. Mr. Cansler apparently used to host movie days in science class. When asked what any of it had to do with science, he’d simply say that it’s an experiment of sorts.
Technically, he’s not wrong, but only if they actually study the effects of eating chips and soda after watching the movie. We have no idea how he never got called out for these classes by a parent or the principal!
Basically don’t cheat
Teachers have a variety of ways to discourage their students from cheating. It’s something they truly can’t stand. Sanctions and demarcations are just two of the most common ones. Twitter user @rock_sister’s Earth science teacher had a more sweet approach to it, though.
As we’ve previously mentioned, rhymes can be an effective method for students to learn quickly. This rhyme quickly taught the students not to look to the people next to them for the answers to the test. Whether or not this method worked, we wish we knew.
Prank letter
High school seniors know that letters of recommendation from their teachers have the ability to turn things around on their college applications for the better. It’s important that your high school teacher gives you a stunning recommendation. Particularly not one that says you eat babies.
Imagine the look on @dancingnerd96’s face when she first received this letter. She expected, “Abrianna is a dedicated student with a passion for helping her fellow classmates succeed.” What she got was a horror novel and a half! However, this is a hilarious joke from the teacher.
Consequences
Every teacher applies different consequences to rule-breaking in their class. One teacher might have you stand up in front of the entire class if you failed to do the homework. Another might send you to the principal’s office. But, we have never heard of a consequence quite like this.
This Twitter user’s teacher imposes a pretty wasteful consequence to something that can’t exactly be called rule-breaking. To not be allowed to click your pen in class repeatedly is a pretty weird rule in the first place. But to have to throw the pen out the window? What a waste!
Cheese time
We all know passionate high school band conductors who direct with their entire bodies. They sway with the music, get excited in the loud moments, and shrink into themselves in the quieter moments. They brandish the baton around to keep time.
This band conductor had no choice. He needed to lead the band, but he also had to have his lunch. What better object to act as a baton than a cheese stick? At least with the cheese stick, band members can kind of gauge when rehearsals will end based on the length of the stick.
Psychic science teacher
As adults who are way older than you, it’s no question that teachers know a lot more than you. They have a bigger pool of information swimming around in their brains. But mastering empirical science and telling the future are two different kinds of subjects, or so we thought.
To be fair to this teacher, the notion that robots are going to take over our jobs has been around for a very long time. And two decades later, @RachelJean_MN realized that her teacher wasn’t just talking smack. He was predicting the future.
Not the punishment you think
Have you ever felt like you’ve beat your teacher at their own game? It is a rare occasion and an even rarer feeling, but Twitter user @Th3NextBigRyan knows what it’s like. And he has his mother, who didn’t have a phone, to thank for it.
The fact that he stared down his teacher while he tried to call his mom but failed is big villain energy. This teacher must have felt so defeated that he rang a number and nobody picked up, and so he had to just pretend like he was telling Ryan off to his mother, who wasn’t even on the other line.
Gross!
Using real-life samples allows a hands-on approach to learning. That’s why you dissect frogs in science class and test out different chemical reactions in chemistry. Geology is one of those subjects that benefit from real-life samples. However, this teacher to this a bit too far.
Imagine observing an entire lecture theater of students passing around this specimen trying to guess what it is. A rock from the Protozoic era? A piece off the side of a volcano? Nope. It’s a turd. Why would this professor do this? It’s pretty twisted of him!
No more
It’s common for teachers to teach all the siblings in a family at different points in time. Teachers usually develop a stereotype for siblings, depending on which sibling they got to teach first. The Greenes ace all their tests; the Browns are troublemakers, for example.
This Twitter user and their siblings must have been difficult students to deal with. It seems like they had traumatized their teacher so that he refused to teach anyone else related to them! We wonder if @i_8_ur_cat was indeed the last of his siblings to graduate high school.
Apologize to the pigs
Alright, there’s a thin line between funny and just plain weird. We’re pretty sure @kristibeann’s teacher falls comfortably on the “weird” side of the spectrum. Take a good look at how students had to apologize for interrupting the class.
It’s bad enough this toy pig collection is just sitting there at the front of the class. It’s enough to distract any student. But the fact that they had to oink an apology to the pigs? Mortifying. Maybe this is another threat tactic, only weirder.
The snarky one
We’ve seen the fun teacher, the cool teacher, the chaotic teacher, and the teacher who can get away with anything. Now, brace yourselves for the snarky teacher. It’s difficult to tell whether you’re on a snarky teacher’s good graces or if they are extremely sarcastic.
@LoganMurphyIV’s teacher most definitely falls under the snarky teacher category. He doesn’t punish Logan for falling asleep and doesn’t berate him in front of the class. He simply gives a snarky statement and leaves Logan with feelings of guilt.
Front of the class
It’s very typical of students to pick seats near the back of the class. Being closer to the teacher means being spectated at all times, and nobody wants that. But for teachers, it’s obviously more difficult to teach when the students are so far away.
This teacher is clearly a “no BS” kind of teacher. If the students refused to move up to the front of the class, she’d bring the front of the class to them. This might have seemed funny at the time, but this teacher was probably just too tired to deal with the situation any other way.
The prankster, part 2
Sometimes teachers like to have some fun, too. Unfortunately, on occasion, they make their fun at the expense of the students. They’re really just living out their prankster dreams, much like @foxtheactor’s teacher here with the surprise exam that shocked everyone.
It’s bad enough that the exam was a “pop exam.” But it was also 10 pages long! Imagine the poor nervous students freaking out over the fact that this would be their highest grade percentage. How frustrating must it have been to reach the last page and find that note?
Quiet or else
When it comes to teaching children, sometimes direct threats are the most effective tool to get them to obey and stay orderly. So when a guest speaker comes to class to talk about wastewater treatment, you can bet the threat will be waste-related.
We’re sure the threat of poop on their faces was enough to keep the kids quiet during the sharing session. It’s difficult to imagine a group of first graders listening intently to someone talk about wastewater treatment, but maybe this teacher pulled it off.
It was a test
Don’t you just hate those teachers who make everything a test? It’s not even actual pen-on-paper tests that are graded. They would sometimes test your recollection of the lesson with random oral pop quizzes. This teacher is one of those people.
What did he think would happen if he left a room full of freshmen in the middle of a test? Virtue and integrity will fly out the window so fast. Of course, they are all bound to start helping each other with the test!
Love you too
One of the blessings of technology is that you can reach your teacher at the press of a button. It makes all those inquiries about class a lot more accessible. But with this easy access also comes the risk of missing texts.
This mistake must have been so embarrassing for @brendanburkeNRT. It’s bad enough that he texted his teacher, “I love you.” But to have the teacher acknowledge the receipt of said text with another “I love you” and then tell the class about it? Mortifying.
Roll call
This is such a deep cut into grade school days when the teacher would do a roll call in homeroom. If you’re reading this and you’re thinking, “I remember those days,” then you’re probably too old. Either way, we bet your homeroom teacher wasn’t as funny as @ys_rach’s.
This joke might not be that funny if you’re reading this as an adult. But if you put yourself in a kid’s shoes, with all the joy and excitement for life still intact, then you would find it pretty stinkin’ funny.
Traumatized, part 2
Family reputations tend to travel around in a school, especially if the same family has been going to the same school for generations. That’s why this teacher was horrified when he read @JoeSiegler’s last name on the first day of school.
Sure, there’s no guarantee that Joe would commit the same crime his dad did 20 years ago. But there is a reason behind this teacher’s trauma. One can never be too careful. After all, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
Linguistics mishap
Ah yes, the many origin-related questions present in the discourse on linguistics. It’s an intriguing college subject, but it can get a tad bit boring if you don’t have the right professor. Fortunately for @UHcougar49, she had the right professor.
Here’s what we’re thinking. Some teachers have their classic way of starting a new class. Every year, they say the same opening line to a different group of students. So maybe, this professor was just repeating what she said every year because she knew that’s what gets a class going.
Don’t look!
For the eight hours where students are at school, the teachers and school faculty are responsible for them. This includes their education as well as safety. Teachers should make sure students aren’t exposed to anything unfit for them.
This teacher was just doing her job. But she panicked and forgot about the way projectors worked! But let’s be honest, by the time kids reach high school, we hardly think a raunchy scene would faze them.
The kooky one
Here’s another teacher stereotype—the slightly kooky one. These teachers are funny but in a completely different way. You can say they’re slightly eccentric and weird in the best of ways. It’s what makes them memorable. Check out @MenezesMurilo’s kooky teacher.
This is a pretty good way to make an exit, in our opinion. Just leave the kids so utterly confused and wondering if there was a deeper meaning in there. And then, close the door behind you. Every teacher should make this kind of exit, to be honest.
Innuendo
When you reach a certain grade, you and your friends will try to make an innuendo out of anything the teacher says. Some teachers handle it well. They either ignore it and move along or call the student out. But not @jhopjsh’s teacher.
Ah, the uptight Catholic school morals. Sister Linda should have thought twice before saying “testes” to a room full of pubescent teenagers. She got what was coming to her! We can bet the class never let her live that one down.
Dates?
What better way to get a class full of 14-year olds excited than telling them they’re going to watch a romcom? It’s what makes 8th graders thrive. You can imagine their disappointment when, instead of the film being about love, it’s about fruits.
Here’s our question: @kswolfley said this was a Civics class. Shouldn’t the films they watch pertain to politics and civic duty? Why are they watching a movie about fruits in black and white? And we also wonder why the education system is so bad!