PE Demonstration
Students just love to pick on teachers and faculty. Perhaps it’s a natural part of being a teenager. Whether it’s playing pranks, ganging up to make a point, or just straight up walking out of a class, you can count on teenagers to come up with some of the most creative schemes to drive their teachers absolutely crazy.
When a single student tries to make trouble, they’ll often get caught and be punished. However, the more students that band together, the less likely it is that the administration will punish all of them. Although this isn’t always the case—still, they can try. Here are some of students’ best “they can’t send us all to detention” stories…
Time Flies
In 11th grade, I had a gym teacher who changed the uniform rules, so that girls couldn’t wear shorts after 10th grade. It didn’t matter what length they were. This wouldn’t have been so annoying if the teacher didn’t wear short shorts herself. And she was never told to cover up or change. So the next day, we all devised a plan.
We all showed up to the gym and refused to do any activity. We all literally just sat there on the floor the whole period. We kept on like this for two more days after that. The principal came and threatened us all with detention, but we stayed put, totally ignoring him. Another teacher in the school advocated for just letting us wear shorts again. Eventually, we won, and they did. Reddit user: squishycthulhu
Homemade Bell
One time in high school, one of the kids in my class went to the front of the classroom, took the clock right off the wall, and moved the time forward to a minute past when the class was supposed to end. While he was doing it, we all quickly realized what was happening. Luckily, the teacher wasn’t even paying attention to us.
He quietly returned the clock to the wall, then went back to his seat and raised his hand to say that he thought he heard the bell ring, and it was time to go. The teacher totally freaked out, as if she’d just completely forgotten. She quickly told us to go to lunch, so we all rushed out the door and booked it out to the parking lot. Reddit user: fritzhund
Locked Out
One time, a student in my class was somehow able to perfectly imitate the sound of the lunch bell with his mouth. I honestly have no idea how he did it, but it sounded exactly identical, and as if it came from the bell. He totally fooled the teacher, as well as most of the students in the class. Everyone acted like it was totally normal, and left.
I was right next to him, so I knew it was fake. But I thought that if I didn’t leave the class too, the teacher would be confused and tell me to go. So I followed the rest of the students to the cafeteria, where we were obviously the only ones. The next day, an angry announcement was delivered over the public address speaker, but we didn’t get in any trouble. Reddit user: Pidgeapodge
Curfew Tape
My biology teacher was extremely strict about tardiness. Three minutes after the bell rang for the beginning of class, he’d lock the door so that no one could get in if they happened to be running late. He’d make them wait for a while, and then eventually let them in only after he’d decided that they’d suffered enough shame. One morning, we’d all arrived to class, but the teacher happened to be late.
We decided it’d be funny to turn the tables on him, so we all went in and locked the door. A few minutes later, the teacher arrived and no one would open the door for him. He knocked on the door for a while to get one of us to budge, but we didn’t. So he had to go to the security office to get a key. Luckily, he was able to laugh about it, and he never locked the door again. Reddit user: PurpleJaguar
Ketchup Prank
Last year, my class took a trip to Vermont to go skiing together. The teachers would walk around to all of our rooms in the evening, and put a piece of tape on our doors to see if they could catch someone that went out after curfew. This system was obviously terrible, as the tape was very easy to remove.
One night, a few friends and I wanted to go out during the night. We came back and saw tape on our door, so we just went around and took the tape off of all of the doors that had it, and threw it away in the lobby. The teachers got super angry, but we never really got in much trouble at all. Reddit user: muttenchops23
No Tardy Pass
One time when I was a senior, the principal of my high school accidentally slipped on a packet of ketchup in the cafeteria. He managed to break his leg from this freak accident. He wasn’t the most popular principal among students, so for graduation, we decided to play a little prank on him to remind him of his embarrassing fall.
During the graduation ceremony, when every student walked across the stage, each of us handed the principal a packet of ketchup while shaking his hand. Of course it was a harmless prank, but he wasn’t very amused. Of course, he couldn’t hold all of that ketchup, so a pile of packets started to grow at his feet as the ceremony went on. Reddit user: bobmystery
Detention For All
In high school, we had a few trailers at the end of the campus that housed a few classes. I had a class in one of these trailers, with a teacher who was very strict, and locked the door as soon as the bell rang. One day, a fight broke out at the main exit that led to the trailers. Because of this, none of the students in the class made it before the bell rang.
When we arrived, he said that no one would be allowed in without a tardy pass. The whole class walked to the office to explain the situation. The vice principal just rolled his eyes, and then walked our whole class back to the room, where he told the teacher to let us all in. That guy was honestly crazy. Reddit user: [redacted]
Pants Protest
I once had a temp teacher in one of my classes. One day, she left the room to do something. While she was gone, one student decided to lock the door on her. We were just trying to mess with her a little. She came back, and realized what was going on. She also realized that she didn’t have a key with her.
She had to call the department head to come unlock the door for her. When they came in, they started making lots of threats to our class, and demanded that the person who’d locked the door come forward. No one would expose the culprit, and we didn’t think they could do anything to all of us. Unfortunately, that’s the day we learned that they actually can give a whole class detention. Reddit user: TheLastSparten
Moving Desks
I was in junior high school in the late 60s and early 70s. During this time, the female students weren’t allowed to wear pants of any kind to school. We were required to wear skirts or dresses. If you came in pants, you would immediately be sent home to change. One day, a group of women planned to all show up in pants to see what would happen.
The teachers and faculty made us all sit in the halls, until they could figure out what to do with us. They then brought us all in the auditorium for the whole school to see them scold us. This little demonstration started a conversation with the district, and the next year, we were allowed to wear pants. Reddit user: [redacted]
A Quick Escape
I had one teacher in junior high that wasn’t very well liked by the students. She was very strict and cranky, so we liked to try to play tricks on her. One day, she left the room for a moment. While she was gone, we moved her desk two inches to the left. She came back, and didn’t seem to notice.
She left again during that class, and we moved all of the student desks two inches in the other direction. When she came back, she sat at her desk and looked very confused, but couldn’t quite figure out why. This lasted for the remainder of the class. I don’t know if she ever figured it out. Reddit user: ewebelongwithme
Beach Party
When I was in college, I had one professor who was extremely boring. She taught her entire class by just lecturing from PowerPoint slides that she read directly from the screen. Talk about drab. Not that far into the school year, all of the students became very tired of sitting through those lectures. So one day, we decided to do something about it.
Gradually, a bunch of us walked out of the back of the classroom while she was lecturing, moving slowly and quietly, so she wouldn’t notice. Her back was turned to the students, and she just kept reading. Later, someone who decided to stay told us that she continued with the lecture for another 10 minutes before realizing that people had left. Reddit user: zerbey
Test Exemption
When I was a senior in high school, the whole senior class decided to turn the school parking lot into a beach. We all contributed a bit of money, which ended up being quite a lot because the class had a lot of students. We ordered several truck-loads of sand, and had the company deliver them right to the parking lot.
We also got some kiddie pools as well as a few volleyball nets, and we just started having a full-on beach day. We partied for several hours until the cops arrived and told us that we had to go home. That was definitely an unforgettable senior prank. Unfortunately, we later also had to clean it all up. Reddit user: autumntoast
Slip And Slide
When I was in college, everyone was required to take a public speaking class. The final of the class was worth 10% of your final grade. The school had a very strict policy that no tests would be handed out after the first test was turned in. They enforced this rule in order to prevent cheating. The university didn’t have + or – grades, and my current grade in the class was 100%.
I realized that even if I received a 0% on the test, my grade would come out as an A. I got my test beforehand, and filled it in with random answers. On the day of the exam, I handed in the test before the teacher had even started passing out the “real” exams. According to their rule, they couldn’t hand out any tests. They knew they couldn’t give everyone a 0, so everyone got exempt from taking the test. Reddit user: clemtiger2011
Punishment Protesting
During my senior year, we set up a huge slip and slide. We connected a super-long hose to the house next door, and laid out 250-feet of industrial plastic sheeting. We also had five gallons of dish soap concentrate, as well as coolers full of water balloons. The whole class was in on it, and everyone came to school with a bathing suit on under their clothes.
During the middle of class, every single senior walked out. Literally, every single one. And we just started sliding. Unfortunately, that only lasted about 20 minutes, after which the fire department and police came. The school announced over the PA that everyone in the senior class was dismissed from school, and that no punishments would be enforced. Reddit user: Luckrider
The Mysterious Assignment
When I was a sophomore in high school, I once got into a fight with another kid at school, and I got sent home for the rest of the day. I assumed the same thing had happened to the other kid. The next day, I didn’t come to school due to an extracurricular thing I’d already been planning to go to.
When I returned the following day, I was called into the school office for a meeting with the principal. It turns out they gave the other guy a suspension of three days, when I only got one day. The rest of the class thought this was super unfair, so they all marched into the office to protest the unjust punishment.
The school thought I was absent that day because I knew about this protest, and didn’t want to get any more involved. So I got in even more trouble. The school then put a rule in place that any two people in a fight must face the same punishment, regardless of who was beating up whom. Silly. Reddit user: [redacted]
Organized Ditching
I once had a terrible teacher that no one liked. She would constantly yell at us, call us stupid, and give horrible lessons. One day she demanded we all turn in the latest homework, or we’d all get detention. The issue was: she’d never assigned it. So, obviously none of the students in the class had done the homework, since we didn’t have it. She decided to give all of us detention, and didn’t believe that she hadn’t assigned the work.
We were all angry that she actually got away with this when we weren’t lying. The next day, the principal got involved after some students complained. He told us that the punishment was recalled because none of her 120+ students had done the assignment. She was still convinced that we were all trying to play a trick on her. Reddit user: TheNerevar89
Running The Mile
I remember when I was in high school, and everyone in my grade had just started driving their cars to school. One day around this time, we had a scheduled assembly that every student was required to be at. None of us had any interest at all in going, and so we all decided to organize a mass ditch.
We thought we’d get away with it because there were so many of us. But it turned out, because they noticed so many of us were missing, they did a full head count of who was and wasn’t there. In the end, half of my class got detention, despite our optimism. But it was all well worth it. Reddit user: CodeRed1234
Vibrating Phone
When I was in middle school, every student was forced to run the mile once every quarter, as part of their physical education exam. This one time, when that day came, we all decided that we didn’t want to do it, and planned a way out. One of the history teachers was even let in on the plan, and helped us.
A few years before, the gym teacher stole this history teacher’s whole class for a field trip. The history teacher was ready for some revenge. We all hid under desks in the history classroom, and the teacher locked us in. The whole period, the gym teacher was running around looking for us. He even made an announcement over the PA telling us to come out. We stayed there the rest of the day. Reddit user: wanderingrabbits
Perfect Circles
I once had a math class with a teacher who was very adamant about his “no phones” policy. One day he was teaching, and someone’s phone vibrated. He interrupted the class to say that whoever’s phone it was needed to talk to him after class. When no one came to talk to him, he gave all of us detention the next day.
Several of us complained to our parents, who then complained to the school. The principle decided to drop the detention. The teacher was still angry after it all went down, but there wasn’t anything he could do. I’m surprised that guy still even has a job there. We never did learn whose phone vibrated that day. Reddit user: PHWasAnInsideJob
The Walk Out
I had a math teacher who was a stickler for following rules exactly. One day, she gave us a really simple assignment of bringing two circles cut out of paper with a one cm radius. The majority of the students didn’t do it ahead of time, as they thought it would take no time to do this at the last minute. For the people that came to class with the circles, she pulled out a ruler and started measuring each person’s radius.
Mine was off by about one mm, as I made it very quickly. I got a very stern warning, but managed to get away with it. I wound up being one of only a few students who didn’t get detention. Quickly, parents were calling the school to complain about this absurdity. The headmaster had to send out a letter to everyone. It was total chaos. Reddit user: zerbey
Double Ditch Day
When I was in fourth grade, I had a teacher who was truly evil. It was like she had it in for our class. She’d constantly make up absurd excuses to take away our recess, keeping us in her class during the break almost every other day. For about a month, we had absolutely no recesses, as she found a reason to keep us every day.
One day, we all plotted together. The bell rang and we all walked out of the classroom. She was absolutely furious. The principal had never been aware that we were missing all of those recesses. The teacher couldn’t report us, as she’d get in trouble for her extreme methods. So we just walked right out, ignoring her threats. It was pretty awesome. Reddit user: [redacted]
Onions And Humming
My senior year of high school, we all did a classic senior ditch day. After that day, our class decided it just wasn’t enough. So pretty quickly, word started spreading about a second ditch day. We thought we’d get away with it easily, as they couldn’t punish every single one of us. But apparently, the faculty caught on to our plan.
They made a long announcement over the PA saying that if we did it, we would all be suspended, not walk at graduation, and that it would force more school days to be added to the calendar if a certain percentage of the school’s population wasn’t present. I don’t know if all of this would’ve happened, but we definitely didn’t test it. The entire senior class had pretty perfect attendance for the next few weeks. Reddit user: [redacted]
Extra Credit
My class was ruthless when it came to figuring out different ways to drive our teacher crazy. One thing we would do is put onion and garlic inside the air conditioner, so that it would stink and we’d get to leave class. We live in a hot area, so it’d get rank. We got away with it a few times before getting caught.
Another thing the whole class used to do was humming. Half the class would start humming and the teacher would ask where the sound was coming from, and spend the whole time guessing. We’d try to convince them it was coming from outside. When they eventually realized it was us, we still didn’t stop. Sometimes they got so angry they just stopped teaching. Reddit user: rookiefreak
Jacket Hater
In middle school English, my friends and I were the jokesters in the class. Any time we were given an opportunity to perform a skit or record a video, we were writing jokes and laying the class out with laughter. Once, we were assigned a very somber skit, portraying the sad story of a poverty-stricken family. The teacher looked directly at us and said that if anyone made a comedic sketch, they would receive a zero.
The assignment was worth 50 points. The teacher explained directly after that there was an optional extra-credit essay worth 50 points. My teammates and I all exchanged a skeptical glance. We wrote a hilarious sketch. The teacher tried to stop us performing, but broke out in laughter before she could. Afterwards, she told us we’d receive a zero. We then turned in our extra credit, and received 100% on the project. Reddit user: btowntkd
Sharpie Hoarder
One semester, I had math class in a portable in the dead of winter, and it was insanely cold. Our teacher absolutely hated it when we wore our jackets. He told us that it wasn’t that cold, and that we should toughen up. He said it was disrespectful to wear jackets inside, and that the rustling noise they made bothered him.
One day it was -25° and we all wore jackets to class. He was angry, and said that anyone still wearing jackets and hats in 30 seconds would be suspended. Nobody budged. We all just sat there in defiance. He flipped out, and left to get the vice principal. He came back, alone and defeated, 15 minutes later and said we were dismissed 45 min early. Reddit user: Ganglebot
Library Period
I was taking videography in eighth grade, and my teacher was a handful. At the beginning of every class, she would make us sign out sharpies to use. One day, she collected the sharpies at the end of class, and one was missing. She started ranting and raving about how one of us must have stolen it. She had the sharpie tucked behind her ear. We all saw, but stayed quiet while she yelled through 15 minutes of lunch.
When she was told, she didn’t apologize, and said it was still our fault. The next day, we all walked out of her class 15 minutes early, to go to lunch. Every student agreed to do it. She was furious as we all left. I remember walking past the administration office a few minutes later and hearing the principal tell her, “You can’t suspend your whole class.” Reddit user: ScarletBeezwax
Possessed Classroom
One time in high school, one of our teachers was late, so the entire class was just waiting in the hall because the door was locked. We waited for awhile, and then someone said that we should all just go to the library, since she didn’t seem like she was going to show up. Apparently this comment was taken seriously.
The entire class decided to walk down to the library. When the teacher finally showed up, she was confused, but realized she couldn’t really get that annoyed as she was the one who had arrived so late. In the end, we wound up just having a whole library period, and no one wound up getting in trouble for it. Reddit user: Sw6roj
Class Party
Last semester, I had this awful math teacher. He wouldn’t really teach us during class. Instead, he taught with videos you watch at home. The videos were made by him and, unfortunately, the sound was barely audible. Nice guy and all, and super smart, but still. After the class tried to protest that the videos didn’t work, we decided to riot.
At the end of the class, he would always show the answers to the questions we had. He did this using an overhead projector. A friend downloaded a universal remote app on his phone. For the next two weeks, we would flick the projector on and off, and one time the lights just turned out. He never figured out who was doing it. Reddit user: [redacted]
Football Watching
In 10th grade, I had one teacher who was not great as a teacher, but we all really liked her. Towards the end of the year, we hinted that we wanted to throw her a party in class. Of course, she said no because she didn’t want to get in trouble, and she threatened to give us detention if we tried to do it.
Fast forward to her last week; we all plan to throw her a party in class. It culminated with the entire class breaking out in song, and a few solos. It got really loud, so a bunch of other teachers came to check out what was happening. Even one of the principles came through to check on us. He was very confused, but he wasn’t going to give us all detention. Reddit user: Ragnar_Targaryen
Religious Interruptions
One time in high school, my teacher said we could spend the last 10 minutes of class watching the World Cup. It was an important match, so a lot of people in the school were watching. He couldn’t figure how to get his laptop to work, so he sent two students to the next classroom to see if they had gotten the football match on. They never came back.
So he sent a few more students, and they never came back. Eventually, he’d sent out almost all of the students in the class, and then managed to get the laptop to work. So he sent me to get all of the students, assuming they’d started watching the game in another classroom. I walk outside, and the students are all there, running around screaming. It was madness. No one was given detention, because there were too many of them. Reddit user: magicbluebear
Spirit Day Resistance
When I was in eighth grade, most teachers literally didn’t care what we did. It was a Catholic school, so you’d think it’d be a bit more strict, but no. We could get away with a lot of stuff. One of the rules said there should be no public nuisances. My idea? Our goodbye to the school would be interrupting the school’s Friday Mass.
I was up to read in front of the school during Mass. Everyone had different jobs in the church during Mass. Reading was what I’d chosen. Interrupting my reading from the Bible, I said, “And the lord said to John…MAMA, WE ALL GO TO HELL.” The students in charge of the sound system then turned on the speakers, and started blasting music. We got yelled at, but it was so worth it. Reddit user: Secretly_psycho
Stampede
At my junior high, they painted all of the walls of the school different colors. The various colors represented the “Pillars of Character.” Yellow represented respect, and so on. The school would do various things to incorporate this system into parts of the education of the students. Everyone thought it was super dumb how much the school cared about pushing these “pillars,” but they did.
One spirit day, the premise was “wear a color to represent a pillar.” There was more to it, but the point is, everyone was supposed to wear one color depending on whichever pillar they wanted to show. Every kid hated the whole thing, so a bunch of people decided to play a little joke on the school faculty. That day, about 50% of the school wore all black. The teachers were confused, but couldn’t do anything. Reddit user: NobodyInParticular23
Risk-Taking
One time, a friend of mine threw a half-eaten apple at a younger kid, who was known for being pretty annoying. He responded by throwing it right back, but it hit someone else in the head. The apple’s target had quite a few older friends, who began to search for this kid. This search encompassed more and more people, until about 600 students got caught up in the hysteria.
Eventually, about 800 students were running around the school together, and the teachers couldn’t stop them. They even tried an announcement over the PA, but it didn’t work. One teacher even got kind of trampled trying to stop them. The next morning, after it’d ended, the whole school had an assembly where the principal yelled at everyone. The stampede never found the kid. Reddit user: dazedandconfused492
War Protest
One time in middle school, some of the faculty decided during one of their regular faculty meeting that the students were completing their work with the bare minimum of effort, not taking enough risks, and not branching out more with their school work. They thought it would be a good idea to teach us a lesson through theatre.
They asked one of the grades to organize a little play about how to be a risk-taker, the benefits of it for your life, and so on. Nobody in the grade wanted to do it. So when the day of the play came, the whole grade just sat for five minutes on stage. The staff realized they hadn’t prepared anything, and sent everyone back to class. You could say that was risky. Reddit user: [redacted]
Fake Fire
In secondary school, we all walked out and went to the playing field to protest the Iraq war. We stood at the top of the hill across from the buildings, and could see groups of teachers scurrying about and looking stressed, before a small group of them were sent over to try and reason with the entire school population.
We were told if we came back now we wouldn’t get in any trouble. No one budged, so they threatened to call our parents. The local TV news turned up, and filmed a piece about it. Eventually the headmaster came out and announced that he respected what we were doing, but requested that we come back. We didn’t. Reddit user: stoneandglass
First Impression
I remember in middle school, there was a rumor going around that if the fire alarm was pulled five times in one day, all the kids got to go home. I don’t understand how or why this made sense to us, but it was enough to convince seven different students to pull the fire alarm at various times throughout the day.
Every time it was pulled the entire student body, and all of the teachers, were obligated to repeatedly congregate at the school fire assembly point outside of the school building. This kept happening, resulting in teachers hardly bothering to teach lessons. They eventually told us to ignore the alarms. The fire department also wouldn’t come to our school for a year. Reddit user: FatChewbacca
Faulty Desks
One year I had a new teacher. The class knew he was new, so we decided to mess with him a little. He was lecturing, and we were all talking; when he asked us to quiet down, we just got louder and louder. He said that he would write all of us up if we didn’t stop.
We thought we couldn’t all get in trouble, so we just kept it up. He then started handing out write-up forms, one by one. We quickly realized that he was serious, and had no issue spending the class period writing every single one of us up. We quickly shut up, for the rest of the school year. Reddit user: Arcade42
Don’t Take Away Our Art
At around 15, I discovered the greatest implement of mischief I could bring to school was a Phillips head screwdriver. I used it to unscrew notice boards, toilet cubicles, etc. I eventually decided it was time to move up. There was one kid who was always the last into class, so I duly whipped out all the screws holding his desk together, leaving it hanging by just a hair.
Late as always, he comes and crashes to the ground in a pile of metal and timber. Mass hilarity ensued. Happy with the outcome, and with the support of my peers, I spent my lunch break doing all the desks in the room we’d be in next. The teacher comes in, and then we all file in straight-faced, and all come crashing down. She was just utterly confused. Reddit user: Blackhelicopters79
Not Really A Riot
In 12th grade we had our art class on Fridays canceled indefinitely, because the teachers decided that we would be better off doing team-building exercises, and watching inspirational movies. What they didn’t realize was that the art classes on Fridays were really important to all of us, being a school with low-income students who needed an outlet to express our emotions.
So on the day they announced it, we were all super mad. Everyone started arguing and protesting about art, and one of the bigger security people said that anyone who wanted to follow the rules and not get in trouble could come with him, and the rest could stay in the room and be punished. The whole class stayed put, and the next week we got our art classes back. Reddit user: PandeanPanic
When I was in my junior year of high school, something happened that set this kid off. He started walking around the cafeteria to cool off, but some people just randomly started following him. Next thing you know, there’s about 40 kids marching clockwise around the cafeteria. Who knows why, but another group of kids started marching in the opposite direction around the first group.
The security officer was called, and started trying to break up what he thought was a fight. But they weren’t fighting at all. From a distance it looked like a riot was about to start, because you could hear shouting. Turns out, inside the crowd, they were shouting things like “I respect you bro!” and “Wanna get together after school for a basketball game?” “Nah I got home work!” Kids are weird. Reddit user: CATXNC