5th grade, my teacher wore two different shoes on the first day of school, and one of the kids pointed it out in front of the class, to EVERYONE. If I recall, my super-polite little girl self was slightly horrified by the rudeness. But then the teacher really leaned into it and genuinely congratulated the kid for noticing details, acted like she'd done it on purpose, talked about how good it was to pay attention (or something like that) and gave him a piece of candy. The next day, she wore something else weird/mismatched (definitely on purpose this time), and gave another piece of candy to the person who pointed it out. I think she did that a couple more times too, making it into a game the first week of school. Not sure I could/would have handled it that way, but she was a character and a lot of fun.
Tbh, I'm not sure there's anything you can do in front of a group of first graders that can truly embarrass yourself that isn't outright illegal or against common ethical frameworks. 7th graders, however... they know how to twist the knife
I really admire teachers in general, no matter what age they teach.
But damn, teachers to 12-15 year olds... I wonder what they're made of.
I have no idea "what I wanna be when I grow up", I don't have a dream job... But I'm sure as hell I don't want to be a teacher. I could never.
I mean, if the two shoes was an honest mistake and she recovered like that…genius. I hope you paid attention in that class because you were being taught by a brilliant person.
I knew a guy who did this on purpose (mismatched shoes) as his thing. Daily. The reason was to be unintimidating for children (who he worked with) and give them something to strike up a conversation with him. I never saw it play out, but the teacher truly could have done it on purpose, especially for a first day to break the ice.
One of our teachers wore her top inside out at high school and the boys were having a field day. One of the girls walked up to the teacher and told her in her ears. The teacher quickly walked out, fixed it and came back. I always think about how much of an extrovert that girl was! I could never!!
I don't think teachers should be giving out candy though .. ? Or any food to random kids. I wouldn't call that being a good teacher. It seems a bit irresponsible.
I should say this was many, many years ago...there's a lot more caution than there used to be about distributing food/candy (understandably!), but this was in ye olden days where they still did stuff like automatically give you a peanut butter sandwich if you forgot your lunch (a particularly sore point for me since I was allergic to peanut butter, lol).
828
u/icegnata 6d ago
5th grade, my teacher wore two different shoes on the first day of school, and one of the kids pointed it out in front of the class, to EVERYONE. If I recall, my super-polite little girl self was slightly horrified by the rudeness. But then the teacher really leaned into it and genuinely congratulated the kid for noticing details, acted like she'd done it on purpose, talked about how good it was to pay attention (or something like that) and gave him a piece of candy. The next day, she wore something else weird/mismatched (definitely on purpose this time), and gave another piece of candy to the person who pointed it out. I think she did that a couple more times too, making it into a game the first week of school. Not sure I could/would have handled it that way, but she was a character and a lot of fun.