a strange thing just happened....

[mollybloom]

I was sitting at my desk, concentrating on finishing my lesson plan, when a bird flew in from the hallway into my classroom. About 7-8 3rd grade middle school boys followed and were jumping and tweeting at it until it flew into a corner on the floor. One boy took off his jacket and, hunched down, started slowly crawling towards it, trying to capture it. Now, from the moment the bird flew in, I was, of course, shocked. So when the boys all bolted in and created the mass mayhem, it was a whirlwind couple of minutes to say nonetheless. Anyways, the crouching boy safely scooped up the bird and released it out a window in the hallway.  They all said "sorry" and bowed and walked away.

Just another lovely day at my middle school.

Can you share any interesting/strange stories about your workplace?

[miriamluv]

I have had birds in my classroom too!

More recently though I heard this crying in the hallway, and it was a stray kitten . . .  then the principal and I found 2 more.  They were so cute, and they made for a really fun day at school!

Oh, and the crickets are bad too!  I came to school one day and about 15 kids were outside of my room screaming about it.  So I killed it, and they were so grossed out, apparently, they are really bad things in Korea.

[jennzoidh]

I was eating my lunch in the cafeteria one afternoon when a bird landed in my soup.  Another teacher calmly moved the tray off the table, bird and all, and got me a new lunch.  All while I sat there, mouth agape.

[MsAlpha]

A pigeon flew into the cafeteria at my elementary school last year. All the kids and teachers jumped out of its way, screaming and running, with soup spilling everywhere. I just calmly sat there and ate my soup, giggling at the chaos one little bird can cause. 

[KKelley]

One day during summer camp one of my students walks in with a bag containing 3 gold fish.  I asked him where he got them and he said something about an elevator.  That was a Tuesday, Wednesday there was no class do to heavy rain, when I went into the class room Thursday I was surprised to see the fish still there, and and still living.  The first thing our class did that day was to release them into the school fishpond. 

[ka-eel]

One time a kid ran to me on the playground and said: TEACHER LOOK!! and he thrust a chicken at me.... I cowered and yelped... Im not a big fan of birds... especially mange lookin' chickens.

[yeti08]

A pigeon flew into my classroom back in June.  It was just a few middle schoolers, of course they freaked.  The pigeon proceed to poop on the floor and flew out.  I lol'd.

[jaysoon17]

One student back in the day bought a baby chick off some man on the street and brought it into the classroom. I couldn't tell the student to go home, and there was no place to safely put the chick without it getting stepped on, etc. So I just let my student hold the chick. The chick died in like 10 minutes (maybe my student squeezed it really hard or something). The kid then placed the chick in his pocket and studied in class occasionally pulling out the chick from his pocket to look at it.

[steve]

I once had a hornet fly into my classroom. The kids went mental and I had to hide my fear.

[flasyb]

One student back in the day bought a baby chick off some man on the street and brought it into the classroom. I couldn't tell the student to go home, and there was no place to safely put the chick without it getting stepped on, etc. So I just let my student hold the chick. The chick died in like 10 minutes (maybe my student squeezed it really hard or something). The kid then placed the chick in his pocket and studied in class occasionally pulling out the chick from his pocket to look at it.

"Teacher, what is die?" "Where go after die?"
And so began your lecture on the afterlife (or lack thereof).

That's a good story. My favourite so far. Things like that really make you wonder what's going through kids' heads. "Hmmm, I'll put it away. I wonder if it's woken up yet. I'll take it out. Nah, still sleeping. Hmmm, I'll put it away..."

[Kaypea]

I once had a hornet fly into my classroom. The kids went mental and I had to hide my fear.

In the fall, we get the big bees.  Once, a co-teacher let the kids (3rd grade middle) kill the bee, although I think it's kind of dangerous and better to just let the bee fly around.  I was surprised, the boys were successful- I think they threw something at the bee, then it fell on the ground and they schmushed it.  The cutest thing is one of the boys kind of stood in front of me to protect me from the bee... my human shield. 

[madison79]

My first day at my new school this year I got to kill a the biggest cockroach I have seen in a long time.  KT was freaking out . 

My biggest freak out was while playing online poker 2 years ago.  I was playing 15 tables of sit n go tournaments with my cat sitting on my lap.  She jumped off my lap and went after one of those huge red centipedes that was crawling near my feet.  I heard from a friend about how painful their bite can be so I was trying so hard to not touch the floor and keep the cat from attacking it.
Between trying to catch the centipede with some tongs, keep the cat back and play my poker games it was an interesting event.  I finally got it and killed that thing.  Took about 5 minutes cus that was fast as hell. 

[gookie]

Having a bee or hornet fly into my classroom happens quite often as my CTs like the fresh air but what I don't understand is how come there aren't any screens for any of the windows in the school? Because of this, I'm forced to turn on the a/c which costs $$.

[HunterTecherNN]

Last year we had poor stray dogs running into our school to the forth floor.