​Gum Chewing

Remember when everyone would want gum during class? Then you snatch one from a friend and start chewing. Suddenly, the teacher catches you chewing so he/she forces you to spit it out. Out of nowhere, they start chewing their gum. "Why do you get to chew gum?" "Because I can, I'm the teacher, now get back to work." Ugh, always so frustrating and confusing.

Phone Usage

Nowadays, every student has a phone and it’s the one thing that makes us not do our work in class. However, every teacher has that “no phones in class” rule so we all just hide it while using it, unless they always collect phones before class starts. But, while they wait for us to finish our work, we see them using their phones while waiting. Honestly, they can’t really use the “you have to be professional” excuse when most of us look up to them for help.

Can or May?

I'm pretty sure every kid has had one of these teachers in maybe every grade until high school.
“Can I use the bathroom?" “I don't know, CAN you?" “MAY I use the bathroom?" “Yes you may."

Just why you must do this? If it’s more polite or formal, we should’ve been taught that before we started school.

Too Close

There has always been that moment of seeing your teacher’s butt during class. Of course it’s not the teacher’s intention on doing so but we can’t do anything about it. Well, except tell him/her “your butt is in my face Mr./Ms.”

Popcorn

Okay since not everyone might know what popcorn is, let me explain. Popcorn is mainly used in an English class when reading articles and text. Usually the teacher starts off the reading and then calls on a student, randomly, to read the next paragraph. After that paragraph, the student chooses another student to read next and then so on. Now you see why some students hate the popcorn method. Most don’t want to read but when they get called, they have to read since the teacher would count it as participation points. And no there’s no popcorn(food) involved.

“A Lot” of Homework

This might not happen in elementary or middle school (unless you’re in those “smarter” classes) but I know for sure it happens in high school and college. Your teacher could give many pages of homework due the next day and they’ll say “it’s not that much work, you just need to plan out your homework time” while we have piles of work from that day. Honestly, some teachers don’t understand what we do outside of school and it annoys me when they assume we have so much time on our hands.

Assigned Groups

This is also something some people might like but trust me, if you know no one in the class and/or you are antisocial, you hate this completely. Being assigned to a group with people you either don’t know or hate is the worst feeling. You don’t know if the other people actually do the work or they are the people who do nothing but still get credit. This is where you really want to do the work by yourself or try to get your friends.

Teacher’s Pet

Now everyone’s favorite...teacher's pet. Always that one student getting all of the attention and giving the teacher attention. Possibly the same one who brings up homework at the end of the period, making everyone hate him/her for reminding. It could be good since you’ll most likely get participation points but it’s scary too because the teacher will put you on the spot.

“No”

I’m pretty sure everyone has heard this phrase almost every day while in class: “No means no, end of conversation.” Now here’s the thing, how come the teachers never let us say no? Like they can say “no” when we ask something but when we say “no”, they’ll be offended and think we’re rude or lazy. Most people just say “yes” or “maybe” to be nice but apparently “no” is opposite of being nice. Sometimes, the teachers have to accept our no’s since we always have to for them.

Packing Up

Everyone's favorite part during class, packing up at the end of class. Most of us would pack up when the teacher tells us to or we pack the stuff that wasn't needed towards the end of the session. Some of us just pack up everything because we want to but beware, you have to quietly do it or not make it noticeable. The reason is because you don’t want the teacher seeing you pack up earlier than usual. Once the the teacher sees it, he/she will say, “I didn’t say pack up, now I want you to pack right when the bell rings,” or something similar. You do want to be prepared to get to your next class but don’t do it too early.

“Not That Difficult”

Always have those moments when the teacher says the work isn’t that difficult? If so, was the teacher telling the truth or was he/she trying to make it seem easy? Because from my experience, my teachers would say this and then I’m here struggling with the first question. They shouldn’t really indicate that it’s easy if they still tell us that we can ask questions if we’re having a hard time. It’ll turn into “okay let’s just do this together as a whole.”

Bell Dismissal

Not only packing up at the end of class is great, but the bell ringing is really when we’re ready to leave. The worst feeling though is when the lesson is still going through and you see that the class is about to end in a minute with the teacher having no intentions of wrapping it up. Then the bell rings and everyone packs up, gets up, and starts heading for the door. Right there, that’s when the teacher says, “You guys are going nowhere. The bell doesn’t dismiss you, I do.” And that’s when we’re late for class and the next teacher thinks we have bad time management.

Huge Projects

Now it’s that time of the semester, projects. Don’t get me wrong, I do prefer projects at certain times to help boost my grade up. However though, the due dates sometimes haunt me. There could be so many parts for the project and then we’re informed that the project is due in one week, and that’s without class time to work on it. It’s also a lot where the teacher says this, “I’m helping you prepare for college.” In college, we actually are able to have our own schedule, not just given a schedule so we are able to plan.

“Show Your Work”

Math class is either heaven or hell for us as students but showing your work for every problem is hell for the majority of us. Okay probably “hell” is not the right term it but it’s more that sometimes it’s not necessary. There could be a really simple math question where the work is done in our heads within five seconds but the teacher still wants us to show our work to prove it. Yes we can always write it down to double check but still, it could also be a problem with a lot of work involved and we can’t fit it in one page. In addition, on tests, if you want work shown, don’t let the question involve so much work where we spend more time showing the work than answering five different problems which could’ve taken the same amount of time.

“Helpful” Study Guide

Everyone student’s nightmare, exams. Fortunately, we do have some teachers who are nice enough to give us helpful study guides, or are they? Some teachers will give us the study guide and we go over the topics as a class or have us study at home or do both. We all study so hard until our brains explode and our eye bags reach the floor because of an all-nighter study session. Then the test comes up, we’re prepared to ace it, or we thought we were going to. Skimming through the test (which is a helpful tip when taking exams) in the beginning just to figure out that none of them relate to the study guide given prior. It’s really the worst feeling since you trusted the teacher with the guide and they assure that the topics discussed beforehand will be on the test. It’s either they tell us to study our own notes or actually be honest about study guide topics and the actual test topics.