School might be a hub for education engagement and socialization, but it can also be a place where some of the most mildly infuriating scenarios life has to offer can occur. That's because when you walk into a school, you've got a number of power dynamics at play: teachers, administrators, and then, of course, the hierarchical social structure among students. Furthermore, schools of all sizes come with sets of rules to be enforced by faculty and staff. As we have seen with many other kinds of i…

No workplace or school is without some drama, and we've got our popcorn buckets ready as we read these stories. Gossipy places aren't always the nicest to work at, but there will be some great stories. A little bit of drama can spice up any boring Thursday afternoon. Whether it's two coworkers who can't agree on the heat, or the entire office waiting for someone to have a meeting with HR, it certainly breaks up the monotony. I'm fascinated with the story of the office where no one could agree o…

Some people don't like to be told that all their work is wrong, even if it's the truth. We have all been there in some way or another, whether it was in school or at home or at work. At some point, some more knowledgeable person probably took a look at all your hard work and pointed out an error that effectively rejects all the hours of time and effort you put into the project. It's an inevitable part of learning and growing up, and it can be especially hard to take this news if you lead with y…

There's really no better thing as a kid than watching an authority figure whom you respect rebelling against the higher power that controls all of your destiny. Now, I've written a few rants on the pages of Fail Blog about standardized tests and the fact that their design and administration really only encourage schools to build their curriculum to pass that specific test—at the cost of actual learning, knowledge, and real-life experiences. The best teachers I've ever had were the ones who were…

There's always a bigger fish when it comes to the chain of command; if someone tells you they have the biggest and brassiest bells, you can almost guarantee they're still answering to someone whose bells are bigger and brassy-er. Still, people like to pretend that they're in charge and wield whatever power they have with impunity, and they certainly don't like being reminded that they do, in fact, answer to a higher power—especially when that reminder comes from some upstart students who are su…

We all had a teacher back in the day who claimed something was true that occasionally made you suspicious. As you have gotten older, you have learned that your skepticism was not unwarranted and that you were absolutely right to question some of the nonsense this so-called educator was spewing. Over the years, we have all collected these bizarre “facts” that we have since disproven. They're often fun anecdotes to share at a party. For instance, did you know I was taught that I was taught that I…

Imagine taking a test where the factually correct answer was irrelevant and what actually mattered was saying what the majority of the class said. This might be a fun exercise. Perhaps it could be a lesson about plurality and group decision-making. However, facts should matter, and just because the majority of the students in a class may think that the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1776, that doesn't make it true. Just in case you're curious, the Constitution was devised in 1787, ratified i…

We all remember that moment sitting in front of a final exam (usually it was math), and you're just completely stumped. You have absolutely no idea what to do or how to even pretend like you know what you're doing. You either didn't study enough and you start to regret it, or your teacher is being ridiculously unfair by putting this question on the exam and you start to resent them. Still, there's nothing you can do about it at this point. You know you're going to at least get points off on thi…

Teachers better be careful when enforcing silly rules. As the son of a former teacher, I am sympathetic to the fear that students will just be playing games if laptops are allowed in class. That being said, wouldn't that be their loss when it's time to test them? In my experience, people will always find an excuse to zone out and not pay attention. So even if laptops are forbidden in the classroom, they will always find a way. Now, in defense of students, it is simply far easier to keep up with…

Being late occasionally is an inevitable part of life; that being said, testing your school's lateness policy can be a tricky tightrope walk. On the one hand, school administrators who are obsessed with enforcing lateness policies should have far more important things to worry about. On the other hand, students should have far more to be concerned with than finding loopholes so they can miss three hours of class each day.

Not to be a rebel here, but some teachers have the most nonsensical rules that are almost begging to be challenged. Sure, there are some understandable classroom policies that make sense, such as rules about phones, laptops, and cheating (the lattermost rule being don't do it). However, when it comes to having to sit around and do nothing just because some teacher told you that you have to, it just feels like a waste of time and energy for everyone involved. It's a waste of the student's time,…

Who knew that sometimes being suspended isn't exactly a mandatory order? Personally, I was always too much of a “goodie two shoes” to test the waters, break the rules, and potentially get myself in trouble. As I've grown older, I have become less and less content with the various systems I have found myself trapped inside of, whether that be the system of higher education, the workforce, or the existential social system of what it means to be a human. In hindsight, a little part of me wishes I…

Lazy college professors should not be allowed to be strict. Like any social contract, everything should be a two-way street: if you're expected to deliver quality, they need to do the same. Otherwise, as far as we're concerned, the social contract is null and void. I remember when my high school teacher tried to solicit her students to contribute paragraphs that she would then compile into a research essay she was required to submit. We made sure that nonsense was shut down as soon as we could.

Student meal halls are a pretty strange aspect of the university experience; while they're not really a scam, they're obviously designed to take advantage of students' funds suspiciously like one—as if you weren't paying enough already. See, usually, you have to pay a set amount at the start of each semester based on how much you think you'll spend at the student dining hall. Usually, this will come in the form of paying real money onto your student card in exchange for fake credits or some oth…

Teachers should be careful when assigning extra credit. They just might get exactly what they asked for… There will always be students in this world who work hard, who complete every assignment to the best of their ability, and who impress their teachers to no end. And then there are the students who don't work hard but who work smart . This Redditor certainly falls into the latter category. He also had a gift for memorization. So when his English teacher said that students would receive points…

Good teachers are sticklers about things, and the ones you learn the most from are the ones who are insistent upon correctness to an absurd level. That said, every teacher isn't always going to be correct about everything and may wind up insisting on something that is wildly incorrect —like that time when your 6th-grade teacher told you that you couldn't start a sentence with a conjunction. But, further down the line, you later probably came to find that that wasn't really true or a grammatical…