Some school rules are needed to protect the health and safety of students, faculty and staff.
But some rules just leave people wondering if someone was just bored.
Like, what purpose do some rules serve?
Reddit user BitterBlindMan0 asked:
"What is the dumbest thing you got in trouble for at school?"
No Cellphones, But Concussions Are OK
"One of my classmates fell down the stairs and his phone fell out of his pocket mid fall."
"Instead of checking on him or helping him up, the teacher took the phone and yelled at him for it not being in his pocket."
"You could only get your phone back if a parent drove all the way to school to get it."
~ Low-Cat4360
Unauthorized Hydration
"For drinking water in class without asking the teacher."
~ NefariousnessThat104
"When I was at school you weren't allowed to drink in class at all. If you did, the teacher would take your drink and pour it away."
"You weren't allowed to wear a coat either, even if it was the dead of winter and there was no heating."
"It was so stupid—did they really think keeping kids thirsty and freezing was good for their learning? Were they just sadists?"
~ Frantastic79
Good Thing It Wasn't D&D
"Playing Magic the Gathering at the lunch table."
"The teachers thought it was 'gambling'."
~ undrtke316
"We got Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon cards banned at my school. The teacher heard us using 'spell' and 'trap' cards for Yu-Gi-Oh! and thought we were practicing witchcraft."
"While we were getting chewed out for having such evil toys on campus, the same teacher realized Pokémon was short for pocket monster and banned them too as they didnt look like recognizable animals and therefore must've represented demons."
"Yes, it was a Christian school."
~ AndrewJamesMD
Not The Teacher's Pet
"Had a teacher who I really didn't get on with in secondary school, and I swear it got personal. I got detention for the following crimes:"
"*being last in the queue to collect a textbook"
"*taking my jumper off"
"*sitting in an alleged sarcastic manner"
"*getting full marks for homework—allegedly should have been near impossible to do"
"*asking for homework not to be given for the next day as I was working that night"
~ DonaldTrunt
The 🐄 Says...
"I mooed when my grade 8 teacher called us cattle as we left the gym."
"Two detentions."
~ Hectordoink
Respect My Authoritah!
"Junior Year of high school, working on a group project. Teacher had assigned groups and unfortunately my group was myself and 3 others who simply didn’t care about their grades."
"Halfway through the process of completing the project (2 weeks in) and after many requests to my classmates to contribute to the project, I went to the teacher after class to explain the issues we were having as a group."
"His response 'Make them do the work, be a leader'. My response 'It’s not my job to babysit them, I don’t have the authority a teacher would have when talking to them'."
"I was then written up by that teacher for being 'disrespectful' and 'talking back'."
~ throwaway_13642
Jumping To Conclusions
"One of my best friends was drinking a Snapple at lunch and it slipped out of his hand and shattered. 100% an accident."
"But the new vice principal lost her sh*t and went off on him accusing him of throwing it as a weapon. He got suspended and his parents had to pick him up at school."
"He was shocked and crying. Dude was NOT a trouble maker, one of the smartest kids in our class at that."
"Until about two days later the vice principal checked the security tapes that obviously, clearly showed him dropping it by accident. Lots of apologies but he was obviously more than upset."
"At graduation I heard him tell her to go f*ck herself when she was shaking hands and handing out diplomas. Only time I heard him seriously swear."
~ zulutbs182
Burning Love 🔥
"There's this local festival every year in spring in my town. My 9th grade girlfriend and I spent all weekend outside at this festival that year. She got a bad sunburn."
"The following Monday morning we were in the Commons area of the school hanging with friends before class started. I was standing there blowingion her sunburnt shoulders. Harmless."
"A teacher walked around the corner and saw me and took us both to the vice principal's office and had us wrote up for public display of affection. He said I was standing there kissing on her neck and feeling her up."
"Me, her, and 2 of my friends told the vice principal what was happening and she acted like she understood and dismissed us both. No write up or anything."
"About an hour or so later we got called back to the office at separate times. She got off with nothing and I was given 2 days of ASR—3 hour detentions after school."
~ CaptainCreepwork
Parkour!
"I once got in trouble for climbing onto the roof of the girls' dorms. I was into parkour as a kid and thought it looked like a good climb."
"This all was legitimate reasons for me to get into trouble. However the teacher who caught me knew my mom (who was also a teacher at the school) and knew she wouldn't really care about me climbing about after school, even onto the girls' dorms."
"So she told my mom that I tried to bribe her to get out of trouble which I never did. My mom however called her out on her BS saying that she knows I love money too much to bribe someone."
~ SkoomaSalesAreUp
We Are The Law!
"Kid in my private high school got suspended for drinking…with his parents…on vacation…in a country where he was doing it legally…again, WITH his parents."
"Came back from vacation with a picture of him drinking a beer with his folks at dinner. Teacher saw it, reported him."
"Boom, 5 day suspension."
"Explanation: 'the rules of the school supersede those of the outside world'."
~ neddybemis
All Medical Emergencies Must Be Scheduled In Advance
"I kid you not, I got in trouble for LITERALLY HAVING A SEIZURE."
"They banned me from all football games because I 'traumatized the students' by having a grand mal. Also nobody was around!"
"It was after the game when almost everyone left. I stayed behind to meet up with a friend."
"But the vice principal walked by during my seizure and I sh*t you not, she tried to yell at me right then and there—I’ve been told—but the paramedics told her to leave."
"Anyway, I was banned from all future games, not allowed to participate in any extracurricular for the rest of the year and got three days detention."
"That VP and I go wayyyy back. She hates me and it’s mutual."
~ Mac8cheeseenthusiast
Lower Your Tone, Please
"Telling a teacher he was giving me a headache because he was just yelling while teaching."
"I got 3 days of detention, but chose paddling instead. He was mad about that too!"
"I am 44. I think they stopped allowing swats in schools now."
~ Shawty43
"16 states still allow it."
~ cyndrin
No Sweat(er)
"I got in trouble for wearing a light sweater."
"All shirts had to be tucked into your pants, but the dress code said sweaters were exempt from being tucked in."
"They said it wasn’t thick enough to be a sweater and ended up changing the rules because of me."
~ Swordbreaker9250
Stone The Heretic!
"I got detention several times because I didn’t have the top button of my school polo buttoned."
"Yep, religious school. Nothing more unholy than an unbuttoned polo on a girl."
"The worst part is that the boys didn’t even have to button theirs. Just the girls."
~ SierraPosey1
The Scourge Of Social Media
"Out of nowhere in 11th grade, I got pulled out of class by the principal and was told that 'they knew I hacked the school’s firewall'."
"They said some kind of proxy had been run off of my student login and was accessing…..not porn, not bomb-making guides, but… Facebook."
"I was being threatened with expulsion because someone had bypassed the firewall to go on Facebook."
"Long story short, I ended up asking the librarian for help, and she was able to see that all of the logins came from a classroom that I had never been in."
"Some people in the programming class randomly started getting into other peoples’ student logins and loading something from a flash drive to bypass the firewall, and yep, go on Facebook."
"She stood up for me to the principal, and I was off the hook. I never heard if the people who’d actually done it were caught."
~ MrLanesLament
I can't recall ever really getting in trouble in school.
My high school had a policy that if you were late, you got detention. But there was no penalty for not going at all.
Running late? Just don't go to school.
The school got rid of that policy after the second semester when they noticed tardiness was almost nonexistent, but truancy was way up.
What's the most ridiculous reason you ever got in trouble for in school?