Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Reveal How The Troubled Kid From School Ended Up Making It Big

If we think back to our childhood and school years, we likely can remember someone who was always getting into trouble.

The assumption at the time might have been that this child was going nowhere, but as some will point out, these troubled kids can wind up being just as successful as everyone else, if not even more so.


Redditor bluewhalebluejay asked:

"Teachers of Reddit: Do you have a former student who you thought was doomed but ended up making it big? What's their story?"

Being Someone's Beacon

"I've had a few kids stand out."

"One of my first ones was a kid who was in my grade 10 drama class. Nice kid to me, with no major issues. Funny, not super academically inclined, but started to really like drama and we got along."

"He missed class somewhat frequently for excused absences that were noted as 'court.' I assume mostly weed related... just because of reasons. But I never asked."

"Anyway, halfway through the semester, he came in and announced it was his last day because he was being sent to juvie and he was upset he wouldn't be able to continue in drama (his other courses they could manage through distance education type things)."

"Was subbing back at the school the following year and ran into him. He'd caught up on all his missing credits while in juvie because he 'had nothing better to do so why not get some s**t done.' He was going to now graduate on time and was super proud of himself. Not sure where he's ended up now ten years later, but weed is legal now so as long as he's not dealing, so hopefully he's doing okay."

"Different school and where I ended up getting a permanent position so I stayed in the same place for a while, had this girl show up in grade nine and had her for Arts and English. She was... a lot. She would fully shut down and just not do anything. Or talk. Or she'd have a full-blown tantrum. She was exhausting."

"I drug her along through the Arts class and got her participating some days, which was apparently huge because in elementary, she was just left to do nothing all day because she wasn't disruptive. I jokingly suggested she take Drama with me the following year, but she hated speaking in public so figured that was a no-go."

"Did get her to do the lighting for the school show, though. She took drama every year. By the end of grade 12, she engaged with people, she could speak in front of the class, and she was completing credits (slowly and with a lot of support), but you could get work out of her. Apparently, I became her favorite teacher and I was one of the only ones she would do work for initially. But my god was she a lot of work some days. Glad I stuck it out because we got there eventually."

- somethingclever1712

Imposed Limiting Beliefs

"I had a teacher tell me I'd probably end up managing a Borders, but they went under in 2011, so the joke's on her."

- Kyengen

"My math teacher in high school moved me to the back of the room and told me to sit there and just look out the window. She said I’d be working at McDonald’s one day. I made $300k last year. She’s dead now."

- albatross_the

Reality Check

"Not a teacher, but I knew a kid who was your stereotypical couldn't give a f**k student."

"He never did his work, p**sed off teachers, cut class, did all kinds of drugs, and always had detention. I remember the highlight of his work was writing an essay on why he was Black, despite being white. About mid-senior year, he dropped out, and he kinda just disappeared. I honestly thought he'd end up in jail at some point."

"In 2019, my job sent me over to a site to do a survey for a company installing our AV equipment. Lo and behold, the guy leading the project was the same wild and crazy kid from high school."

"We chatted and caught up on things, but the guy really turned his life around. He got his GED, quit drugs, took up trade jobs, and worked his way up to a senior position in that AV installation company. It's interesting to see how people change like that when they enter the real world."

- draiman

Lack of Interests

"I had a student who was supposed to be a high school dropout but ended up graduating law school with honors."

- Somerset76

"That sounds like that was a case where the kid was smart but bored and needed a passion to find."

- whatproblems

"This sounds like my father and his brother. They were the same, screwing around in high school with bad grades, smoking weed and drinking and pulling pranks and playing poker all lunch, until college when they found what interested them. Now my uncle is a surgeon and my father is a scientist."

- jkssratmolo

Such a Small World

"I taught geography to a very talented (and now famous) footballer. He wasn't particularly academic but is now a multi-millionaire. The tabloids loved his scandals, but I dare say he's loving his retirement now."

- reiveroftheborder

Mental Health Assistance

"I did some volunteer work in mental health services for teens, specifically with music."

"Probably obviously, teens with mental health problems can be incredibly self-conscious and reserved. This one girl, in particular, was quite timid most of the time when there was anyone with her who wasn't a close friend."

"Over the course of a few years, I managed to coax her into singing in front of me, then to the group, then at a fundraising event for the group."

"The last thing I heard about her was a post on Facebook that a friend showed me. She was complaining about there only being about 50 people at a gig that she was playing! I still remember having to talk her into that first performance with just one or two people there!"

- Raephstel

Unbelievable Outcomes

"Son of two teachers, not a teacher. Our class criminal was acting out in grade school. He was a bully. He'd push kids down the stairs. He grabbed the boobs of the first girl in our class to have them."

"When he'd get in trouble, he'd run away from school, and the principal would get in his VW Bug and chase the kid down."

"In Junior high, he was suspended as often as he was in class it seemed. The same was true in high school. He didn't so much as graduate, as was passed on a plea bargain."

"Many years later, I saw him on Facebook. He's an oil man in Texas. His house is bigger than my yard, by a lot. He has a beautiful wife and daughter. On the surface, he made it and is living the dream."

"Now, he may still be a criminal. Financial success doesn't make one a good person. I don't know who he is these days. All I can say is growing up, I pictured him in jail or maybe in a trailer park as an adult. I never pictured him in a mansion living the high life."

- mike_e_mcgee

"The money may be nice but I'd rather have a small house than work on an oil rig, that's a dangerous life."

- whoamIreallyam8

"I bet he started on a rig or in a field, but he looks like a suit and tie guy these days. I agree 100%, though. My job gets me by (barely), but I'm safe and have a good work-life balance. I'd rather barely scrape by than be financially well off and either in danger or stuck at work all the time not enjoying the fruits of my labor! 40 hours a week is as much as I care to put in (I'd prefer less to be honest)."

- mike_e_mcgee

Deeply Underestimated

"I taught a first-year university course. It was the fall semester, so for many students, it was their first semester at university ever, and I had one student who struggled. She was young, it was her first time living away from home, and she seemed perpetually overwhelmed."

"I think she was just naive and inexperienced. About a month into the semester and her grandmother passed and they were very close. She came to my office to tell me she had to go home for the funeral and would miss a couple of classes."

"She was sobbing and I comforted her and told her not to worry about class. When she left my office, I honestly thought that I would never see her again and that she was going home permanently."

"I was wrong. She came back a week later and she was laser focused. She started speaking out in class and asking questions, she came to all of my office hours and study groups, and she began to make connections with other students in the class."

"She absolutely blew it out of the water, aced the final exam, and finished the course with the highest grade. We stayed in contact and I was actually her reference for an intensive internship that she was very excited about (and she got it)."

"I will never forget her and she truly humbled me. Was really a lesson for me not to underestimate people."

- littlepinch7

Measurable Success

"I worked administration in an elementary school. But I did take kids with low reading scores to the side to give them tutoring whenever I could."

"One kid stuck out. 15 words read per minute despite being eight years old. She had no confidence in herself, was too terrified to talk to anyone, and burst into tears at any mistake she made."

"Let's just say her family was... unsupportive and difficult. I did not see progress for MONTHS. I was worried about her future in school if she continued to lag behind and be too anxious to make it in the world."

"But eventually, she started talking to me. She stopped crying at mistakes, repeating my mantra ('It's okay to make mistakes, mistakes mean you're learning'). The words per minute score went up little by little as she began to show interest in different reading materials."

"By the end of the school year, she was looking forward to seeing me and her teacher said she was excited when the class took library trips. That teacher and I convinced the school to let me continue monitoring the student into the next school year. They agreed."

"One more year of tutoring passed. That shy, terrified girl became confident and happy. She talked to everyone, helped out in class, and demonstrated a fascination with learning new things. The new teacher told me how this kid was always trying to sneak books in-between classwork. In second grade, when we began, this student was one of the lowest-scored readers in her grade but by mid-year of third grade, she was the highest score. She was even helping out other kids!"

"I worked for a couple of years after she 'graduated' from my tutoring so I got to see her in the hallways. She always liked to tell me what she read in class, what she read in her personal time, and see what I'd recommend for her to read next. By the time I left my job, she was going to middle school and I knew she'd be just fine."

- SkysEevee

The End of the Bullying Era

"I had this classmate in high school who was the biggest d**k I saw in my entire life."

"He would beat people up if he didn't like the way they walked or whatever, would make teachers so angry in class that one of our teachers was rushed into the hospital due to hypertension."

"One day in our senior year, his mom and dad were tragically killed in a car crash, leaving him responsible for his three younger siblings."

"I didn't see him for a few weeks then one day came back and the principal was kind enough to accept him again back to school, but was informed that he may not graduate due to his very low grades."

"I have never seen such a sudden change of personality in my life. The dude became so focused and determined on graduating high school, it was scary."

"Fast forward 20 years to the year 2022, I had some legal issues to deal with, and one of my friends recommended me to a lawyer, and I was surprised when I saw him. All changed, turned his life around, saw the graduation pictures of his siblings displayed on his office wall, and has a beautiful wife and a daughter."

- Newbietron21

Talk About Leveling Up

"A stoner kid I knew who did nothing but doodle on everything ended up being some big shot at Lucasfilms and then Disney."

- hahahahthunk

Coming Full-Circle

"I am a coach and through a coincidence, two kids who used to be my neighbors came through my team. When we were neighbors, their house was known as the crack house. It ran off a generator for a while and the dad was siphoning gas out of neighborhood cars to run the generator."

"Their dog was left outside barking for two nights in a row (another neighbor and I decided if it went to night three, we were taking the dog, the weather was fair). Finally, the house was foreclosed and the pics of the inside lived up to the crack house name."

"Fast-forward some years and I took one of the kids on my team home. We happened to go past my house and he pointed and said he used to live down there. I put it together and asked if he used to have a dog named Oscar, and he did!"

"So it turns out his dad eventually went to jail for stealing cars and his mom was in recovery for addiction to pills. They had to move in with his grandfather in the local trailer park who was an alcoholic."

"So the older brother did well. He's in college in the next state and is gonna be okay. The younger brother, though, is about to graduate high school as the valedictorian and has a full ride to Cal Tech."

- kjm16216

A Different Perspective

"My husband had a teacher tell him with his efforts he would always be a B student, a B husband, and a B father. Another teacher, when learning of us getting married a few years later, said of me, 'Bless her heart.' He was a difficult, under-challenged student."

"I consider him an A+ husband and father, who runs his own 35-person company, a company that puts employees over profit. I'm just sorry those teachers didn’t see what has always been clear to me."

- merryrhino

An Irreplaceable Teacher

"For my primary school teachers, I was probably that kid. Never spoke and could never finish a worksheet to save my life. Had all the tutoring in the world and I just couldn’t understand numbers. Didn’t understand punctuation for a while, either. Luckily, English just clicked for me one day and I went from an F to an A in a week."

"Turns out I had undiagnosed Autism and the way they were teaching these fundamentals didn’t slot into my head right. God bless my extra help teachers because they sat me down and gave everything the most arbitrary rules so that it would make sense."

"I can’t remember them properly now but I just remember explaining my young self's logic of the world to her and she made all the punctuation and math symbols slot into those rules so I could use full stops and multiply things without going crazy."

"Now I’m in university studying STEM, probably still applying a lot of Mrs. Brown's logic without realizing it. Bless that women’s patience because I wouldn’t have been able to get into top classes in secondary school without her."

- h0n3yst

The Perfect 'Thank You'

"I was the special ed kid who was regular all along."

"I was semi-nonverbal as a kid, and wouldn't really do school work in Kindergarten through third grade. I didn't really have a support system at home and had no interest in learning to read or do schoolwork, really. I just wanted to go home and play Nintendo."

"Towards the end of second grade, they started actively monitoring me and another young child. They would sit in on my school day, take notes about my behavior, and leave. They wouldn't talk to me at all, and I didn't realize their presence had anything to do with me until much later."

"Based on those reports, they moved me to Special Ed. I'm not sure if they thought I was just slow or on the spectrum, but every day, I would leave class for half the day and go to direct one-on-one class with an aide. She taught me all kinds of fundamentals I should have had before then. I was in the third grade before I learned how to tie my shoes, for example. She taught me how to read. She taught me how to communicate."

"By the fourth grade, I didn't have to go to Special Ed anymore. I was vaguely normal. It would take until the eighth grade before I finally made friends, but it would have never happened with her."

"Unfortunately, much of my childhood is kind of a vague blur. I can't even remember which of the elementary schools I went to where she was. I wish I knew how to unlock this memory and find her if just to write a heartfelt letter of appreciation."

"Wherever you are, whoever you are, thank you for saving me."

- Mmmslash

These stories were both surprising and heart-warming, and they are a great reminder that no two lives look exactly alike, but also, a tough start does not necessarily mean a dark and terrible life.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Screenshot of Nick Fuentes
America First

White Nationalist Admits That Liberals Were Right About Trump Being A 'Demagogue'

Far-right pundit and white nationalist Nick Fuentes admitted on his show that "liberals were right, fundamentally" about President Donald Trump, acknowledging Trump's brand of authoritarian populism by referring to him as a "populist demagogue."

In its modern sense, a demagogue is a political agitator who seeks to advance their political goals or personal power by appealing to people’s emotions, prejudices, and hardships.

Keep ReadingShow less
scene from Disney's Pocahontas
Disney

'Based On A True Story' Movies That Aren't True At All

The entertainment industry has long been criticized for their creative license when it comes to retelling history or anything "based on a true story."

Going back to the silent film era and D.W. Griffith's ridiculously inaccurate White supremacist propaganda Birth Of A Nation to Mel Gibson's Braveheart to Disney's Pocahontas, some films go way beyond creative license and careen into total malarkey.

Keep ReadingShow less
A person holding a fan of cash.
person holding fan of U.S. dollars banknote

People Describe The Moment They Realized They Were Privileged

There is little more off-putting than when people flaunt their wealth and privilege in other people's faces.

On the flip side, not everyone takes kindly to wealthy people who act like they're "one of us".

Keep ReadingShow less
Elon Musk
Kevin Lamarque/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

Musk's AI Chatbot Throws Republicans Under The Bus After Being Asked About Economy

Grok, billionaire Elon Musk's very own chatbot, threw Republicans under the bus after software engineer Alex Coke asked it if Democrats or Republicans have been better for the economy in the past 30 years, only for it to answer that yes, in fact, Democrats are the winners when it comes to economic policy.

Economic policy is certainly on everyone's minds these days. A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS shows that Americans are not pleased with President Donald Trump’s management of the economy, leaving him with unfavorable ratings on what is considered the nation’s most important issue.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of Donald Trump
Fox 5 Washington D.C./YouTube

CNN Airs Brutal Reminder Of Trump's Previous Economic Predictions—And They Did Not Age Well

CNN came with the receipts, airing a supercut of clips from 2020 and 2024 of President Donald Trump making hilariously wrong economic predictions—a damning reel of evidence as financial markets decline and investor concerns grow over Trump’s trade policies.

In fact, Trump’s escalating trade war pushed the S&P 500 more than 10% below its record high set just last month. A drop of this size is significant enough that professional investors call it a “correction,” and the S&P 500’s 1.4% decline on Thursday marked its first since 2023.

Keep ReadingShow less