25 Teachers Talk About The Most Disturbing Thing A Student Has Ever Done

"He was in juvie for setting fire to his family's apartment that spread and killed his elderly neighbor. There was also evidence of him torturing animals and he's been abusive to his mom and little brother."

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Think twice before becoming a teacher. You never know what kind of demonic students you’ll get stuck with. Just listen to these horror stories from Ask Reddit.

Unsplash, Alex Jones
Unsplash, Alex Jones

1. He predicted my sister’s miscarriage

“Had a student last year that was different. He didn’t get along with other kids and kept mostly to himself. We communicated well when he was in the mood to interact. One day, at dismissal, I walked my students to their busses and he suddenly stopped and yelled, ‘It’s going to be SO funny when that baby dies!’ It creeped me the fuck out, but I asked him, ‘Sweetheart, what are you talking about??’ And he responded, ‘That baby in your family!!’ I put him on his bus and let him go home. The next morning, I got a call at work from my sister telling me that she had had a miscarriage. I don’t talk about my family in detail to my students and I know I never mentioned my sister or her baby to that student. Maybe it was just a weird coincidence, but it still gives me the heebie jeebies when I think about it.” — HoosierDoc

2. He tried to murder his own mother

“Worked with a student once who described in detail how he HAD tried to kill his mother. The plan was to slam a screwdriver through a wall into her sleeping skull. He missed and actually scratched her forehead. He stabbed me twice in the hand with a sharpened pencil first time to see my reaction and second time to see if he could get through to the other side. He was about 8…I never turned my back on him again. Another student I have worked with has been diagnosed as a future psychotic killer, he has already started with small animals and some of his discussions left me cold. His angelic smile still makes me shiver.” — lord_dragonian

3. He threatened to kill us all

“Looked me in the eye and said, ‘I’m going to come back to this school when I’m big and shoot everyone in our class.’

He was 4.

This weird uncomfortable feeling just darted through me and I had to step out in the hall. My heart felt like it dropped to the floor.” — squirmdragon

4. He wanted to abandon his friend in the middle of the woods

“When discussing what students want to do during their summer breaks, a student spent a good 15 minutes telling us how he would like to go into the woods with a friend on a really long hike until the other person was totally turned around and lost, and then walk away, leaving them. He then detailed the many terrible things that could happen to his friend if he did so. It was brutal, detailed, and thoroughly planned.

I’m not the primary teacher, just a support teacher, so I defer to the primary teacher most of the time. This was one of the few times I felt so uncomfortable with what was going on that I put an end to it first. I’m not sure if she just wasn’t listening after having heard 12 other students talk, or if she was stunned into silence.” — NotAnotherWhatever

5. She told me I was going to die

“I teach English in Japan. The day before I was due to fly home to have bone surgery, a student who rarely tries to speak English to me came to me out of nowhere.

With no expression, she walked up to me and said in perfect English:

‘You are going to die.’

Then walked away. Fucked me right up.” — discw

6. She threatened to cut me

“A student once got angry and told me she was going to ‘cut my eyes out with a shaver.’

It was the use of the word ‘shaver’ that creeped me out, because if she’d been copying the phrase from somewhere (which would have been bad enough) she would known the correct word, but nope… she thought of that sentence all on her own…” — lonelady75

7. He was actually happy his dad killed himself

“Was a kindergarten supervisor, which meant I took a class of kinders to recess, lunch, and rest time. I had one student, whose mom had already passed away, repeatedly drew and played the creepiest story about a dad killing a mom and threatening to kill the little boy if he didn’t stop crying. I reported this, and finally did some digging. The boys mom passed in a car accident. I have no idea what that other stuff was about. I also had the misfortune of seeing my neighbor commit suicide in front of me. The first day his son returned to school, he sought me out. He asked if I knew what happened to his dad. I froze, because I didn’t want to start crying or let him know I saw what happened. He cocks his head to the side, smiles, and says, ‘Isn’t it great?’

I get goosebumps just remembering.” — Minnesota_Nice_87

8. He set fire to his family’s apartment

“Two years ago I got a kid midyear, no big deal. His grades come in and it turns out he’s been juvenile lockup and are coming from their alternate education program. Ok, that’s a new one but I’m sure he’s ok now.

Guy comes in with a shaved head that looks like a pumpkin and those tired eyes that come with a sleepless night. Ok, kind of odd but let’s see how he does. He comes in on a lab day and joins a group of some wannabe gangsters who don’t really do anything but by the end of the lab, they’ve not only done the lab but were quiet and collaborative the entire time! This kid is a motivator, he’s great!!

The next day, they had another lab and the kids it’s with the same group, all right they’re going to work today!! Five minutes after the warm up is on screen, one of the boys comes to me and asks if he could be moved to another lab group, I ask him what’s wrong and say they did a great job last time; he lowers his voice and the tough guy persona drops and I see a scared little boy; ‘That new kid is a legit demon and the other guys want away from him too.’ I’m a little concerned but I can’t move them anywhere else since it’s a full house that day so I apologize and tell them to try to get to know him and I’ll be close the whole time.

Fast forward a week and this kid is known schoolwide now and even the REAL gang members avoid him. It turns out he was in juvie for setting fire to his family’s apartment that spread and killed his elderly neighbor. There was also evidence of him torturing animals and he’s been abusive to his mom and little brother. Being 13 he can’t go to real jail so he went for the max time in juvie (two years) and was released on parole. Apparently as part of it, he couldn’t be around fire (difficult considering that’s what they were working with a lot at the time of year in chemistry).

Anyway, on top of freaking the kids out, he would often make advances on the female teachers and follow them to their cars. He even jerked off in one of their classes while looking right at them. He turned his attention on me when I nudged him to wake up in class and told him to get off his phone. This guy followed me to my car every day for a week and would leave threatening notes and obscene pictures on my windows after I got there in the morning.

The admin didn’t do shit in all this (urban title 1 high school) so eventually all of his teachers got together, held a parent conference, wrote up a complaint to the school board detailing the problem, the steps we took to try to fix it and get help, our lack of support and came to the principal saying that she either get rid of him or we send this to the board.

It took another week of dealing with this guy before they caught him trying to bring a knife into school and that was grounds to suspend him for a few days. When he came back, he tried it again but this time tried pulling it out and threatening one of the security guys to let him in. His ass got tasered and arrested and we all were glad when he didn’t come back.

Last I heard, he was somewhere in west Texas, his mom was still under his thumb and his little brother had been in the hospital twice for ‘bumps and bruises.'” — my_hunt

9. He wanted to molest me

“I got a text from a student saying he wanted to molest me. That was fun.” — atrevelan

10. He swore something was hiding in the classroom

“I work with autistic 3rd graders. Couple weeks ago had a kid that was in the middle of a meltdown… Screaming, crying, rolling around on a mat. All of a sudden he stops, sits up, points to the corner of the ceiling and says, ‘It’s hiding in the classroom.’ Then rolled back over and laid completely still. Just a tad unsettling.” — laurlaurkss

11. She told me her mother was in hell

“English teacher in Japan here. I was talking to one of my girls who was always a practical joker. I asked her about her mother, and she said, ‘My mother is in heaven.’ I started to say oh my God, I’m sorry, and what not, and she stopped me, laughing, and said, ‘Lol joke, joke lol. I got you lol … (serious) My mother is in hell.’ She laughed, I hesitantly laughed, then she started waving goodbye to the ground. I thought she had such a weird sense of humor.

Yep, found out her mother really died a few months earlier.

Still a great student. She’s going to a nice engineering school now. Happy Ending?” — kamatacci

12. He broke into my car

“I don’t teach anymore, but when I did (2 years), I regularly had students look me up on social media. I was the young teacher and I spent a lot of time with kids in small groups (being new got me slapped with a bunch of volunteer duties for homework help and lunch detention). I was pretty confident that my settings were private enough and that I never gave anything away about my personal life despite a constant barrage of questions. In fact, it became a running gag with a few students who would incessantly pester me with questions hoping to get some small detail about my life.

Near the end of my second year, I had my car broken into while it was parked in my driveway at home. Nothing of value was stolen besides a really nice Supersonics snapback that I kept in the car. The next Monday I went into school and there was one of my homework help kids, wearing the snapback. It turns out he had gotten an older friend with a car to follow me home after I left school and later that night broke into my car, took the hat, and (though I didn’t know it at the time) spent about an hour sneaking around and looking through the windows at my girlfriend and I having a very boring Friday night.

Charges were filed and the kid got suspended and transferred to another school but I moved out of that house as soon as the lease ended and stopped teaching (for other reasons, not just this one) less than a year later.” — house_fire

13. He knew my mother had breast cancer

“I was a class room assistant in a special needs school for kids with severe learning disabilities. loved that job, was so rewarding and fun and every day was different, until one day this kid came up to me, we’ll call him Rob, who was undiagnosed autistic, His parents claimed he was just slow but all the staff agreed that Rob was autistic. Now Rob was 15, I had never worked with him or his class as I mainly was a carer for a young girl in first year.

Anyway Rob comes up to me and stands about 5 feet away and just looks me dead in the eyes at lunch, I’m standing trying to keep track of 15-30 kids on the playground but he’s just staring at me for about five minutes, thinking maybe he needed the loo or something and was shy I asked was he okay, he just screamed at the top of his lungs, “She’s sick!!! She’s sick!!!!! You’re mommy is sick!!!!! She’s sick!!!” The kid had tears in his eyes and his class carer came running to see what was wrong and escorted him inside, he just kept screaming, “Your mommy’s sick!!!!”

I put it down to him just being a little wired that day in lunch and me being a new face in the school and a six foot five dude to boot maybe he was intimidated.

He was then off sick for a few days and the left our school a little over a week later right around the time my mom was diagnosed with breast and ovarian cancer, needless to say I was freaked the fuck out. Forgot all about it until right now, thanks Reddit.” — AcoupleofIrishfolk

14. A young girl hit on me

“Not a teacher but a coach, one of my 17 yr old swimmers asked me out for a drink because she just got a fake ID. When she turned 18 asked me take her out to a strip club. Said no both times. Yes was hot.” — mandingoBBC

15. He stroked his knife during class

“I’m a grad student TA.

I had a student in one of my discussion sections, very smart guy, ex-military, about 10 years older than the rest of the class. This is a freshman-level class, so he’s also older than me. He was always the one to participate most in discussion, always playing devil’s advocate (in a good way), basically the perfect student.

Only bad thing: He had a habit of putting his pocket knife on the table and stroking it during class. He tended to sit within a couple of seats of me, so this was more than a little unsettling. After the third time, I had to ask the professor to tell him to stop bringing his knife to class, because I was worried I might trigger something and get stabbed if I asked him myself. 27 year old ex-military guy vs. 22 year old female… Not a fight I wanted to be in.” — deesta

16. He stabbed another student

“Stabbed another student. A sharpened pencil right into the wrist. I almost passed out when I saw it happen.” — bestmindgeneration

17. He wanted to see me suffer

“I was substitute teaching a class of ‘challenging’ students in a junior high. There was a kid who was escorted from class to class that I was warned about. He came in, sat down and said nothing the entire class. As he left, he said to me, ‘I wanted to hurt you, but the little man told me not to.'” — Send_Me_Gold

18. He threatened to attack me with his cousins

“I taught English in an Arabic country which I will not name. I was there for about three years but after this happened, I packed my bags and came back home.

One of my students, who I had given a low grade for his final assignment, about 16 years old (but looked much older) basically threatened to ‘take me to the desert’ and ‘do everything to me’ with his cousins.

I dropped my piece of chalk and had to walk out of the classroom. I was visibly shaken for the rest of the day but didn’t tell any of my colleagues about what happened. I booked my plane ticket that night.” — m4nt1st0bb0gan

19. He showed me his God

“A third-grader showed me a picture he drew of a scary creature. It had sort of a shark’s head with a big fin on top, a lot of sharp teeth, and the body of an alligator (sort of). Kids draw weird stuff all the time — that’s not the creepy part. He very quietly approached me and just stood staring up at me for a few seconds with his picture in his hands. He then stated very seriously, ‘This is my god and I pray to it.'” — insteadof

20. She talked about being raped by her boyfriend

“Another post from my adult education years. Overheard this convo during class:

‘My boyfriend got me pregnant twice.’

Other girl: ‘Um, I think you had something to do with that.’

‘Nope, I was asleep when he did it.’

‘Haha, weren’t we all.’

‘No, I’m serious. I was asleep.’

‘Ha… all right hun.’

‘No, I’m not kidding. It was the only time he’d be able to get me.'” — rake2204

21. He wanted to have sex with me

“For context, I live in Indonesia where students coming to teachers houses and having their phone numbers isn’t inappropriate.

This 14yo kid came to my house a couple times to talk about English but didn’t have much to say. Then once after leaving, he texted me, ‘I want you.’ I told him to never come back and that it wasn’t appropriate.

For the next few months, when he would greet me, he would linger a little too long with kissing my hand (how students greet teachers here).

Then at a scouting event he blew me a kiss. And that was the last straw. Went to the school administration about him and haven’t had a problem since.” — Caitlionator

22. She followed me back to my house

“‘You live in a yellow house, don’t you?’

Indeed I did – in a dead end alleyway off another long alley. The only way I can think that she knew where I lived was if she’d followed me home.” — whatsonaname

23. He handcuffed his sister to the bed

“One of my students talked about how he handcuffed his sister to their mom’s bed and she didn’t get free until their mom came home and found her.” — dancingbanana123

24. He masturbates in the middle of class

“This year I’m teaching 8th grade, and I have a student who likes to masturbate in class. He is notorious for this; he wears silky athletic shorts and inevitably pops a huge boner and just strokes it in class. I had been warned that this was an issue at the beginning of the year by his former teachers, but he had been to counseling and forced to wear only long pants to school from now on, so I didn’t think about it until… One day he was propped against his desk (right next to mine, since he also liked to make animal noises and mess with the other kids) and I look over and notice his hand is in his pocket and yup, sure enough, that’s an active boner right there. I’m in the middle of talking about gerunds or something and he is literally staring at me and rubbing himself. It was the most uncomfortable moment maybe ever. For me. Not him. He didn’t seem fazed at all. He never even broke eye contact.” — crowingcacti

25. He wanted my fingernail clippings

“One of my middle-schoolers once asked me if I would save my fingernail clippings for him the next time I cut my nails. When I asked him why, he said he wanted to tape them to the ends of his fingers.” — vsbm345 Thought Catalog Logo Mark