School days

Chemistry teacher setting his beard on fire – we have been doing organic chemistry and studying the ‘cracking’ processes at refineries etc. He explained how oil was cracked into fractions with the more dense substances being produced first.

He set about showing us a fractional distillation of a crude oil sample that he had – each fraction was put onto a small ceramic tile and he tested the volatility of each one using a lit splint.

The first he tried was bitumen – not very volatile so little flame when he lit it. This continued for a couple more samples until he came to Naptha ( i think) – for some reason he bent over the tile to light it – there was a flash, a bang then a crash as he reacted to the flash and triped over his chair. There also followed the nasty smell of burning hair as his beard / hair was smouldering.

Different chemistry teacher – putting sodium into water – normally
a teacher would cut a thin slice from the sodium disc (about the size of a extra strong mint) and put the rest away.
Not this teacher – she held the jar of sodium over the water tank as she tried to get one disc out – unfortunately about half the contents came out and into the water – there was a almighty bang , the water tank shattered and the teacher, her desk and most of the front row were rather damp.

In a physics class we had a fellow pupil carry a battery from the class back to the store – unfortunately he had it upside down so we had the pleasure of watching his school blazer disintergrate during the rest of the day.

Same physics class – different pupil & a model of a car ignition system. Pupil did not believe how powerful the spark was – teacher said “ok, put your finger on the end of the plug then” and the pupil did – silly boy. The force managed to throw him about 7 or 8 ft across the room.

I also remember the time in assembly a pupil (well known as a trouble maker) poured lighter fluid over the arm of his blazer and set light to it.

We also had the deputy head rip out an ear stud from a pupil who kept breaking the rules re ear studs (ie must be covered up when in school)

Never liked my schooldays realy, not a time I like to remember. BW Roger

A few years back we went for sports-class to a local lake to go swimming. The water was beautiful, the weather even better so we wanted to stay. Unfortunately we still had 4 hours of class back at school, 2 hours biology and 2 hours of religious class. Therefore we decided that those hours could be missed.
We called our teachers asking if we could have the rest of the day of, since we were having an “extended sports class”. The teachers, assuming the sports teacher was there, agreed. The sports teacher had already left though, since our class was his last hour. We had a great time, but two people decided to go home since they could not swim.
So the principal of the school saw them when they collected their books to go home. He inquired what they were doing out of class. He did not like the story AT ALL. He treatened to give us detention for a week.
Fortunately it was one of the last days of the school year so we got away with it! 😎 😀

Doing my placement abroad in England (Bexleyheath/Erith, roughly 30km east of London). Had a great time but I did wonder when I had to hand in my thesis and when I had to come back home. So I called my teacher, his reaction: “ARE YOU STILL THERE!?!?!” 😮

Almost graduated but I had to do one resit, again. I had done this exam 4 times already. (operations research, kind of a cross between math and statistics and VERY difficult) The teacher therefore proposed that I would do a replacing assignment instead of an exam. I was all too happy to take the offer.
I got the assignment and it was EASY. My little brother probably could have done so if he had more patience (reading longwinded books is not his strength).
In the end I passed this “exam” with an 8 (max = 10). The highest mark on my graduation list is, you guessed it… operations research. My worst subject has the highest mark!
You just have to love the Dutch eduaction system sometimes! 😀

I too had an English teacher that was kind a useless. The only thing English about her was her upity accent. You probably know the accent I mean, whatever she said it always sounded like she was the smartest and you were the thickest person on earth.
She was very bad at explaining English, so during class I would sometimes explain the subject to some of my fellow students that were less gifted at English. You’d think the b*tch would be happy with some help, but nooo. She made clear she did not appreciate it and that she could handle it. I responded by repeating her sentence without her grammar and pronunciation error.
That term was the first in 5 year my mark was lower than a 8. I only got a 6. Of course the teacher was quick to remind me that it had nothing to do with her not liking me! Somehow, I was not convinced! 😡

One year with French class we had a wimp (nice guy though, quite funny). He really could not keep control.
The class decided that at the last day we would be making “croque monsieurs” (toast with molten cheese and ham, supposedly a French meal). Two students brought a lump of bread each, two students had the cheese, two had ham, one had the toaster machine, one an extension cord for the electricity, one had cutlery, another had plates, we had everything we needed.
The teacher was not happy with it but we managed to bribe him. He got the first “croque monsieur”. Needless to say there was not a lot of teaching that day. 😀 😎 😉

Another teacher, but still French class. You may recall that a few years ago France was testing nuclear bombs on Mururoa (sp?). Of course our class did not accept that, but who are we to stop France?
Since we had no chance stopping France, we decided to stop French! We just boycotted the teacher! We even made the local news paper!” 😎

Chemistry “accident”. We had electric plugs on the benches on which to plug heaters, lamps etc. Someone (NOT ME) wanted to know what would happen if they short-circuited. He placed a metal pen on it connecting the two plugs. The sparks got higher than I expected. Four years on the plugs still do not work. :rolleyes:

Computer networks, need I say more? 😀