"It Was Boring As Hell": 12 Essential Lessons Teachers Learned From Their Students

Over on Quora , tons of teachers answered the question, "As a teacher, what is the harshest truth a student has ever taught you?" The responses are pretty informative, and they serve as a reminder that, even as we teach others, we really do never stop learning:

1. "That I am not unbiased. A student was in a required freshman-year class where they're required to write a paper on any topic, which allows us to intervene early with students who might need tutoring. A student sat in the back of the room, cowboy hat tipped down, boots on the chair in front of him, chewing tobacco. The title of his paper was something like 'The Use of Allegory and Metaphor in the Works of John Steinbeck.' I assumed he'd copied or paid for it. I invited him to my office to discuss the paper, and he tipped back his hat, looked me in the eye, and said, 'Well, ma'am, when I was on the rodeo circuit, my partner gave me this book The Red Pony , because I had to do a school book report. Since it was about a horse, we figured it would be good. When I read it, it was about a lot more than a horse.' He went on about all of Steinbeck's books and what they meant to him personally. I was SO glad I didn't accuse him of cheating."

— AnnMaria D.M. , Quora

2. "I knew a student who was a pleasure to have in class. One day, he was sent to my office because he wasn’t wearing his school uniform. I asked him why, and he said his mother hadn't had a chance to do laundry. I told him I needed to speak with his mother, and he said she'd be there to pick him up after school. At 3:00, I walked outside with him and went over to the car, and I noticed that it was full of clothes and bags. When I asked about his uniform, his mother said, 'I’m really sorry, but we've been living in the car for about a month.' It turns out they were homeless. I referred them to the district services department, and they were able to find them shelter and food, and I learned a powerful lesson that day about courage, tenacity, and class."

— Rick W. , Quora

3. "Just before class a student asked me if he could go to the bathroom. He said, 'Don't I need a pass?' Our principal was very strict and required every student to have a pass, but I told him, 'Just go! Hurry back.' He returned 10 minutes later, looking very dejected. At the end of the period, I said, 'You okay?' He replied, 'I got detention for being in the hall without a pass.' 'Didn't you say I advised you to go ahead without one?' 'I didn't want you to get in trouble, sir.' I realized this student was superior to me in sensitivity and caring. I could've never imagined doing such a thing when I was a high school student. I was humbled. The incident showed me not to underestimate the existing values of those whom I presumed to teach."

— Michael H. , Quora

4. "I was giving a lecture to 50 high school students. I got drunk before the lecture. I just wanted the paycheck. I put my feet up on a desk and began reading from my notes in a dull monotone. The students tolerated about 10 minutes of this crap before one girl put her hand up and said, 'Can you make this less boring?' She was right. It was boring as hell. Teaching is not about collecting a paycheck. The onus is NOT on the students to make it interesting. Good teaching is not just rattling off a bunch of facts while the students scribble down notes. I handed out pages from Hamlet and got the whole class up and acting, and the class livened up. I went on to make my living from teaching and was never again told that my lessons were boring. Teaching can be a hard gig, but it’s damn rewarding when you do it properly."

— Benjamin M. , Quora

5. "There was a young woman in one of my college classes who was frequently late. It happened often enough that it became irritating and mildly disruptive. One day, I asked her to stay after class so we could chat. She apologized about the frequent lateness and said, 'My mother is dying of cancer and can’t be left alone.' When she told me that, the few minutes didn’t seem that important. We made a deal that she could come late when she needed to. Another classmate and friend was already catching her up on anything covered before she got there. Lesson learned: We never know what burdens people are carrying. We should give people the benefit of the doubt and get the facts before assuming they are lazy, insincere, or purposely doing something to annoy us."

— Mel B. , Quora

6. "It was one of the most blatant cases of plagiarism I have encountered. A student was taking my theology class at a study abroad program in Rome. He turned in a paper written by another student who previously took the same class. He changed the name, the date, and nothing else. According to school policy, I could either fail him for the assignment, fail him for the class, or recommend suspension from the university. I leaned toward him failing the class, but the dean and director of the program both preferred he just fail the assignment. So he did, and he passed with a D in the class. A few years later, LinkedIn recommended him as a connection. He was working as a consultant at a firm, likely making three times my salary in his first year. He certainly underlined the fact that salary is rarely a good indicator of hard work, competence, integrity, or intelligence — and it always surprises me when people assume that it is."

— Andrew B. , Quora

7. "I have a baseball bat in one of my school cabinets. Today, I opened the cabinet, and one of my sixth grade students saw the bat and asked, 'Why do you have a baseball bat, Mr. Franco?' I said, 'In case anyone ever comes into the school and tries to hurt us. It’s a way of defending my students. That, and if we ever play baseball.' One of my other students — without any tinge of irony, humor, or sarcasm — asked, 'When would we ever play baseball?' For my kids, a school shooting sounds more likely than going outside to play baseball."

— Justin F. , Quora

8. "I was trying to rush through an explanation of a complicated physics concept before the bell rang, and the top student in my class raised his hand and said, 'You know, just because you're up there teaching, doesn't mean we're learning.' I'm sure many students have thought something like this in millions of classes around the world, but they don't say anything (it would almost always be terribly impolite). The only reason this student said it, and got away with it, is that he was my 16-year-old son."

— John K. , Quora

9. "My mom was a teacher. She taught middle school. She loved to teach. One day, she got back home quite upset. She had been having a bad day, and took her anger out on one student. After she had finished her rant, she looked in the fear in the student’s eyes and realized that even though she hadn’t said anything, the girl’s eyes told her that she had just lost any trust she had built up with her. That day taught her that her position could cause positive changes in kids, but it could also cause fear that she could never undo."

— Lavrentiy E.D. , Quora

10. "I was teaching an undergraduate course on Mathematical Programming. I just completed a very complex formal proof in class. It took me over 20 minutes of very boring and dense algebra. Then this student raises his hand and tells me: 'Perhaps this job could be done in this way...' He was able to prove the same result in two minutes, with a very clear verbal argument. He taught me that I was not as smart as I thought. This story happened 25 years ago. That student is now a well-respected colleague and frequent co-author of mine. He is also a very good friend who's been generous enough to teach me many other things over the years."

— Miguel J. , Quora

11. "In the final year of my six years of teaching master's and PhD students, I had a student come up to me after class and kindly suggest that there was a much better way to approach the coding example I had just provided. He showed me on my computer. I realized then that our skills are only good for, at most, five years. After that, all skills are obsolete."

— Gordon M. , Quora

And finally...

12. "That some students found me to be intimidating. That’s something I learned from my first student evaluations at the end of the semester. I was shocked. I thought I was kind, gentle, friendly…but intimidating? I knew I could not be the teacher I wanted to be if the students felt that way. Incidentally, the department chair wasn’t concerned at all. I actually ranked very high in the reviews, despite that comment. Maybe most professors got comments like that. But I didn’t like it. It was a long trial-and-error process, one in which I worked to try to understand better the students' point of view — not just about the subject, but about interactions with the professor. I think I made substantial progress, since for the last two decades there have been no mentions on the year-end evaluations of me being intimidating."

— Richard M. , Quora

Entries have been edited for length and/or clarity.