"He Wrote His Cheat Sheet on the Cola" - Teachers Share Their Greatest Student Pranks

The students regularly left the bathroom in a disgusting state, so I told the boys to clean it up—as if the Queen of England were coming to visit. In response, they filled the bathroom with tea and Harry Potter pictures and even put up a British flag.

One professor always considered 100% the best exam score and graded others accordingly. But once, no student showed up for the exam, so everyone scored zero—which ironically became the highest score, meaning everyone passed.

I didn’t think much of Szilvi’s smarts, but she always aced her tests. After finishing all her exams, she revealed she got the answers thanks to a hacker friend. When I asked how she remembered the long answer strings (I always watched closely to prevent cheating), she showed me her bracelet covered in tiny colorful beads. Each color stood for a letter, and she simply read the correct answers off the beads.

I assigned a creative homework: write a letter as if you were a Chinese farmer during the Ming dynasty. I didn’t expect one Chinese student to submit it in Chinese, using logographic characters. Since I couldn’t read it, I had no choice but to give an A.

The school banned shorts even in hot weather, so one boy came to class wearing a skirt.

I told the kids no phone use in the classroom. When I returned, I found three students lying crosswise on their stomachs in the doorway, with their phones just outside the threshold—technically following the rule.

My first-grade class knew I kept reward candy in the bottom drawer. They’d sneak some now and then, so I theatrically locked it up. The next day, I found the drawer above the locked one completely removed—and all the candy gone. We never found out who came up with that plan.

A student asked to bring a canned cola to his history exam because of low blood sugar. His homeroom teacher confirmed he always needed something sugary. I checked the drink and it was fine. Years later, I ran into him on the street, and he told me he got an A because he had printed a fake label to cover the cola’s original one. Instead of ingredients, his notes were perfectly designed on the label.

The top student was a bit obsessive and used a different colored pen for each test answer: blue for A, yellow for B, and so on. The problem was everyone else caught on and could easily copy answers by watching the pen colors. I only realized this when it became suspicious that the whole class had perfect tests for months.

I taught younger kids and gave them the task to "name the shapes"—square, rectangle, triangle, kite, trapezoid, etc. One little girl named them: she wrote "Dóri" next to the triangle, "Peti" by the square, and so on. It made me smile.