A staff toilets ‘crying room’ and other wild ways teachers cope – but sometimes you just have to embrace black humour in class

It’s not easy being a teacher, and sometimes you just need to vent. But there’s also plenty of opportunities to embrace black humour at the bizarre stuff your students say.

Teachers have shared the bizarre classrooms moments that left them struggling not to burst out laughing – or in need of a good cry.

Picture this: An Aussie teacher walks into a staff toilet and discovers the ultimate breakdown station.

Tissues? Check. Motivational posters? Yep. Essential oils? You betcha. A comfy crying chair? Oh, absolutely.

This relief educator has seen crazy things across multiple schools, but nothing quite like this therapeutic toilet set-up. The cherry on top? A poster strategically placed above the tissue box declaring: “The trick to having happy students is first to be happy yourself.”

Other teachers could clearly relate.

“Whatever happened to curling up under the front office desk?” one replied.

“I put a sign up in our toilet saying, ‘please limit crying sessions to 10 minutes’,” another said.

A "crying station" in the staff toilets at an Australian school. Every workplace should have one. Picture: Reddit

Someone else suggested some spoof motivational posters that would make any staffroom howl: “Employees must stop crying before returning to work”; “The beatings will stop until morale improves”; “It gets worse before it gets worse.”

Nothing like a bit of black humour to survive another school day, right?

So what else makes teachers crack up?

One teacher had a student take a sickie for jet lag. The exotic destination causing this travel fatigue? A holiday from Melbourne to ... wait for it ... Sydney! They were clearly suffering from severe domestic displacement disorder. We’re also guessing they were asleep during geography lessons.

Then there’s the brutal honesty department. A teacher was lamenting to their class: “Sir, we must be your worst class.” The teacher, trying to be nice, replied: “No you guys are actually my best class.” The student’s response? “I feel sorry for you, sir.”

Ouch.

In the “Jesus saves ... your grades” category, one student wrote “Jesus. Jesus is the answer” for every response in an exam. Plot twist: it was a maths exam. Apparently this divine intervention strategy is surprisingly common in Catholic schools.

Kids also have zero filter when it comes to personal observations. One teacher embracing their silver fox era was cheerfully informed by a student: “You look really old now.” Cheers, mate.

You might tell yourself you still look pretty good for your age, but your teenage students probably think you're at least 75.

A seven-year-old told their pregnant teacher: “Miss, you look so slay with a baby!” Meanwhile, year two students were baffled by their neighbour teacher’s bump: “But how did the baby get in there? Did she eat it?!?!?”

That’s infinitely better than the student who helpfully suggested their teacher fly to Turkey for a hair transplant. Savage.

Then there’s the work that writes itself.

After a civics unit on what it means to be Australian, students had to complete the sentence “Students love ...” One gem: “Zooper doopers, sausage sizzles, voting.” At least someone was paying attention in class. Sort of.

Geography gets interesting when kids belt out “west vagina” instead of “West Virginia” during Take Me Home, Country Roads. John Denver would be ... confused.

John Denver always made sure to enunciate that line carefully.

Cultural mix-ups are spectacular too. A year 7 student spent the term asking for Japanese homework help, then proudly delivered 3-4 perfect sentences in Japanese to their teacher at term’s end. Small problem: the teacher was Korean.

Teachers also report the random questions that break their brain: “Do crayfish get depressed?” “If you were a furry, what would you be?” and “I like spitballs. They are like warm, wet hugs.”

A prep student once asked: “Does the school bell wake the teachers up in the morning?” When told teachers wake up in their own beds at home, the kid was genuinely shocked that teachers don’t sleep at school.

Other absolute pearlers include a student requesting a “brain break” at 9am, wondering if black and white photos mean there was “no colour back then”, and defining respect as “going outside to do my farts”.

That’s right class, humans only gained the ability to perceive colour in the mid-1970s.

But the crown jewel belongs to this teacher:

He was on a year 7 camp, and while trudging up a hill, he was having a heart-to-heart with the kids about his life and loneliness. He was holding it together pretty well until one kid delivered the knockout punch: “Only thing Mr can pull is a push door.”

Absolutely. Destroyed.

That, folks, is how teachers survive. One laugh at a time. And if they’re lucky, there’s a comfort station in the toilet block for when they need a good old cry.

Share your funny classroom stories in the comments, or email us at [e-mail]

Originally published as A staff toilets ‘crying room’ and other wild ways teachers cope – but sometimes you just have to embrace black humour in class