(upbeat music)

- My name is Stephanie and I

substitute teach and I teach ESL.

I have been teaching for three years.

- Hi my name is Tselane.

I teach science and I've been teaching for five years.

- My name is Vanessa and I've been

a pre school teacher for over 12 years now.

- Today we're gonna talk about teacher horror stories.

And I got some.

- Recently I was teaching a program

for students who come here from China.

You teach them pronunciation

and vocabulary and help them with their English

and, at the end, we have a ceremony where some of the

students get to come up and talk about their experience.

One of the students got up there and he said,

"This speech is gonna be about,

"(bleep)".

We all thought that's what he said.

And looked at each other, just like what is going on?

But apparently he said, thanking.

"This speech is about thanking."

So it was a really awkward moment.

I don't think any of the students noticed 'cause they

were kind of in the same boat of learning English.

The other teachers kind of were like, great job

teaching your students this summer Stephanie.

- So, since I'm a science teacher,

I do a lot of experiments to get the kids engaged.

One of the experiments I did, had to do with digestion

and I took giant bowls of oatmeal with oil in it

just to kind of give the presence of

like food digesting in the stomach,

and I used nylons, that are really stretchy

to squeeze the oatmeal through to kind of

give the idea of like how intestines work.

So it was working, everything was great,

the kids were having a blast and then they

were getting to the end of squeezing it out,

they started to realize what was happening

that it's simulating like going to the bathroom.

One of the kids was getting nauseous

and they kept saying, "I feel sick."

And I was like, "Oh okay well

"you know, take a break outside."

And then they came back in and then, once they were

finished, one of the students just projectile vomited.

All over everything in the table.

Then another student vomited because the other student

vomited, it was such a mess, it was so disgusting.

So, after both students puked,

it was total chaos.

Everybody started screaming, kids were freaking out,

couple of 'em ran out of the classroom.

Jumping, throwing their desks, just overly exaggerating

their behavior of course I mean, I get it, it's throw up.

And then the smell, it just ruined everybody.

'Cause nobody wants to smell oatmeal

and then you have that throw up smell and it was right

before lunch so it pretty much messed up the whole day.

Nobody wanted to eat.

I definitely had to hold back, I definitely had to

take a deep breath, gather myself together

and try to stay calm for the rest of the class 'cause

if I started whiling out then, it would've been over.

Of course it was a natural reaction to just a smell

so nobody got in trouble but,

definitely the talk of the town.

Definitely a lot of the teachers, the principal.

There were some laughs, some giggles.

Teachers coming to check.

Lot of Febreeze, lot of Febreeze.

Lot of kids now wanna take my class.

They're like I wanna go to science class 'cause if

it's that cool where they throw up, I wanna go.

So it turned out to be positive.

This was a first and hopefully last

situation.

- First year teaching, I was an assistant.

I'm new in the field, trying to prove

who I am, prove my worth as a teacher.

And it's nap time, or it's just the end of nap time.

So the kids are all like starting to wake up

and sometimes they're a little emotional

when they wake up from their little cots so,

I was helping this one child that was crying,

I was kind of patting his or her back, I can't remember.

And then another child comes to me kind of crying as well.

Since I was busy helping this child,

that child just comes and I'm squatting down

so she sits on me you know, facing me,

her legs around me, this way

so I'm consoling her, also trying to help this child here,

I didn't think anything of it.

Until, I started feeling something warm in this area.

I look down, I lift her off of me

and she had peed on me.

Full on, peed all over me.

So I just stand up and I'm like,

"Oh my gosh, okay go to the bathroom."

But she had already finished so there was no point.

As I stood up, I realized that it

looked like I had peed on myself.

The placement of it was just perfect.

Some of the children were still sleeping so they didn't

really notice and my lead teacher was kinda laughing at me.

Was like, "Okay you can go home,"

If it was a little barf on me or something

you know, just kinda clean it off

but since it looked like I had full on peed on myself,

I got to go home for the day.

But, after that day, that little girl was my favorite.

She totally marked her territory.

(laughing)

I think it's just a funny story that I'll bring up every

now and then and it happens to other teachers at some point.

Even in the center that I'm at now,

I've had a child sit on me after having an accident so,

I got pee on my leg, it's just,

pre school is full of pee.

(laughing)

At this point, I just carry extra clothes in my car.

Like, it is what it is like, you just

have to be ready, it's part of the job.

(upbeat music)