30 opinion
Lessons in laughter
Students, staff talk about their most embarrassing moments in class
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By Brenna Knight
or English teacher Tanner Hawkins, she had to experience an embarrassing moment and then continued to teach her classes for the rest of the day. “I could hear it, I felt it and I immediately did not know what to do,” Hawkins said. Hawkins was training to become a teacher and on one fateful day, she was being observed for the first time. Unfortunately, as she was picking up a few papers that she had dropped on the ground, her brand new outfit ripped in the back. “I kept teaching because I could not stop, but I crab-walked back and forth at the front of the room to make sure that I never turned around which ensured that nobody could see it. Then I got a trench coat out of my car and wore that the whole day,” Hawkins said. Wearing a trench coat all day while teaching a class and being observed is sure to bring on some sweat. It made some students wonder why she was wearing warm attire in the dry, hot weather. Hawkins, being bombarded with questions from students asking why she was wearing a coat, played it off with pretending that she was fine just to save her from the embarrassing moment. Doing something discomfiting in life, especially in the classroom where students spend the majority of their first eighteen years growing up, is almost inevitable. But teachers are not the only ones who experience embarrassing moments in the classroom. There have been a handful of students who have done many humiliat-
ing things in front of their peers and instructors too. Sophomore Derek Lawrence has been tumbling for about two and a half years and has almost perfected landing all his flips. During one of his classes, Lawrence was dared to do a backflip in the middle of class when the teacher was not looking.
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I do find the moment a little embarrassing, but I found it more so funny. Derek Lawrence
Samantha Lillard
The InvestiGator t GVHS
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“I looked to my left and I saw this kid looking at me and he dared me to do a backflip for money. So of course I wanted to do it,” Lawrence said. Lawrence then proceeded to get up when the teacher was not looking and the long anticipated flip was attempted. Unluckily for him, Lawrence ended up landing on his knees because he began thinking that the teacher was going to see him once he attempted the flip. “I do find the moment a little embarrassing, but I found it more so funny. Sadly instead of getting the money, I got candy instead,” Lawrence said. Disconcerning yourself in front of
a class is awkward, but doing something humiliating in front of the entire school is on completely another level of embarrassing. For sophomore Aidan Regan, that became a reality. Regan decided to participate in the 2019-20 school year’s Boy Band. All of the boys had to do flips in the dance, but when Regan did one of his flips, the whole crowd fell dead silent. “For one flip, I was supposed to do a side flip and a scoot full. So I did the side flip and I tried the scoot full but I landed on my face in front of 3,000 people,” Regan said. During the moments of the flip, Regan questioned himself if he would land it. “I knew I wasn’t going to land the flip, so I tried it but I also tried to cushion it as much as I could,” Regan said. It seems as if the practice of trying to complete flips in random moments is an idea that is sure to go wrong, leaving students with nothing but a mark on their face and a memory sure to be on their mind 24/7. When something embarrassing happens it often seems like the whole world is thinking about it, but in reality everyone will eventually forget about it and it could be something to laugh at in the future. If a student has ever done something embarrassing while in social studies teacher Clay Mauro’s class, the moment is sure to be in his book of class stories. One of the stories in the book includes him talking with a student about rich people. Mauro brought up Bill Gates and a student responded with, “The science guy?” Confusing Bill Gates with Bill Nye is definitely one for the books for
Mauro. Almost each and every student has wanted to prank a sub. Junior Mohamed Zakraoui has had plenty of participation in undergoing a prank. During Zakraoui’s sophomore year of high school, he decided to mess with one of his substitutes in his chemistry class. “In chemistry we had this sub for three days, and on the third day I just felt like bothering him,” Zakraoui said. “I brought a speaker in before the class started. Once the bell rang, I went in the class and I sat on the opposite side of where I put the speaker in the cabinet. Five minutes later I started playing music and the sub thought it was the fish tank.” After the sub unplugged the fish tank, Zakraoui told his friend to go plug the fish tank in again so it made it seem like the fish tank was actually playing music. “So we have been doing this for about thirty five minutes and then he called the Dean’s office. Somehow he knew it was us. But I heard that after I left and went to the Dean, someone else played the speaker,” Zakraoui said. Everyone has had their fair share of embarrassing moments. People can choose to stay embarrassed by them, learn from them, or laugh at them. The best part about such unforgettable stories are being able to remember how you felt in that moment and just be thankful that it is over. Whether or not the moment was incredibly humiliating, the past cannot be changed so ultimately it is better to just laugh at yourself and hope that you don’t become an overnight viral meme.
