The danger about making assumptions is that there is every chance they might be wrong.
With this in mind, it’s best not to avoid making a comment or bringing attention to these assumptions till you know for a fact they are accurate.
Saving you from needing to pull a giant foot out of your mouth.
Redditor Disastrous_Front_725 was less than mesmerized by the substitute teacher assigned to cover their English class.
Particularly when this teacher suggested a topic the original poster (OP) should write about for an upcoming personal essay.
A topic the substitute teacher assumed had to be accurate based on information they had been given.
Rather than correct them, the OP instead decided to have a little fun with this substitute teacher.
After being scolded by the school counselor for doing so, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), where they asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for pretending ‘I didn’t know I was adopted’ to make my teacher embarrassed?”
The OP explained how their substitute teacher ended up being the victim of a prank:
“OK, so I’m in high school, and this was in my English class.”
“Our real teacher is on paternity leave, and we have a long-term substitute.”
“So yesterday she was telling us she wants us to write personal memoirs about something very important in our lives, and she goes about listing various examples for different students.”
“She told me I could write about being adopted and how I felt when my parents told me.”
“Now I must have made a face then because I’m not adopted.”
“I have two dads, but they had me through surrogacy.”
“So technically, there was a legal adoption for my non-bio dad, but one of my dads is my bio dad, and my bio ‘mom’ is my other dad’s sister who donated her egg and carried me.”
“I think it would be a stretch to call me adopted. Also, the sub has no basis to even know any of this because as much as I’ve written in class, it is just that I have two dads.”
“Anyway, she’s kinda old school and doesn’t like when we talk too loud (which to her is talking at a normal indoor level on group assignments), make any normal faces, and whatever.”
“She basically called me out on making a face and was like, ‘OP if you don’t want to write about being adopted, you can choose another important topic to your life, maybe how you help your dad at home?'”
“One of my dads has cerebral palsy and is mostly blind from optic neuropathy; I did write briefly about that in the intro assignment with our other teacher, so he must have left them with her to get to know the class.”
“I was confused, so I said, ‘I’m not adopted’.”
“She just put her hand over her heart and goes, ‘Oh, honey’.”
“So now my brain, which was lagging, caught up, and I realize she’s only thinking I’m adopted because I have two dads.”
“So at this point, I’m like whatever, I’ll just play into it, so I look upset, and I’m like, ‘I didn’t know I was adopted!'”
“She’s kind of panicking a bit and telling everyone to just start writing something.”
“A lot of my friends are laughing under their breath because they know I’m not adopted, so she’s telling everyone to quiet down, and it’s not funny, and to get to work.”
“I’m like ; what do you mean I’m adopted?'”
“She’s trying to tell me not to worry about it and just ask my dads when I get home.”
“And I’m like, ‘how can I be adopted?'”
“So she just sends me to the school counselor, and I told her this story basically, and she basically gave off the vibe that it was a sh*tty thing to mess with the sub that way, and I could have just explained I’m not adopted because now I’ve made her worry unnecessarily and embarrassed her.”
“I don’t think parts of my life are up to her to decide what I want to share or not, and I feel like it’s on her if she feels embarrassed for assumptions she made.”
“Maybe that makes me the a**hole?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The Reddit community unanimously agreed that the OP was not the a**hole for pranking their substitute teacher.
Everyone agreed that the OP’s comeback was brilliant, and they had every right to put the substitute teacher in her place, as she shouldn’t have brought up personal information of any kind in front of the class to begin with.
“Daughter in grade 3 ( who is foreign adoption doesn’t look like us), another child in the class kept saying your real parents gave you away, why didn’t your real parents want you, those aren’t your real parents, etc. asked counselor to talk to child because hurting my kid’s feelings.”
“Counselor said another child was just telling the truth, so we had to live with comments.”
“Daughter high functioning on the spectrum so doesn’t always think fast for comebacks so we taught her to say to the nasty child, ‘your parents had to take you, they didn’t get to pick the child they wanted, you were born they had to take you.'”
“‘My parents picked me out of lots of children and traveled to another country to get me.'”
“‘So I don’t care if you think they aren’t my real parents.’”
“Later that day, I was in the counselor’s office because of a nasty child crying. My daughter hurt his feelings, and his mom had to be called because he was so upset.”
“Mom was livid.”
“Counselor said what are you going to do?”
“I said the same thing you did when I complained, nothing because everything my child said was true.”
“Counselor just looked shocked.”
“Principal not happy, not counselor had to receive training and nasty child learned to leave my child alone.”
“Happy Ending.”- Slightlysanemomof5
“NTA.”
“Teacher is completely inappropriate.”
“Good for you mirroring back her BS.”
“The counselor had a crappy perspective.”
“She and the teacher are not respecting you as a person, including your privacy.”
“What about the teacher blatantly talking about you then conveying pity (?), your supposed ignorance (?).”
“School staff should not state personal life details (or insinuations) in class.”
“This is a breach of privacy.”
“You and your family should submit a complaint and/or meet with the principal/teacher and counselor.”
“There is no stopping this person; imagine her asking others: ‘You can write about being homeless, your gma’s ‘past’, twin’s death in the ice last year…'”
“Imagine if topics were stated aloud in class for her to write about.”
“Best to you!”- DesertSong-LaLa
“NTA.”
“The sub was out of line bringing in your personal life.”
“Unless you give permission to share your paper, she does NOT have any right to talk about it to the class or to the other teachers.”
“You need to tell your Dads about this.”
“They should write an email about your right to privacy and send it to the principal, the teacher, the school counselor, and the person at the district in charge of counseling.”
“They do need to blast this way out there because the cause of so much teacher lunchroom gossip is constantly circulated.”
“That could be the source of her assumption that you were adopted.”
“The sub needs to be fired, a new one brought in.”- WesternTumbleweeds
“NTA.”
“That’s f*cking hilarious.”
“Discussing one student’s parentage in front of the entire class is a landmine, and she stepped right on it.”
“Now she’ll know better than to try that again with someone who actually might be harmed by the discussion.”- Venetrix2
“She was out of line even if you were adopted, and her feeling ’embarrassed’ is no one’s fault but her own!”
“She owes you an apology for being invasive and talking about it in front of the whole class!”
“No one took into consideration how embarrassed you may have been!”
“NTA, but the teacher and counselor are!”- MoreSobet1999
“NTA.”
“Had a teacher would do genealogy, and after assigning it one time, a kid didn’t show up for the week, come to find out adopted.”
“The teacher immediately changed it to where people could choose their genealogy or anyone.”
“A celebrity, a neighbor, and said that as long as they showed someone and tried, she didn’t care.”
“She changed the entire handling of a subject so a kid could have a choice, and off chance, the kid is adopted and doesn’t know the family can direct them to another choice.”
“All this to say your sub as an a** and shouldn’t have said anything.”
“It’s also stupid. In high school, I could have written on my hair and the effect that had on me.”
“Yes a yt child in the 90’s with curly hair really f*cked me up.”
“The counselor was probably just trying to show other sides, who knows, but tell your dads ’cause that’s bananas.”- _parenda_
If it’s easy to see why this substitute teacher thought the OP was adopted, it was wrong to bring it up in front of the whole class.
There was every possibility that the OP might not have been kidding and been unaware that was the case.
One can only hope this experience has taught this sub to choose her words a bit more carefully and keep the private lives of her students private.