Math Teacher Threw Her Entire Class A 'Pool Party' For Passing A Test Without Getting Any Answers Wrong — But It Was Actually A Punishment
She enlisted the help of her students’ parents to teach them a lesson about cheating.
Evgeny Atamanenko / Shutterstock.com Reflecting on her years in high school, a TikToker named Taylor recalled a “pool party” her math teacher threw for her class after they all passed a test.
With help from parents, the teacher crafted the perfect plan to teach her students a lesson about cheating in her classroom.
“Not a single one of us got an answer wrong on the math test,” Taylor said. “Our whole class passed.”
The math teacher threw a ‘pool party’ for her class, only for them to realize it was actually a punishment for cheating.
“Our math teacher had this huge house with a big pool in her backyard,” Taylor explained. “The next day, after she graded our tests, she came into the classroom with a smile.”
It wasn't a stretch to conclude that the students had cheated. Every single student passed her math test with a perfect score. She probably even laughed about their shenanigans, although obviously unacceptable.
“She said that this was the only class that had passed the test, and she wanted to throw everyone a pool party that weekend.” To the excitement of her class, she quickly drew up permission slips for the kids to give their parents, who were in on the subterfuge.
After their parents signed the ‘permission slips,’ the kids quickly realized the ‘pool party’ was not intended for fun.
“She gave us permission slips to give our parents to sign off on,” Taylor said. “When I went home and told my parents, and I showed them the permission slip, they had no problem signing it.”
While Taylor originally thought that her parents signed it because of their overwhelming “pride” in her math scores, when she showed up to the party that weekend, everything became clear.
When the class showed up, ready to listen to music, eat snacks, and swim in their teacher’s pool, they came face-to-face with their parents in the backyard.
Sergey Novikov / Shutterstock.com
“It was strange because I thought a pool party was supposed to have snacks and stuff … music and everything, but we didn’t hear any music,” she recalled. “The pool was covered and when uncovered — the pool was dirty.”
When their parents handed them nets, and their teacher told them to start cleaning, it became clear that the class cheating plan had backfired — clearly, they didn’t all study together and ace the test by themselves. “Our teacher said it was punishment for cheating on her math test.”
While it seemed like a lighthearted way to teach her students a lesson and was clearly a different time from the educational system today, many people in the comments couldn’t help but theorize about the ethicality of “punishments” in the classroom. “This is funny; I can’t even lie,” one person wrote, “but I’d never invite students to my home as a teacher. Just give them detention and be done with it.”
Many teachers online argue against ‘punishments’ for cheating in their classrooms — ‘Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose.’
For many teachers, punishing students for not turning in work or cheating on tests isn’t truly helping the root of the problem — it only creates a transactional relationship between reward and punishment.
Unusual punishments, similar to this teacher’s “pool party,” fail to address the reason why students struggle academically or choose to cheat in the first place.
“Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose,” teacher Josh Monroe explained in a recent TikTok. If you don’t address the reason students are cheating, whether it’s personal struggles at home or a learning disability keeping them from absorbing the content, these students are likely to slip through the cracks.
Despite public discourse arguing that students today need to be held accountable, there’s a line in the sand when it comes to punishments. You can hold a student accountable by digging deeper into their struggles and providing a safe space for them to ask for help.
Teachers undoubtedly have a lot on their plates, but students still need this kind of help. It’s a humbling reminder of the changes needed in the educational system at large — including setting up new spaces and structures for struggling students.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.