Fun Questions to Ask a Teacher
The long version. Twenty-eight questions about the person at the front of the room rather than the subject on the board, meant to be dipped into across a year rather than worked through in one sitting: their own school days, the first lesson they ever taught, the cupboard nobody has emptied since before they arrived, and what teachers actually talk about at lunch. If you want a shorter set built for a first lesson, the fun questions to ask your teacher does that job, and the funny questions for teachers is the one built purely for laughs.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What's the funniest thing a student has ever said to you?
Why ask it
Teachers collect these and rarely get asked for them, so this is the easiest possible opener. If they hesitate, it is usually because the funniest one is not repeatable, which is worth a laugh in itself.
What was your own reputation at school, in one sentence?
Why ask it
Every teacher was somebody in a classroom once, and the distance between that person and the one at the front is usually the best part of the answer. Ask what their reports said about them.
What did you want to be before you became a teacher?
Why ask it
Most teachers did not plan on it at eighteen, and the earlier ambition often still shows in how they teach. Expect musicians, engineers, vets and one or two people who wanted nothing in particular.
What were you taught at school that turned out to be wrong?
Why ask it
Facts, spellings and whole units of a curriculum get revised, and teachers notice because they had to unlearn it and then teach the new version. The examples are usually specific and slightly indignant.
What's on your desk that has nothing to do with teaching?
Why ask it
Concrete and observable, so it works even with a teacher who dislikes talking about themselves. The object almost always comes with a story, and the story is the real answer.
What is the best thing about the room you teach in, and the worst?
Why ask it
Teachers hold strong views about their rooms and are almost never asked. Radiators, windows, the door that sticks, a display board inherited from somebody who left in 2011. A small question that opens into a long answer.
How do you learn everyone's name so quickly?
Why ask it
It is a genuine skill that nobody ever credits, so the answer tends to be detailed and quietly proud. Expect an actual method: seating plans, photographs, or simply saying it thirty times a day.
What do you do in the ten minutes before the first lesson?
Why ask it
This gets the shape of a real day rather than a philosophy of teaching. The routine is usually small and practical, and it explains why turning up with a question at 8:25 never goes well.
Which book, film or piece of music did you first meet through having to teach it?
Why ask it
Plenty of teachers come to love something only after explaining it forty times. Ask whether it survived the fortieth time, because a fair number of things do not.
Which lesson goes wrong no matter how carefully you plan it?
Why ask it
A real question that is still easy to answer, because every teacher has one. The reasons are often mundane, an experiment that never works or a text that always falls flat, and hearing an adult say so is reassuring for a student who is struggling.
What's something students think you don't notice?
Why ask it
Usually answered with amusement rather than reproach, and the list is longer than any student expects. It works better asked in a group than one to one, where it can sound like an invitation to confess.
What's the best thing a student has ever made or handed in?
Why ask it
Teachers remember these in detail years later, and the choice shows what they actually value in work, which is rarely the top mark. Ask what happened to it; some of them still have it.
What did you get wrong in your first year of teaching?
Why ask it
Experienced teachers are candid about this when asked plainly, and it is the most useful question here for anyone considering teaching. A tidy answer about being too keen means they have given it in a job interview before.
What is the cheapest thing in your classroom that you could not teach without?
Why ask it
The answer is nearly always a timer, a whiteboard pen, a box of spare pencils or a laminated sheet made a decade ago. It is a question about craft that a student can ask without it sounding like an interview.
What do you wish parents asked you about?
Why ask it
For a parent this is the highest value question on the list, because it moves a short slot off grades and onto whatever the teacher actually has to say. Expect answers about sleep, reading at home, friendships, or how a child behaves when the work gets hard.
What is in the cupboard in your room that has been there longer than you have?
Why ask it
Schools accumulate inherited objects and every teacher has a rough inventory of theirs. Ask whether they have ever worked out what it was originally for, because usually nobody has.
What do you do on the last day of term, once everyone's gone?
Why ask it
An unusual angle, and it catches the end of the year from the other side of the desk: an empty room, boxes to store, a very long sleep. Students never picture this, which is why the answer lands.
Is there a former student you still wonder about?
Why ask it
Ask this quietly and one to one, never in front of a class. Teachers carry a few of these for decades, and it reaches what the job costs and returns better than any question about rewards.
What's a small thing that makes a class go well?
Why ask it
The answers are practical and often tiny: the light, the seating, the first two minutes, one particular student being present. Anybody in a classroom can act on the answer, which is why it is worth asking.
What is the thing you say most often that you hope actually sticks?
Why ask it
Every teacher has a line repeated until it becomes a running joke in the room. Asking whether they think it lands turns the joke into something more honest, which is a good note to finish on.
What was the very first lesson you taught, and how did it go?
Why ask it
Almost everyone remembers this one in detail, usually with a wince. Ask what they would do differently now and you get their whole teaching philosophy without having asked for it.
What's the strangest place a student has recognised you outside school?
Why ask it
Supermarkets, swimming pools, other people's weddings. The comedy is in the student's reaction rather than the location, so ask what the student did.
What do teachers talk about at lunch that would surprise us?
Why ask it
Students assume the staff room is about them, and it is mostly about parking, printers and lunch. Whatever they choose to share tells you how relaxed they are with you.
What is something in class you have to pretend not to find funny?
Why ask it
Every teacher is holding a straight face several times a week. The answer is safe because the joke is on their own composure rather than on any particular student.
What do you carry in your bag every day that you have never once needed?
Why ask it
Spare batteries, a stapler, a book they meant to read in a free period. It is a fast, low-stakes question that works even with a teacher who dislikes talking about themselves.
What is the nicest thing a parent has ever said to you?
Why ask it
Teachers hear from parents most often when something is wrong, so the good messages get kept. Expect a short quotation rather than a summary, because they usually remember the wording.
What is the most useful thing you know that has nothing to do with your subject?
Why ask it
Teachers arrive from other jobs and other lives, and the leftover skill is often unexpected. Ask where they learned it and the conversation stops being about school entirely.
What happens to all the work nobody collects at the end of the year?
Why ask it
A genuine mystery to students and a genuine irritation to staff. The answer involves boxes, a deadline, and eventually a recycling bin, and it lands better than any lecture about looking after your folder.
Asking a teacher well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Pick your moment
- Not in the five minutes before a lesson, and not in the corridor between them. A teacher walking to a room with a register in hand cannot give you an answer worth having.
- The end of a lesson, a break they have offered, or a form period are the realistic windows. Ask whether now is a good time, and accept the answer.
- At a parents' evening you have a fixed slot, often ten minutes or less. Choose one question, ask it first, and save the light ones for another day.
- If you are writing something for a school paper, ask for fifteen minutes by email and send two or three questions ahead. Teachers give far better answers when they have not been ambushed.
It depends who is asking
If you're a student
Stay in the first half of the list. First jobs, their own school reputation, the room they teach in and lessons that always go wrong get a real answer from almost any teacher. Ask one, listen, and do not use it as a route out of the work, which is the quickest way to end the conversation.
If you're a parent
The best use of a short slot is to ask what they wish parents asked about, then be quiet. You will hear something more useful than a grade. Bring one specific observation from home, since school only shows them the version of your child that turns up there.
If you're interviewing them
The strongest material sits in the middle of the list: first year mistakes, the very first lesson they taught, the last day of term. Ask for one example after every general answer, and check with them before publishing anything that identifies a student.
What a teacher cannot answer
- Anything about another student: their marks, their behaviour, their home. Teachers are bound on this even when they would like to help.
- Questions about colleagues or how a school decision was made. Asking puts them somewhere with no good answer available.
- Their pay, their contract, or which class they hoped to avoid. Fair topics between colleagues, awkward from a student or a parent.
- Predictions about a grade. They will hedge, and they are right to, so ask what would make the biggest difference between now and the exam instead.
- If a question is declined, move on without pressing. One graceful retreat usually buys a longer conversation later.