Why did Romesh Ranganathan lock a Pupil in a Cupboard?

Romesh Ranganathan revealed that he once locked a pupil inside a cupboard.

The comedian appeared on the Happy Hour Podcast, which is hosted by Jack Dean and Stevie White.

During the podcast, they discussed Romesh’s time as a teacher, prompting him to recall the bizarre incident.

After Jack recalled a horrible thing his art teacher told him, Romesh was asked if he said anything mean to his students.

He said: “I never really raised my voice. I was quite a relaxed teacher.

“I always used to think that if a teacher started shouting, it wasn’t ever very frightening, it was sort of funny and then you’d start to try and get them to do that again.

“I would never lose my temper but I did do stuff that was bad.”

Romesh then explained that he was teaching probability and towards the end of the lesson, he wanted to someone to explain what was taught.

Addressing his students, Romesh said: “I want you to imagine that an alien arrives on Earth, I was trying to make it interesting.

“An alien arrives on Earth and says what is probability and I want to explain it to him.”

The comedian then explained that he needed a student to pretend to be an alien.

When one student volunteers, Romesh puts them inside a cupboard to “transform” them into an alien.

“So I put the kid in the cupboard and transform him into an alien and then I realised the cupboard was locked. I shut it and locked it, I didn’t have a key.”

After realising his mistake, Romesh tried to pull open the door, to no avail.

He went to another classroom and asked another teacher how to open the cupboard. After being told the cupboard can be opened from the inside, Romesh returned to his classroom.

When he instructed the student on how to open the door, Romesh was met with some strange sounds as the student had ‘transformed’.

The student continued to pretend to be an alien whilst still inside the cupboard.

Romesh added that it “took so long” to get the student to unlock the cupboard.

During the podcast, Romesh Ranganathan also spoke about dealing with difficult students. He detailed how teachers are trained to know that the student is not the problem, their behaviour is.

“So you don’t go, ‘You’re messing up my lesson’. You go, ‘What you’re doing is messing up my lesson’.

“You separate them from their behaviour.”

Watch the Segment with Romesh Ranganathan