"The spark is there, man. All we gotta do is fan the flames."
"Cheerilee is sweet and kind. She's the best teacher we could hope for. The perfect stallion you and I must find. One to really make her heart soar."
— Sweetie Belle, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, "Hearts and Hooves Day"
A character teaches a class of students. Usually it's elementary school students, but it can be anywhere from preschool to university. They're also single, but one or more students want that to change.
There are many reasons why a student may want to get their teacher a boyfriend/girlfriend. Maybe the student believes (or knows) the teacher is lonely. Maybe the student knows or suspects that the teacher has a crush on a specific other person (or that person has a crush on the teacher) or just thinks those two would make a cute couple. Maybe they're trying to coax them into giving out a better grade. Maybe the teacher is mean or outright nasty and the student thinks they'd be nicer if they were in a romantic relationship. Or maybe the student is just a hopeless romantic.
Whatever the reason, the student(s) proceed(s) to either search for a lover for the teacher or, if they've already got someone in mind (usually another member of the school staff), try to get them both interested. It might involve bragging about the good qualities of one or both parties, writing fake love letters, or setting up a date without one or both of them knowing (if they don't even know each other, it's a Blind Date).
Usually, this doesn't end well. Maybe the teacher ended up getting a partner somewhere along the line, maybe the date goes badly, or maybe they simply aren't interested. Occasionally, though, it works.
Sub-trope of Shipper on Deck. Compare Kids Play Matchmaker which is when children play matchmaker with their own parents, and if the two overlap, it can result in a Teacher/Parent Romance.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Assassination Classroom: Throughout the series, Irina Jelavić is shown to have deep feelings for Karasuma. The students are aware of this and attempt to help her get with him with minimal success due to Irina's immaturity and Karasuma apparently being Oblivious to Love. After Karasuma reveals he knew all along tells Irina not to let her feelings get in the way of assassination, Irina feels rejected and thinks the students were making fun of her, prompting the students to call Karasuma out on his cold words. After Irina betrays the class, Karasuma realizes he is at fault for how harsh he was and works to make amends with her, even proposing to her in his own waynote .
Fan Works
- In Cor Et Cerebrum Stephanie Brown tries to play matchmaker for one of her professors after learning she is asexual. The man Steph arranges for her to unsuspectingly meet is not looking for a relationship and doesn't appreciate the manipulative approach.
Films — Animation
- In Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, George and Harold snoop through Principal Krupp's house, realize how bitter and lonely he is from the state the house is in, and decide to set him up on a date with Edith the lunch lady, hoping that love will make him less bitter.
Films — Live-Action
- In Clueless, Cher decides to set teachers up together in a scheme to get her grades up. It actually works, as the teachers turn out to have a lot in common and are actually happy together, and Cher ends up genuinely supporting their relationship despite it coming from a selfish place initially.
Literature
- In Angela Nicely, a spin-off of Dirty Bertie, one story has Angela and her friends thinking their teacher Mrs. Darling has been crying because her eyes are inflamed (actually due to hay fever) and then they think she's been dumped, so they try to pair her up with Mr. Weakly.
- In The War with Mr. Wizzle, part of the Macdonald Hall series by Gordon Korman, the new assistant principal Mr. Wizzle is making life hell for the students with his ruthless computerized efficiency. On learning the neighbouring girls school Scrimmage's Finishing School for Young Ladies also has a new assistant principal, Miss Peabody, who is a Drill Sergeant Nasty who is running the school like a boot camp, the two student bodies join forces in an attempt to get rid of the two annoying assistants by getting them married off to each other.
- In one Reuhurinteen ala-aste story, the girls notice that Aapeli Käki and school nurse Lintunen seem to have a crush on each other, and send Lintunen roses made of toilet paper, saying that they were from Käki. Sure enough, the two are married in the Sequel Series.
Live-Action TV
- Our Miss Brooks: High School Students Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin often try to further Miss Brooks' romance with Oblivious to Love Mr. Boynton. One such example is the episode "Blind Date", where Walter and Harriet work together to reunite Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton after a quarrel.
- In Degrassi: The Next Generation, K.C. and Bianca try to set up K.C.'s mother with their quiz team coach/English teacher both because she won't be constantly around K.C. and because he feels she deserves to have some personal happiness outside of her parental duties. They do hit it off, but it ends up going nowhere as K.C.'s father reenters their lives and forces K.C. and his mom to move across the country for their safety.
- There is an episode of Full House where Michelle tries to set up her father with her kindergarten teacher. Unlike most examples, Michelle does this specifically because she doesn't have a mother and wants one, so she figures that her teacher would be a good choice because her teacher likes cleaning just like her dad.
- iCarly has "iHave a Lovesick Teacher", where Carly, Sam, and Freddie try to hook their teacher up with Spencer.
- The Ultraman 80 episode "Airport Emergency" has Takeshi Yamato (Ultraman 80 in human form, posing as a schoolteacher) being convinced by his students to go on a date with another teacher he had a crush on, with the three students playing matchmaker tagging along. This being Ultraman, the date is quickly interrupted by a kaiju attack when the monster Gabishale crashes their date. Eventually Takeshi managed to transform himself into Ultraman 80 without his date or his accompanying students noticing as usual and destroys the monster, but after the monster is defeated and Takeshi returns to his date, much to Takeshi's dismay, his date now has a crush on his alter-ego, Ultraman 80.
- In The Worst Witch episode "Love at First Sight", Mr. Rowan-Webb the wizard has a crush on the singing teacher Miss Bat. The girls make a love potion to make her fall in love with the first wizard she sees, but all the teachers end up drinking it, meaning the women teachers fall in love with Rowan-Webb, while he falls in love with himself.
Video Games
- In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, Mint, a student at Thors Military Academy, tries to set her uncle Instructor Makarov up with the school's fine arts teacher Mary Altheim. To everyone's surprise, it actually works, and Makarov and Mary are engaged by the time of the 4th game.
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball: In "The Wish," Principal Brown enlists Gumball and Darwin's help to better express his feelings to his shaky girlfriend, Miss Simian. With their help, he regains Miss Simian's love after mustering the courage to tell her how much he loves her.
- Arthur: In "Mr. Ratburn and the Special Somebody", Mr. Nigel Ratburn announces that he is getting married. His students are nervous when a woman named Patty comes to town and starts discussing a wedding with him; since Patty is tough-talking and humorless, the kids think that Mr. Ratburn, already an extremely tough teacher, will get even worse with her influence. They do their best to break up the couple by giving Patty an embarrassing video of Nigel (which backfires when Patty thinks it's hilarious) and sending Ms. Turner, the town librarian, a love note that Mr. Ratburn supposedly wrote (which doesn't work because they spell several words—including "Nigel"—wrong). They all fear the worst—until Patty reveals that she's actually Mr. Ratburn's sister, who was planning the wedding as a gift to her little brother. Mr. Ratburn is actually marrying a local (male) baker named Patrick, much to the kids' relief.
- It's Pony: In "School Dance", Annie thinks that if she can find a romantic love interest for Ms. Ramiro, (the principal) she'll cancel the school dance that she and her friends don't want to attend. So, she along with Pony go out to find various people around the city ranging from the landlord, Mr. Pancks, the park-keeper, Mr. Underwood, and even city sewerage person, Dave. Eventually, they boil down to Mr. Gravlax after eavesdropping on him showing affection for Ms. Ramiro, and finally after many stunts to call attention to her, he wins the date. However, near the end of the episode it turns out her friends actually wanted to go to the dance, despite being hesitant about going to in the first place, so Annie and her friends go chase after them to the harbor where Mr. Gravlax's boat, Dora is beginning to depart. Ultimately, in the end, Ms. Ramiro ends up calling on the dance again and attends it with Mr. Gravlax after Annie explains the misunderstanding to her.
- In The Loud House episode "Teachers' Union", Lincoln is frustrated with his coach's strict instructions but knows that he has a crush on Mrs. Johnson, the teacher, who also believes Coach P. is too strict. He tries to get them together, but due to Lincoln getting facts wrong about Coach P., it doesn't go too well, so he tries his luck getting Mrs. Johnson and the janitor together.
- My Gym Partner's a Monkey: "In Two Tons Of Fun", Adam and Jake try helping their teacher Mr. Hornbill to get the courage to ask the cafeteria lady Mrs. Tusk out on a date. However, when they are left alone in a closet, Mr. Hornbill discovers that Mrs. Tusk is already married.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Hearts and Hooves Day", the Cutie Mark Crusaders find out that Cheerilee, their teacher, is single and, because it's a Valentine's-type festival, try to find her a boyfriend. They find Big Mac (Apple Bloom's older brother) and give him and Cheerilee a Love Potion which seems to work — until they discover that the potion is actually a love poison that reduces Big Mac and Cheerilee to Sickeningly Sweethearts who do nothing but stare into each other's eyes and babble endlessly about how much they love each other, to the point of not even eating. The Crusaders thus spend the rest of the episode keeping the two separated to break the spell.
- The Powerpuff Girls: In the episode "Keen on Keane", the girls try to set up Professor Utonium with their teacher Miss Keane on Valentine's Day. It works, but things take a turn for the worse when they spend too much time on the telephone, leading to the Mayor being unable to reach the girls to save the day.
- In the Recess episode "To Finster With Love" TJ realises that their Stern Teacher / borderline Sadist Teacher Ms. Muriel Finster has a crush on Hank the Janitor. They conspire to get them together as Ms. Finster seems much nicer when Hank is around as she's in a better mood. This actually goes really well but eventually Hank and Muriel both decide to split up amicably as they are both too distracted to do their jobs and they both feel a sense of duty to their school duties.
- In The Simpsons:
- Bart is bribed into facilitating Principal Skinner and Mrs. Krabappel's relationship in "Grade School Confidential" after catching them making out in Martin Prince's playhouse.
- In "Bart the Lover," Bart snoops through Ms. Krabappel's drawers in detention. Finding all her personal newspaper ads, he realizes how lonely she is and writes her a series of love letters under a pseudonym. At first it's just a prank, but when he sees Edna sitting alone at a restaurant crying because her "boyfriend" never showed, he realizes how much he hurt her and sends one final letter saying he's moving away to let her down gently. This makes Edna feel better, and she and Bart end up spending the rest of his detention genuinely enjoying each other's company.
