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Someone In This Online Group Asked “What Is The Moment When You Realized, ‘My Teacher Is An Idiot?’” And 30 Folks Delivered
When it comes to learning, students have to trust that their teachers are giving them correct knowledge as doing that is the whole point of their profession. Of course, teachers can’t know everything even in their own subject and there are always new things to learn for them too, but you would expect that they know more than you.
That’s not the case everywhere as people on Reddit shared many stories of how their teachers didn’t know elementary things like that a dolphin is a mammal or that jellyfish are living creatures. It’s not clear how these gaps in education formed, but it’s scary as teachers are passing them over to the students. The thread started when A_Purple_Penguins asked “What is the moment when you realized, ‘My teacher is an idiot?’” and more people answered than you would expect.
More info: Reddit
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#1
2nd grade teacher had our class naming the hottest things we could think of. A few kids already said the most obvious, like "sun" and "fire" so the third thing I could think of off the top of my head was "lava". Turns out lava isn't real, then the teacher had the whole class laugh at me for it. Made me feel stupid as hell for years until I learned that lava is real, and my teacher was a d**k.
May 2 years ago
How is this happening? The worst I ever had in school was an English (as a second language) teacher who pronounced 'cute' as 'chute' and a science teacher who argued that both the bible and evolution was right, and that Adam and Eve's kids married people who evolved from monkeys, but he was just religious. Not stupid. How do these people make it through the education system far enough to become teachers?
Marilyn Ransberry 2 years ago
The same way people live through a pandemic without believing scientists
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Spikey boi 2 years ago (edited)
Yea lava isn't real, it's a conspiracy made by Mickey Mouse and the Lizard People to prevent us from going to hawaii and just stay in our house and subscribe to Disney+ (/s)
Bacony Cakes 2 years ago
I call libel! The lizard people would never do a thing like this!
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Nimitz 2 years ago
My 6th grade Social Studies teacher led the class in a round of laughing at me for making up a word when I correctly used the term ethnocentric. Rot in hell Mr. Smulders.
Marco Conti 2 years ago
I came across a flat earther that made a video about a similar argument. He believed volcanoes were fake and lava could not be real "because rocks don't melt". Is this some sort of bug going around? Like a mental virus?
Craig Reynolds 2 years ago
I'm a d**k and I would have gone back to that school to find that teacher, walked in, and interrupted the class to tell them what he did and what an idiot their teacher is but hey, that's just how I roll.
Vinny 2 years ago
Sorry for the typo- You all should watch ... rest is good lol
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Randolph Croft 2 years ago
Lava is molten rock on the surface, magma is not on the surface. I had to go through something similar when in high school.
Riley Quinn 2 years ago
I think I'd be tempted to pay that teacher a visit, even after all this time.
Seadog 2 years ago (edited)
Having read all of these posts and most of the comments, it's sad that our youth are being educated by such idiots. Where I live teachers are actually teaching things as fact that are long since proven to be false or flat out lies. But since we have the "no child left behind" lunacy, the education system doesn't care because they're going to pass and graduate no matter what.
Bad Alchemy 2 years ago
Teachers get paid shamefully low wages in the US, and their school budgets often don't cover essentials needed for classes - like paper, pencils, crayons, notebooks, rulers, and other basic school supplies - such that they will buy them using their own money. In that mix of the truly dedicated and long-suffering there are also complete nitwits. If we got rid of theme, there wouldn't be enough teachers for our schools. Let's raise the pay and the bar will rise with it.
redties_and_blackparades 2 years ago
that sucks and that teacher should’ve gotten fired or at least warned
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#2
My biology teacher in high school asked me a question regarding something she was talking about, the answer of which was projected onto the whiteboard with an overhead projector. I looked at the whiteboard, and she placed her left hand over the part that had the answer so as to conceal it. I told her that the text was still projected onto her hand and that I could see it. She was visibly upset, and then she proceeded to place her right hand on top of her left hand. I bursted out with laughter, she kicked me out and called my parents.
#3
My Algebra teacher had us take 10% off a number to find 90%, then to undo it she said take 10% of the 90% and add it back in. That is not how math works. I called her on it and she told me I was mistaken in front of the whole class. After class she admitted I was right but didn't want to confuse everyone else. Lady, doing simple math wrong is what confused everyone else.
#4
Teacher asked what is the language spoken most in the world. I replied Mandarin, he said that's an orange and the correct answer is Spanish.
#5
I was around 5 or 6 years old and drawing pink trees. They were supposed to magnolias: obviously I was too young to remember the name but I did know them from the annual blossom viewing my family did each year, and my neighbours had one in their front garden as well. My teacher looked past and said, "there's no such thing as pink trees." I tried to explain that there are, "even my neighbours have one", etc. but she cut me off and told me to stop lying. I'm still kind of mad about that lol
#6
I had a teacher who told us alligators never attack people because they are vegetarians.
#7
Not my teacher, but my daughter's teacher.
In Science class, they were discussing the scenario of a Skittle dropped into water. Pointing out the red cloud coming from the candy, he asked the class what was happening to the coating in that context.
Student said, "It's dissolving."
He argued, "No, it's going away."
#8
My wife and I were in a birthing prep class...we're both in the medical field, but didn't advertise it to the teacher. She was actively advising parents not to have their babies vaccinated against Hep B as newborns because she thought you get Hep B exclusively from eating contaminated foods, and couldn't see why newborns would need such a thing.
It's one thing to be wrong, and it's another to be wrong and advising a room full of first-time parents with your ignorance.
Snorkeldorf 2 years ago (edited)
At our birthing prep class one of the fathers had a reasonable question. He wanted to know if his wife was given an epidural during labor could it be a problem for the baby because he himself had a severe allergy to one of the medications within an epidural. Her smart *ss reply was "Well you won't be the one getting it, will you?". Very educational.
#9
When I was being bullied almost every day and cried to her for help. She shrugged it off and ignored me.
So i settled it myself with violence by punching the bully square in the eye. He left me alone ever since.
"Violence is never the answer" they said :go to a teacher" they said.
HA
#10
She thought dolphins were fish.
No amount of arguing by third grade me was enough to convince her otherwise.
"They live in the ocean, they're fish."
RandomX123 2 years ago
Take her to show her some "fish" called saltwater crocodile, and take that "crocodiles don't attack" teacher along.
#11
In 2nd grade when she spelled February wrong (as "Febuary") on the board and I went up to her desk to inform her and she explained to me how she was right and I was wrong. This was the beginning of my realization that most people are stupid.
#12
I had a teacher argue with me that "sate" isn't a word. I had to pull out a dictionary to prove them wrong.
Later on I had to do the same thing with die being the singular of dice.
#13
When she wrote “amateur code” on my first project in C++ class. No s**t it’s amateur it was my first program lol.
ShriSha Kamboj 2 years ago
okkk....so how can ANY programming language be amateur??? like I cant program n I find it kinda difficult...scratch that very difficult to make sense of.
#14
Teacher doing basic 10 year old anatomy: “can anyone tell me what this is?”
Me, whose family’s fav show was House: “the trachea?”
Teacher: “no, this is called the wind pipe”
#15
I remember the time my 4th grade teacher tried educating us on what makes an animal. One of the criterion she came up with was all animals have brains.
I asked, “What about jellyfish? They don’t have brains.”
To which she replied, “Well then they aren’t alive, are they?”
ShriSha Kamboj 2 years ago
she a jellyfish in disguise??.......anyways she must just have known it that time
#16
I had a teacher who gave a lecture he had already given, word for word. He asked a question which I answered correctly. He asked how I got the answer and I said "I wrote it down the last time you gave this lecture"
#17
I had a substitute ask me to stop reading and "pay attention" while the rest of the class ran roughshod over them--jumping on chairs, throwing things, talking over them. But no, I was the problem for pulling out a book from my bag and reading quietly, waiting for the teacher to regain control of the class.
Spikey boi 2 years ago
She most likely called on you because you were quietly reading a book instead of being all crazy, making you look like an easier target, she wanted to make an easy example out of you.
#18
"WWII was started when Hawaii bombed California" -My 9th grade english teacher
#19
Gave me an F for plagiarism, I didn’t steal anything and she refused to show me her proof because this was high school and I wrote at a “University level” her words… she stated she didn’t need to show me the proof when I requested it.
Lawrence Clark 2 years ago
similar thing happened to me! i spent ages writing this short play about something or other - parents got called in , teacher was trying to get me kicked out of the school as I 'must have copied it word for word off a real play' - at which point my mum produces all of my notes - rewrites, drafts etc etc from her handbag. She is a LEGEND. i kinda took it as the highest form of praise but the teacher was still a t***t , either way
#20
After a substitute chemistry teacher heated a test tube over a Bunsen burner:
While securing it in a test tube holder, he absent-mindedly handed the red hot test tube to a student standing nearest to his demonstration.
The boy, trusting that "it must be okay," got his hand badly burned and, of course, the glass test tube shattered on the floor.
#21
When my ENGLISH teacher (I’m from Italy so we have English as a second language) said “lettoochay” instead of lettuce. She was also one of the worst teachers and ended up getting replaced.
#22
My eighth grade social studies teacher thought Panama was a part of Canada. Why? Because in the geography textbook we were using, Panama and Canada were colored in with the same shade of pink.
ShriSha Kamboj 2 years ago
arent like lakes inside a country and the oceans outside the same color too?
#23
My English teacher asked when Woodrow Wilson was president, we were reading scarlet ibis and it mentioned him, so I raise my hand. I replied both his election dates, 1912 and 1916 if I’m not mistaken. She tells me no. I assumed I got the dates wrong and it was actually 1914 and 1918 or something. Then some girl raises her hand and answers “Nine teen hundreds” and she says yes.
#24
He would brag about how many people fail his class
#25
Had my high school geography teacher insist that Antarctica is a country.
I lost points on the test because of it…
#26
My geography teacher when he explained that self checkouts had something to do with the mark of the beast and the end times. I don't remember all the details.
Spikey boi 2 years ago
Those self checkouts are very evil, those screens, and the ability to check your own groceries, almost, satanic.... (/s)
#27
when she started showing medieval Europe’s trade routes on a South America map
#28
I had an English teacher in high school who was obsessed with poetry, and one afternoon she got into an argument with half the class over a poem because she was reading the word written and printed "noone" (no one) as "noon" and refused to believe it could possibly be "no one" even though that was the only way the line in the poem made remotely any sense.
#29
My science lecturer said that water in a kettle boils at 60 degrees Celsius. BOILS!!
Snorkeldorf 2 years ago
I did not know that but I never realized my lack of knowledge could have gotten me a teaching job. Heck.....with all the things I don't know, I could have been a biochemist!
#30
She said since we were learning about the formation of democracy that she will let the class vote whether I passed or failed a presentation.
What do you think ?
Walking On Sunshine 2 years ago
As a child in the 5th grade, my teacher told us that oranges were green on the tree and were injected with orange dye to make them orange. It was in Texas, where I had moved after growing up in California. I was confused because I grew up watching orange groves next to where I lived. My grandmother was so angry she went to the school and chastised my teacher for telling her granddaughter a fallacy. Classic grandma, miss you every day.
Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
This is hilarious and horrifying at the same time.
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Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
This is my own gaffe, and it's funny. Kinda unrelated, but we had a Scottish art teacher in primary school. I could have sworn she said, 'what is the difference between a lion and a sheep?'. My maybe grade 3 self put my hand up confidently. 'A lion says 'rawr' and a sheep says 'baa'.' Turns out she was actually saying, 'what is the difference between a line and a shape'. I hope it still makes her laugh to this day as it does me.
Ryan Deschanel 2 years ago (edited)
At least, they do all the research, compiling and selection for us.
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alloutbikes@yahoo.com 2 years ago
Had a teacher tell me I answered the question "how did the poem make you feel?" incorrectly.
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Nikki Sevven 2 years ago
The problem, at least in the US, is that to be a primary school teacher, one must have a degree in education. The education major is the silliest, most made up collection of crap that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject(s) you'll be teaching.
Jef Bateman 2 years ago
Had a math teacher tell me that if you don't want to round out pi, you could use 22/7, which is pi exactly. I did the quick arithmetic and saw that this was far from true. I told her that 22/7 repeats while pi keeps going, but she told me it didn't. When I tried to show her, she said, "Why don't you argue with my husband, who is a physicist at national lab?" I would have liked to, but he never showed up. I don't mind a teacher being wrong, but at least allow the student to present the evidence.
S. 2 years ago
Plus, there is also the argument that pi is an irrational number; it cannot be expressed as the ratio of two numbers, ie, p/q. Whereas, 22/7 is being expressed in the form of p/q, it is being expressed as the ratio of 22 and 7, meaning it's rational. 22/7 is only a close approximation for pi, but it's not right to say they're the same.
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Abby Heather 2 years ago
As a high school teacher, I can attest to the fact that elementary school teachers are the least knowledgeable!
Karen Lyon 2 years ago
Oh, just some of them are. Your experience is not universal.
Load More Replies... Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
Small town, and I am 'friends' on social media with some of my kids' teachers. Their posts alarmed me. Clearly, English education is to be achieved at home. If you're a teacher and you don't know the basics like, 'your and 'you're', 'there, they're and their' and, 'two, too and to', you have no business teaching primary school children.
Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
Equally, I am studying my RNs currently, and despite communication being one of the major components of nursing, the amount of grammatical and spelling errors in both the learning material and assessment feedback confounds me. Communication is both verbal and non-verbal. It's the difference between 'helping your Uncle Jack off a horse', and 'helping your uncle jack off a horse'.
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Bobby 2 years ago
I remember when my oldest was learning conservation of mass and I thought it would be cool to give him an extra fact and teach him that only applied to chemical and physical reactions, but that it doesn't apply to nuclear reactions. His teacher told him I was a liar. That was a fun parent teacher meeting afterward. He could have told me "we're just trying to teach the basics, I don't want him confusing the other kids with details we aren't going to address" but he stood his ground with me and asked what references I had to tell him he was wrong... well I did work as a nuclear plant operator for years and that was kind of required knowledge... I just don't share things beyond the scope of my kids lessons anymore
bonnyatlast 2 years ago
Not me but my mom. She went to college for an Associates degree when I was in high school. She turned in a paper to her English class that she got a failing mark on because a women could not possibly know all that technical data. She had to have plagiarized it. She was the safety inspector for the local post office. She had a large area of post offices she had to do safety inspections on. It was her job she wrote about. For me however was in college when I was taking an education class to teach art. I had to come up with lessons plans and lecture a class on the subject. I was also in an anthropology class at the time studying Physical and Cultural Anthropology. I combined Art with it to show how to paint portraits of people from different cultures with different skin types. Used a complicated graph to show how to mix the paint to achieve a variety of true skin tone. I failed because I was told there is no proof of different physical characteristics between races. Not kidding.
bonnyatlast 2 years ago
And yes I did point out that each cultural group has a wide variety of skin types within it. Not just one set color. At the time you could only purchase peach (Coral) or chocolate (Umber).
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Isabella King 2 years ago
In 5th grade, I read a book about the United States' second war with England. Went to ask my history teacher about when it happened because the year wasn't mentioned in the book, and she told me it didn't exist. I didn't know it was a real war until 8th grade
Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
There seems to be a lot of controversy about when the actual start date was. Was she saying WWII didn't actually happen, or was she saying there is no real concrete evidence of the start date?
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Lsai Aeon 2 years ago
Guess I'll start with 1st grade. The teacher wrote a sentence on the chalkboard, incorrectly. Our assignment was to correct the sentence then we could go to lunch. For some reason, mine wouldn't be correct until the lunch period was over. Jokes on her, I wrote it correctly once, then didn't touch the paper again, just kept taking it to the teachers' lounge to have her tell me it was still wrong. This happened on an almost daily basis for the entirety of my 1st-grade year. I was left alone in the classroom with the lights off and even if I brought my lunch with me I was not allowed to have it. There were instances like this all the way through my last year of high school.
John Baker 2 years ago
You get what you pay for. If you aren't willing to pay enough to attract good teachers, you'll get bad ones.
Ruben M 2 years ago
My 11th grade English teacher was the schools chelating coach. She had never taught English before. We consistently had to correct her on pronunciation of our weekly vocabulary. I didn't like her from the start because she was the ex wife of my favorite 8th grade teacher. She cheated on him with one of the other coaches at the high school.
Barbara Skolly 2 years ago
I am Canadian and did volunteer work one summer in Chicago in 1996. I spent an afternoon at a school with kids and noticed the maps were not to scale. USA looked bigger than Canada, that was all I needed to know about the American education system and indoctrination of thinking that USA is the greatest country on earth
Karen Lyon 2 years ago
@Barbara Skolly: Where that teacher got that, I do not know. I can assure you that is NOT typical. I grew up here, never EVER saw that in my all my years as a student or my 32 years as an educator. I have been many schools, classrooms, not to mention teacher supply stores. What you are talking about is not even close to the norm. Indoctrination my foot.
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Abby Parker 2 years ago
A few years ago I discovered teachers in some schools (UK) were allowing students to state the contraction ‘would’ve’ as ‘would of’ and marking it correct!!
Cathy Jo Baker 2 years ago
Guys, on behalf of my dumba** colleagues, I apologize. I'm a high school teacher, and I will be the first to admit when I'm wrong. Not all of us are like the ones in the above situations. Sorry!!
Lara Verne 2 years ago
We once discussed meteorites in class, and I had one at home, so i brought it to school. Teacher insisted that my stone was fake, because it should me green, like all moldavites .She probably cofused them, since meteorites fall from space to Earth's surface, and moldavites are formed by a meteorite impact. I pointed it out, but my teacher told me meteorites and moldavites are the same and should be green. It was impossible to convince her othervise.
Marnie 2 years ago
In my observation in Minnesota, USA, elementary school teachers are not all that fond of learning, especially of facts. I'm sure there are a variety of reasons many of them got into teaching, but love of learning never seemed like one of them in any teacher I've ever known. (They might have had a love of SCHOOL when they were kids. That's how my sister - a schoolteacher - was. But my sister never once read a non-fiction book just for the fun of learning. She couldn't even believe I had read one of her college textbooks for fun even though I didn't "have to".)
Joyce Blodgett 1 year ago
I had more than one teacher like these throughout the school years. A couple of them nearly ruined me for doing any kind of art, calling me "stupid," "untalented," "inept," "dumb," etc. One of them, supposedly an artist herself, did the most hideous paintings ever, but considered herself to be "far superior" to my mother, who was an excellent artist, and who had had her work hung in City Hall. The teacher was extremely jealous of Mom, but took it out on me. I've been drawing every day of my life for the last 57 years despite that witch's yammering, and am quite good at what I do.
Unslaadahsil 1 year ago (edited)
I remember the moment in my "Economy and Civics" high school class when the teacher declared with absolute conviction that politicians are amazing people who work hard for the good of the population. I'm not sure if she had drunk way too much of the koolaid or was just a complete idiot.
alloutbikes@yahoo.com 2 years ago
Algebra 2 student teacher asked if I had done the homework. I said yes and she wanted to know if I understood it. Again I said yes. She wanted to borrow it. I said as long as she didn't call on me. She did and I said loudly that since she had my paper I didn't have the answer in front of me.
Shawn Ruester 2 years ago
My 2nd grade teacher actually called me "r******d" to my face and told my parents the same thing. Note though this was in the 1970s. After extensive testing it was discovered my reading difficulties was due to being Dyslexic, but otherwise I have a very high IQ and am in no way "r******d".
Derek Clark 2 years ago
I remember how we had an elderly teacher who taught us English. He pronounced words really awkward though (I live in the Netherlands) and I corrected him on it when I said 'The' wasn't pronounced as 'Zsuh' as he did. I was eight and he said I wasn't English so I couldn't know, I refused to use his pronunciation. I was already watching BBC with subtitles, but he didn't believe me.
Viv Hart 2 years ago
Two points - #1 Where were these teachers educated, and where did they qualify? #2 - Bored Panda, I'm getting so tired of these posts about stupid people, I keep getting the impression that they are in the US. Please give us posts about clever people, who inspire their pupils. My history and geography teachers in High School, inspired me to learn more about their subjects, which is what got me travelling for much of my life. One term report from my History teacher had the comment - 'Vivienne has an enquiring mind.'
Amy Broderick 2 years ago
Freshman chemistry in HS. That in a room filled with students I couldn't smell pure oxygen. Okay maybe it didn't 'smell' but it was definitely different than the air not in your little jar.
Efia 2 years ago
in elementary school, our teacher asked us about instruments we have at home, and I said "Balalaika" (my dad collected a lot of instruments, even exotic ones) and she insisted, that this instrument doesn't exist and is just part of my imagination because she never heard of it. Even if she doesn't know this instrument (it's from russia and looks like a triangle-guitar) she could've believed it insted of playing the "I'm older and wiser" card. The other time my religion teacher in high school gave me 0 points for a task we should answer with our OWN OPINION. how are you able to rate that?! Some teachers are so over the top that I still don't have words for it :D
Ham Explosion 2 years ago
One time my first grade teacher told us the white parts (not the cuticles) on our fingernails were because we werent having enough milk --- one time a kid tried to murder me by choking me out (same first grade teacher) went okey and said to SCREAM next time (how the f**k am I supposed to scream)
Daniel Atkins 2 years ago
Had a creative writing Professor In college that said success as a writer is only selling a few thousand books while alive then having you work "discovered" after you die. Then somehow they become classics. What an utter defeatist self loathing idiot it was like he was discouraging everyone just because he wasn't a well known author.
buttonpusher 2 years ago
Lol I remember in primary school when our class learned about the teacher's edition books. Pretty much everyone decided anyone can be a teacher, no matter how stupid you are, because they all feckin cheat and use the books.
athornedrose 2 years ago
had a teacher who thought "a modest proposal" was a historical document, not a work of satire. she told us there was a time when the irish ate their babies to survive...
Littlemiss 2 years ago
Had a teacher tell me that putting toys that have been washed, outside to dry was a waste of time because the sun wouldn't sterilise them, just dry them. She wanted to put away toys still soaking wet. She continued by stating that you don't put dirty unwashed clothes on the clothes line for the sun to clean! P.s. she was a preschool teacher who didn't think children were Petrie dishes.
PebbleBoy Gaming 2 years ago
I wish I could have put something on here, I had a teacher ask what the answer to a math problem was, I said one thousand, she told me I was wrong, someone else answered with ten hundred and was told they were correct. In my mind I questioned my sanity because apparently 1,000 and 1000 aren't the same thing.
Meredith Tucker 2 years ago
I had a teacher who taught us that the sky was blue because it reflects off the ocean.
Goth mouse (they/them) 2 years ago
My teacher got really angry with me when i said id seen frogspawn in late summer and she insisted it only appears in spring, no idea why i was punished for saying that 🙁
Ryan Deschanel 2 years ago
I was told that the Sun turns around Earth, that the "affaire des fiches" was a catholic conspiracy, that Marie-Antoinette was guilty in the affair of the diamond necklace... And a lot of other stupidities that you can only hear in a public school.
Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
I believe my own public school education was above average, and we moved states a lot when I was a kid, so it wasn't just the luck of the draw with one school. Yes, in some cases, public school teachers are not educated enough to be teaching, but don't bash on public schools as a whole.
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Arti Doane 2 years ago
Since teachers are now there to indoctrinate not educate, none of this surprises me.
Yort 2 years ago
Shakra is one of several acceptable and used pronunciations.
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Walking On Sunshine 2 years ago
As a child in the 5th grade, my teacher told us that oranges were green on the tree and were injected with orange dye to make them orange. It was in Texas, where I had moved after growing up in California. I was confused because I grew up watching orange groves next to where I lived. My grandmother was so angry she went to the school and chastised my teacher for telling her granddaughter a fallacy. Classic grandma, miss you every day.
Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
This is hilarious and horrifying at the same time.
Load More Replies... Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
This is my own gaffe, and it's funny. Kinda unrelated, but we had a Scottish art teacher in primary school. I could have sworn she said, 'what is the difference between a lion and a sheep?'. My maybe grade 3 self put my hand up confidently. 'A lion says 'rawr' and a sheep says 'baa'.' Turns out she was actually saying, 'what is the difference between a line and a shape'. I hope it still makes her laugh to this day as it does me.
Ryan Deschanel 2 years ago (edited)
At least, they do all the research, compiling and selection for us.
Load More Replies... alloutbikes@yahoo.com 2 years ago
Had a teacher tell me I answered the question "how did the poem make you feel?" incorrectly.
Load More Replies... Nikki Sevven 2 years ago
The problem, at least in the US, is that to be a primary school teacher, one must have a degree in education. The education major is the silliest, most made up collection of crap that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual subject(s) you'll be teaching.
Jef Bateman 2 years ago
Had a math teacher tell me that if you don't want to round out pi, you could use 22/7, which is pi exactly. I did the quick arithmetic and saw that this was far from true. I told her that 22/7 repeats while pi keeps going, but she told me it didn't. When I tried to show her, she said, "Why don't you argue with my husband, who is a physicist at national lab?" I would have liked to, but he never showed up. I don't mind a teacher being wrong, but at least allow the student to present the evidence.
S. 2 years ago
Plus, there is also the argument that pi is an irrational number; it cannot be expressed as the ratio of two numbers, ie, p/q. Whereas, 22/7 is being expressed in the form of p/q, it is being expressed as the ratio of 22 and 7, meaning it's rational. 22/7 is only a close approximation for pi, but it's not right to say they're the same.
Load More Replies... Abby Heather 2 years ago
As a high school teacher, I can attest to the fact that elementary school teachers are the least knowledgeable!
Karen Lyon 2 years ago
Oh, just some of them are. Your experience is not universal.
Load More Replies... Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
Small town, and I am 'friends' on social media with some of my kids' teachers. Their posts alarmed me. Clearly, English education is to be achieved at home. If you're a teacher and you don't know the basics like, 'your and 'you're', 'there, they're and their' and, 'two, too and to', you have no business teaching primary school children.
Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
Equally, I am studying my RNs currently, and despite communication being one of the major components of nursing, the amount of grammatical and spelling errors in both the learning material and assessment feedback confounds me. Communication is both verbal and non-verbal. It's the difference between 'helping your Uncle Jack off a horse', and 'helping your uncle jack off a horse'.
Load More Replies... Bobby 2 years ago
I remember when my oldest was learning conservation of mass and I thought it would be cool to give him an extra fact and teach him that only applied to chemical and physical reactions, but that it doesn't apply to nuclear reactions. His teacher told him I was a liar. That was a fun parent teacher meeting afterward. He could have told me "we're just trying to teach the basics, I don't want him confusing the other kids with details we aren't going to address" but he stood his ground with me and asked what references I had to tell him he was wrong... well I did work as a nuclear plant operator for years and that was kind of required knowledge... I just don't share things beyond the scope of my kids lessons anymore
bonnyatlast 2 years ago
Not me but my mom. She went to college for an Associates degree when I was in high school. She turned in a paper to her English class that she got a failing mark on because a women could not possibly know all that technical data. She had to have plagiarized it. She was the safety inspector for the local post office. She had a large area of post offices she had to do safety inspections on. It was her job she wrote about. For me however was in college when I was taking an education class to teach art. I had to come up with lessons plans and lecture a class on the subject. I was also in an anthropology class at the time studying Physical and Cultural Anthropology. I combined Art with it to show how to paint portraits of people from different cultures with different skin types. Used a complicated graph to show how to mix the paint to achieve a variety of true skin tone. I failed because I was told there is no proof of different physical characteristics between races. Not kidding.
bonnyatlast 2 years ago
And yes I did point out that each cultural group has a wide variety of skin types within it. Not just one set color. At the time you could only purchase peach (Coral) or chocolate (Umber).
Load More Replies... Isabella King 2 years ago
In 5th grade, I read a book about the United States' second war with England. Went to ask my history teacher about when it happened because the year wasn't mentioned in the book, and she told me it didn't exist. I didn't know it was a real war until 8th grade
Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
There seems to be a lot of controversy about when the actual start date was. Was she saying WWII didn't actually happen, or was she saying there is no real concrete evidence of the start date?
Load More Replies... Lsai Aeon 2 years ago
Guess I'll start with 1st grade. The teacher wrote a sentence on the chalkboard, incorrectly. Our assignment was to correct the sentence then we could go to lunch. For some reason, mine wouldn't be correct until the lunch period was over. Jokes on her, I wrote it correctly once, then didn't touch the paper again, just kept taking it to the teachers' lounge to have her tell me it was still wrong. This happened on an almost daily basis for the entirety of my 1st-grade year. I was left alone in the classroom with the lights off and even if I brought my lunch with me I was not allowed to have it. There were instances like this all the way through my last year of high school.
John Baker 2 years ago
You get what you pay for. If you aren't willing to pay enough to attract good teachers, you'll get bad ones.
Ruben M 2 years ago
My 11th grade English teacher was the schools chelating coach. She had never taught English before. We consistently had to correct her on pronunciation of our weekly vocabulary. I didn't like her from the start because she was the ex wife of my favorite 8th grade teacher. She cheated on him with one of the other coaches at the high school.
Barbara Skolly 2 years ago
I am Canadian and did volunteer work one summer in Chicago in 1996. I spent an afternoon at a school with kids and noticed the maps were not to scale. USA looked bigger than Canada, that was all I needed to know about the American education system and indoctrination of thinking that USA is the greatest country on earth
Karen Lyon 2 years ago
@Barbara Skolly: Where that teacher got that, I do not know. I can assure you that is NOT typical. I grew up here, never EVER saw that in my all my years as a student or my 32 years as an educator. I have been many schools, classrooms, not to mention teacher supply stores. What you are talking about is not even close to the norm. Indoctrination my foot.
Load More Replies... Abby Parker 2 years ago
A few years ago I discovered teachers in some schools (UK) were allowing students to state the contraction ‘would’ve’ as ‘would of’ and marking it correct!!
Cathy Jo Baker 2 years ago
Guys, on behalf of my dumba** colleagues, I apologize. I'm a high school teacher, and I will be the first to admit when I'm wrong. Not all of us are like the ones in the above situations. Sorry!!
Lara Verne 2 years ago
We once discussed meteorites in class, and I had one at home, so i brought it to school. Teacher insisted that my stone was fake, because it should me green, like all moldavites .She probably cofused them, since meteorites fall from space to Earth's surface, and moldavites are formed by a meteorite impact. I pointed it out, but my teacher told me meteorites and moldavites are the same and should be green. It was impossible to convince her othervise.
Marnie 2 years ago
In my observation in Minnesota, USA, elementary school teachers are not all that fond of learning, especially of facts. I'm sure there are a variety of reasons many of them got into teaching, but love of learning never seemed like one of them in any teacher I've ever known. (They might have had a love of SCHOOL when they were kids. That's how my sister - a schoolteacher - was. But my sister never once read a non-fiction book just for the fun of learning. She couldn't even believe I had read one of her college textbooks for fun even though I didn't "have to".)
Joyce Blodgett 1 year ago
I had more than one teacher like these throughout the school years. A couple of them nearly ruined me for doing any kind of art, calling me "stupid," "untalented," "inept," "dumb," etc. One of them, supposedly an artist herself, did the most hideous paintings ever, but considered herself to be "far superior" to my mother, who was an excellent artist, and who had had her work hung in City Hall. The teacher was extremely jealous of Mom, but took it out on me. I've been drawing every day of my life for the last 57 years despite that witch's yammering, and am quite good at what I do.
Unslaadahsil 1 year ago (edited)
I remember the moment in my "Economy and Civics" high school class when the teacher declared with absolute conviction that politicians are amazing people who work hard for the good of the population. I'm not sure if she had drunk way too much of the koolaid or was just a complete idiot.
alloutbikes@yahoo.com 2 years ago
Algebra 2 student teacher asked if I had done the homework. I said yes and she wanted to know if I understood it. Again I said yes. She wanted to borrow it. I said as long as she didn't call on me. She did and I said loudly that since she had my paper I didn't have the answer in front of me.
Shawn Ruester 2 years ago
My 2nd grade teacher actually called me "r******d" to my face and told my parents the same thing. Note though this was in the 1970s. After extensive testing it was discovered my reading difficulties was due to being Dyslexic, but otherwise I have a very high IQ and am in no way "r******d".
Derek Clark 2 years ago
I remember how we had an elderly teacher who taught us English. He pronounced words really awkward though (I live in the Netherlands) and I corrected him on it when I said 'The' wasn't pronounced as 'Zsuh' as he did. I was eight and he said I wasn't English so I couldn't know, I refused to use his pronunciation. I was already watching BBC with subtitles, but he didn't believe me.
Viv Hart 2 years ago
Two points - #1 Where were these teachers educated, and where did they qualify? #2 - Bored Panda, I'm getting so tired of these posts about stupid people, I keep getting the impression that they are in the US. Please give us posts about clever people, who inspire their pupils. My history and geography teachers in High School, inspired me to learn more about their subjects, which is what got me travelling for much of my life. One term report from my History teacher had the comment - 'Vivienne has an enquiring mind.'
Amy Broderick 2 years ago
Freshman chemistry in HS. That in a room filled with students I couldn't smell pure oxygen. Okay maybe it didn't 'smell' but it was definitely different than the air not in your little jar.
Efia 2 years ago
in elementary school, our teacher asked us about instruments we have at home, and I said "Balalaika" (my dad collected a lot of instruments, even exotic ones) and she insisted, that this instrument doesn't exist and is just part of my imagination because she never heard of it. Even if she doesn't know this instrument (it's from russia and looks like a triangle-guitar) she could've believed it insted of playing the "I'm older and wiser" card. The other time my religion teacher in high school gave me 0 points for a task we should answer with our OWN OPINION. how are you able to rate that?! Some teachers are so over the top that I still don't have words for it :D
Ham Explosion 2 years ago
One time my first grade teacher told us the white parts (not the cuticles) on our fingernails were because we werent having enough milk --- one time a kid tried to murder me by choking me out (same first grade teacher) went okey and said to SCREAM next time (how the f**k am I supposed to scream)
Daniel Atkins 2 years ago
Had a creative writing Professor In college that said success as a writer is only selling a few thousand books while alive then having you work "discovered" after you die. Then somehow they become classics. What an utter defeatist self loathing idiot it was like he was discouraging everyone just because he wasn't a well known author.
buttonpusher 2 years ago
Lol I remember in primary school when our class learned about the teacher's edition books. Pretty much everyone decided anyone can be a teacher, no matter how stupid you are, because they all feckin cheat and use the books.
athornedrose 2 years ago
had a teacher who thought "a modest proposal" was a historical document, not a work of satire. she told us there was a time when the irish ate their babies to survive...
Littlemiss 2 years ago
Had a teacher tell me that putting toys that have been washed, outside to dry was a waste of time because the sun wouldn't sterilise them, just dry them. She wanted to put away toys still soaking wet. She continued by stating that you don't put dirty unwashed clothes on the clothes line for the sun to clean! P.s. she was a preschool teacher who didn't think children were Petrie dishes.
PebbleBoy Gaming 2 years ago
I wish I could have put something on here, I had a teacher ask what the answer to a math problem was, I said one thousand, she told me I was wrong, someone else answered with ten hundred and was told they were correct. In my mind I questioned my sanity because apparently 1,000 and 1000 aren't the same thing.
Meredith Tucker 2 years ago
I had a teacher who taught us that the sky was blue because it reflects off the ocean.
Goth mouse (they/them) 2 years ago
My teacher got really angry with me when i said id seen frogspawn in late summer and she insisted it only appears in spring, no idea why i was punished for saying that 🙁
Ryan Deschanel 2 years ago
I was told that the Sun turns around Earth, that the "affaire des fiches" was a catholic conspiracy, that Marie-Antoinette was guilty in the affair of the diamond necklace... And a lot of other stupidities that you can only hear in a public school.
Girl Anachronism 2 years ago
I believe my own public school education was above average, and we moved states a lot when I was a kid, so it wasn't just the luck of the draw with one school. Yes, in some cases, public school teachers are not educated enough to be teaching, but don't bash on public schools as a whole.
Load More Replies... Arti Doane 2 years ago
Since teachers are now there to indoctrinate not educate, none of this surprises me.
Yort 2 years ago
Shakra is one of several acceptable and used pronunciations.
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