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“Who’s The Dumbest Person You’ve Ever Met?“: Ex-Teacher Shared How A Student Bewildered Their Whole School
Interview With Author
The world is full of people with all kinds of character traits. We’re all different, and there are several factors that could influence our lovely and sometimes not so personalities – perhaps you won the lottery and got your mom’s wittiness, or maybe you mastered your first-class sarcasm skills during those challenging teenage years.
In other words, you’ll never know what sort of person you’ll end up meeting on your way, and it’s equally terrifying and exciting. Sometimes you get lucky and meet someone with very lovable qualities – but every so often, you might meet a person who will frankly make you question your entire existence.
This ex-teacher blessed the entire comment section on one of Reddit’s communities by sharing his odd yet somewhat amusing story. A member of the group asked: “Who’s the dumbest person you’ve ever met?” – where the author revealed what it was like teaching a very peculiar 9th grader. In the end, the comment received 17.8K upvotes and remained the number one topic of the whole thread.
More info: Reddit
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Teaching is hard, especially when one of your students keeps doing questionable things
Image credits: Enokson (not the actual photo)
Sure thing, teaching little kids and young teens is exciting, and even rewarding. You inspire them to reach their potential, whilst watching them grow and turn into these great individuals with their own unique mindsets. However, there are times when a student will make you have an existential crisis, and this story is just about that.
Ex-teacher shares a jaw-dropping story about his rather unusual 9th grader
Image credits: NoahtheRed
The story took place in Virginia back in 2012, when the OP was on his last year of teaching. In fact, Bored Panda managed to reach out to the author and the man revealed that since then he changed his field and is now working in digital product management in Las Vegas, “where I get sunburnt to hell, eat a bunch, and then try to walk it off hiking and climbing with my wife and two dogs.”
Image credits: NoahtheRed
The OP began his story by explaining how it’s fairly normal for some students to be a little bit behind, and that usually the teachers and the school are able to release the kids’ inner knowledge just by practicing and doing a bunch of activities. Besides, people that tutor folks know not to judge a book by its cover – however, in this instance, Kevin did manage to puzzle his whole school.
Image credits: NoahtheRed
The author proceeded to explain that Kevin had moved a lot, which is why he missed a bunch of test scores that were typically required when moving schools. Though, it wasn’t a huge problem, and the ex-teacher decided to just have a little chat with Kevin to see where he was at academically.
Although, when the time came, things didn’t go as smoothly as the teacher would’ve wanted. The student seemed very lost, and even led the author to think that he probably suffered from a serious case of amnesia, as there were no other explanations.
Image credits: NoahtheRed
Kevin didn’t seem to remember anything past 2nd grade, which is when the author realized that he’d have to find a new way of tutoring the kid. The first thing that made sense was to meet with Kevin’s family and counsellors to really understand why the student was so behind. Though, when the meeting was over, the man connected the dots and realized that the whole of Kevin’s family has a similar character trait.
Image credits: NoahtheRed
Bored Panda asked the author to share what kind of relationship Kevin had with his peers. To which the ex-teacher replied: “he was a spectacle, and it turned into a bit of a feedback loop… which ultimately is what I think sort of led to the whole thing being what it ended up being. He’d do something dumb, so a classmate would egg him on to do something else dumb, and then that’d beget yet more dumb things. For instance, I’m fairly confident that a good half of the stuff I wrote he did was because he got dared to or encouraged to by a classmate.”
Image credits: NoahtheRed
After that, we wondered about the most intriguing thing, which is where the student is now. The author revealed that he actually used to run into Kevin’s mom around town from time to time. Though, the last thing the OP heard, which was sometime in the middle of 2020, was that Kevin was, in fact, doing quite well.
Moreover, he ended up having a kid with a classmate the year after he was the OP’s student, and he believes that the reality of that sort of hit him like a “burlap bag full of books,” because Kevin managed to shape up and graduate on time.
Image credits: NoahtheRed
As well as that, Kevin was working in some kind of leadership capacity in a fine dining kitchen and pursuing an associates in business or something to that effect. He got married and he, his wife, and their son own a home there in town. The author also revealed that for all intents and purposes, his beloved student did better than a lot of his classmates long term.
Image credits: NoahtheRed
We also asked about Kevin’s relationship with school’s staff and the OP said: “he was one of a whole cadre of kids that were frequent flyers for detention or an AP’s office, so they were largely unimpressed. By around November or so, we’d given up on trying to figure out ‘why’ and were mostly trying to just figure out how to get him on some kind of track forward. Unfortunately, he had classmates whose behavioral issues required a lot more attention.”
Image credits: NoahtheRed
And lastly, the author said that he’s very delighted that Kevin’s story has a happy ending, and that it’s been great knowing how his story has been making people laugh for over 7 years.
Once again, this proves how no one should ever judge a book by its cover, even if the book is all weird and hilarious at times. The fact that Kevin managed to achieve what the majority of his classmates couldn’t is an incredibly positive outcome.
Image credits: NoahtheRed
Life is full of surprises, and even though the OP’s precious student might’ve made his last teaching year a living hell – Kevin repaid everyone back by making god knows how many people laugh. What do you think about Kevin?
Fellow Redditors were equally confused and amused
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What do you think ?
Eiram 2 years ago (edited)
As a person with mutiple learning disabilitues, who had worked in the school system, studied and taught kids with disabilities... Keven did things that were NOT related to any disability. Kid was obviously low IQ, and had parents who were the same. The biggest issue is a working memory disorder, which was never worked on until he had a kid and someone to remember things for. It takes time, but memory games, puzzles, and coding can improve that skill dramatically.
MyOpinionHasBeenServed 2 years ago
A disorder is still not something to shame someone for. That is why people are criticizing the teacher. You sound like a stand-up, understanding person. I have a suspected, undiagnosed learning disability, likely dyscalculia and perhaps something else. I was treated like I wasn't trying hard enough in school but didn't have enough of a vocabulary to articulate why I couldn't figure out and retain memory of math equations and sums. I've had teachers react towards me not knowing something like they're disgusted with me. My daughter has GDD and has experienced similar things. But there have always been a few school staff that had gotten it and helped out the kids that needed it and didn't allow the other kids to tease them.
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Mr. Sasquatch Guy 2 years ago
You guys should stop hating on the teacher. Kevin might have a disorder, but his parents also sound inexplicably stupid, so the majority of it probably comes from watching them. As they say, monkey see, monkey do.
Suzi Q 2 years ago
I think there are many disorders maybe genetic problems. How does this family continue to exist, do they have a caregiver, how do they earn a living. It sounds like they must be profoundly disabled if everyone in the family is like that.
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DUN DUN (she/her) 2 years ago
I feel like I was on a roller-coaster ride reading this. This is very concerning as well as hilarious both at the same time, but more concerning. This child clearly needs support and help.
Rijkærd 2 years ago
..you just summed up all I wanted to say in the best perfect way......still biased towards the hilarity of it though....
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Eiram 2 years ago (edited)
As a person with mutiple learning disabilitues, who had worked in the school system, studied and taught kids with disabilities... Keven did things that were NOT related to any disability. Kid was obviously low IQ, and had parents who were the same. The biggest issue is a working memory disorder, which was never worked on until he had a kid and someone to remember things for. It takes time, but memory games, puzzles, and coding can improve that skill dramatically.
MyOpinionHasBeenServed 2 years ago
A disorder is still not something to shame someone for. That is why people are criticizing the teacher. You sound like a stand-up, understanding person. I have a suspected, undiagnosed learning disability, likely dyscalculia and perhaps something else. I was treated like I wasn't trying hard enough in school but didn't have enough of a vocabulary to articulate why I couldn't figure out and retain memory of math equations and sums. I've had teachers react towards me not knowing something like they're disgusted with me. My daughter has GDD and has experienced similar things. But there have always been a few school staff that had gotten it and helped out the kids that needed it and didn't allow the other kids to tease them.
Load More Replies... Mr. Sasquatch Guy 2 years ago
You guys should stop hating on the teacher. Kevin might have a disorder, but his parents also sound inexplicably stupid, so the majority of it probably comes from watching them. As they say, monkey see, monkey do.
Suzi Q 2 years ago
I think there are many disorders maybe genetic problems. How does this family continue to exist, do they have a caregiver, how do they earn a living. It sounds like they must be profoundly disabled if everyone in the family is like that.
Load More Replies... DUN DUN (she/her) 2 years ago
I feel like I was on a roller-coaster ride reading this. This is very concerning as well as hilarious both at the same time, but more concerning. This child clearly needs support and help.
Rijkærd 2 years ago
..you just summed up all I wanted to say in the best perfect way......still biased towards the hilarity of it though....
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