Hey, Sanibel is an island. How do you access the Internet?
More stupid teacher stories:
I know a woman who is CURRENTLY a middle school history teacher. Several months ago, she pronounced to a roomful of people that her students are so dumb, they didn’t know that there are 12 members of the U.S. Supreme Court and that ties are broken by the Speaker of the House.
dhanson:
1980 was the height of the peace movement? Huh?
A physics major once assured me that calories were not a metric measurement. Why not? “Because joules are the metric measurement.” Do you have a dictionary so I can prove it to you? “That kind of stuff is never in the dictionary.” He never finished college.
I once had a really lame teaching assistant in a history class. Okay, I had a ton of lame TAs, but this story is about only one. He assumed you had not done the reading if you had no questions about it. Of course, this was one of those Intro to History classes which at my college were essentially remedial civics classes for people who spent high school unconscious.
When we got to the history of Supreme Court appointments, nobody had any questions, so he started getting annoyed. I thought of a question I had had for some time: Do Presidents typically elevate sitting Justices to Chief Justice, or do they usually appoint an outsider to the Chief’s spot? “That’s not how it works at all. Chief Justices are elected…”
My brother’s seventh grade social studies teacher combined extreme stupidity with a complete inability to admit that she might be wrong. She once asked the class – on an exam – what continent Bosnia was on. They all answered “Europe.” She thought it was in Asia, and marked ALL the answers wrong. After much argument, and several phone calls from parents, the teacher finally got around to looking it up. Next day she began class with this announcement: “Well, although you certainly COULD say that Bosnia is in Asia Minor, I’m going to be generous and mark ‘Europe’ right as well.”
The same teacher absolutely insisted that a certain borough of New York was spelled “the Broncks,” and that anybody who wrote “Bronx” was using slang.
On registration day at taxidermy school
I distinctly saw the eyes of the stuffed moose
Move.
- Gavin Gunhold
The Bronx was called The Broncks (after The Broncks River) many, many years ago. It seems that teacher only read books from the 1700’s.
This seems to have turned into stupid teacher anecdotes, so here goes . . .
In two of my professional education classes, I have the same professor, who has a Ph.D and everything and has told us with all seriousness that:
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Plato felt that ignorant people were no better than people who lived in caves.
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That although the male determines the sex of a baby, all babies have two X chomosomes until the little bit breaks off and makes a “y” for the males.
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That the philosophies of idealism and realism are the same as being idealistic and realistic.
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That you can preselect the sex of a Baby with 99% accuracy by timing ovualation and intercourse properly. (When pushed for a souce, she cited JAMA. I spent an hour in the library making sure she was wrong)
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Botulism comes from contaminated cookware.
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If you hold a young baby up so that it is standing/bounceing, you will make it bowlegged.
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Thomas Aquinas founded the Catholic Church
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That there is nothing sexist about characterizing women as sweeter and more emotional than men. (On a side note, there is one man in one of these class and 30+ women. SHe makes him “protect” us [that is a direct quote] from all the bugs and opperate the oh-too-complicated VCR)
And this is only half way through the semester. I honestly don’t know how I am going to make it–I leave class every day with a sore tounge.
dhanson… Along those same lines, when I was in 7th grade I had an English teacher whom I admired. One day we got on the subject of snake oil salesmen and old-time medication. I shared with the class that back when it was first invented, Coca-Cola was used medicinally and contained cocaine. My teacher yelled at me, called me a liar and threw me out into the hallway.
That night I asked my father (a drug and alcohol counselor) to show me where I could find a reference to prove my point. We found it in one of his textbooks - Dad wrote down the reference on a 3x5 card and signed it.
The next day I gave it to my teacher. She read the card, tore it up and threw it away.
Gee, think she lost some respect from me? Oh well.
Most common question I ask: “What?”
Most common question I get: “Are you really hearing impaired?”
Oooh! Oooh! Just thought of another one.
My brother called me up once just to complain about a client. He’d just finished playing golf with this client, who kept calling my brother (jokingly) a “SPINK-TER”. Over and over while playing, he called my brother this.
My brother finally says, “Are you trying to say sphincter? It’s pronounced ‘shh-veeng-ter’”."
The guy says, “Look, I went to Harvard - I think I know how to say ‘spink-ter’!”
My brother (who never went to college) went off at this point. “You think just because you went to college, your shit doesn’t stink?!? Let me tell you something! You’re not pronouncing it right!!”
The funny thing is, my brother was pronouncing it wrong too. It’s pronounced “sveeng-ter.”
Okay. Maybe you had to be there.
Most common question I ask: “What?”
Most common question I get: “Are you really hearing impaired?”
Worst teacher:
10th grade, Global Studies, last period. The teacher was just a moron, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Just plain stupid. Anyways, he was telling us about some foreign country’s political system, and felt the need to compare it to the US political system. He proceeds to tell us that “there are 50 senators in the United States.” Being somewhat in a fighting mood that day, I said “uhm, aren’t there 100 senators, 2 from each state?” He proceeded to go on this rant along the lines of “I am the teacher, I’m in charge, you are a student, you don’t know anything, you will raise your hand when you talk, you will not interrupt me, blah, blah, blah, and get down to the office right now.” Ok, so I packed my stuff up and headed down to the office. I was friendly with the principal (he was my track coach, and I never had been in trouble before), and the secretary said go right in. Our conversation:
Him: “Shouldn’t you be in class?”
Me: “Mr. (name deleted) sent me down here.”
Him: “You? Why, what did you do?”
Me: “I told him that there are 100 senators, he said there are 50.”
Him: “And he threw you out for that?”
Me: “Yep”
Him: “Huh. Well, there’s 15 minutes left, you might as well go home. See you tomorrow.”
And that moron is still teaching at my high school. God save those poor kids.
Jeremy…
I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine - Kurt Vonnegut
My personal favorite is the time my 12th grade social studies teacher was telling us about the B-52’s that bombed Japan in WWII. I had to point out to her that the war would have ended a bit quicker for us with nuclear-capable, jet-powered bombers.
This thread is supposed to be about stupid questions. Start another one on stupid teachers if you like.
Here are some more actual reference questions we got at the library:
Was Socrates Jewish or Christian?
What is the Biblical significance of the flamingo?
What’s the word for when you go into the jungle and shoot an animal and you feel really good about it?
What was Jesus Christ’s financial situation?
Do you have a synagogue I can check out? (No, but we do have a Masonic Temple.)
How do clowns get their names?
I need a copy of Macbeth in English.
Are all Canadians Catholic?
Who wrote The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin?
What was the name of Xavier Cugat’s dog?
Who was the first female singer in history?
Do you have any poetry on crack babies?
Do you need a car to get to the library?
I need poems about Raquel Welch.
How many games in a row have the Harlem Globetrotters won?
How do you spell ‘oz?’
(Wondering about a Burbank address on Bob Hope Drive): Is Bob Hope 2 words?
How do you say 'Tonya" in Hawaiian?
I need books on Judo-Christian art. (You mean like paintings depicting the Virgin Mary cracking bricks with her head?)
What religion do hillbillies have?
Do have pictures of Michelangelo’s Sixteenth Chapel?
I was showing our downstairs neighbor our new computer and some things on the internet that I thought he’d enjoy when he asked me “How does all this stuff get into your computer?”. I thought he was asking how the internet works in general, you know servers and all that. Not knowing exactly how it works myself, I told him what I knew, but he still wasn’t satisfied. Finally, I realized that he didn’t know that we hooked up to the internet using the phone line! This wouldn’t have been so bad had I not apologized to him serveral times during the week about our phone being busy because we were on-line and telling him how we had to budget our on-line time because of the phone bill…I was tempted to tell him that the little people in the tv deliver it during commercial breaks.
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” Albert Einstein
One from my high school days, many years ago.
Social studies class; topic, man walks on the moon. A very pretty girl next to me named Shelli raises her tan, smooth hand.
“Do you think man will ever walk on the sun?”
RTA,
If she was that pretty, you should have replied ‘only at night’.
(errrm, that’s not sexist, is it?)
Asked by the Godmother of my child immediately after I ordered rice pudding at lunch:
“Rice pudding? Is that pudding…with rice?”
She also insisted (and we argued) that if a big rig went around a sharp turn too fast it was in danger of tipping inward.
Thankfully, she’s a good Catholic.
Not really a stupid question per se, but people come in here all the time wanting to check out a book they’ve read before. They don’t remember the author or the title, but they remember that the cover was blue (or whatever). They actually think we can help them find this book.
Kids do it too, but with them it’s more entertaining than irritating… “It’s a book about a boy and his dog.”
QUOTE:
Not really a stupid question per se, but people come in here all the time wanting to check out a book they’ve read before. They don’t remember the author or the title, but they remember that the cover was blue (or whatever). They actually think we can help them find this book.
Kids do it too, but with them it’s more entertaining than irritating… “It’s a book about a boy and his dog.”
No problem…check the card catalog under “Ellison, Harlan”. The little darlings will love it.
JB
Lex Non Favet Delictorum Votis
I think it was 9th grade, science class. The teacher was showing a filmstrip about prehistoric hominids. On screen was an artist’s rendition (very skillfully painted, I should mention) of an Australopithicus.
Girl raises her hand and asks, “Is that a photograph of a real Australopithicus?”
Teacher responded with a sarcastic comment (long forgotten), getting lots of laughs.
English 10th grade. While reading Othello.
“Was Shakespeare black?”
He never lived it down?
To lying, cheating, stealing, and drinking.
Always lie to save a friend, cheat death,
steal your love’s heart, and drink with good friends.
—*Madison Michele
*