“Marking Those Papers Broke Me”: 40 Times Students Stunned Their Teachers With Their Stupidity
Interview
Patience is a virtue! Especially if you have a job in education. That’s not just a broad generalization, though: if you do work as a teacher, your patience will get tested. Probably more often than you’d like.
User u/12345burrito asked the teachers of Reddit to be honest about the moments that seriously made them question their students’ intelligence. Scroll down for some candid stories about the strangest things that kids have said or written in the classroom.
Bored Panda got in touch with the author of the viral discussion, u/12345burrito, and they were kind enough to share their thoughts about what teachers should be like and how students can catch up if they've fallen behind. You'll find our full interview with them as you read on.
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Handed out an exam...in University. 6 hands that went up instantly...I pointed to one of them and said "yes". She asked "What does Surname mean?"...I paused, and answered it calmly..."it's your last name". The other 5 hands went down. I thought to myself....f**k we've lowered the bar.
Same way we get Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain. Surname = Sir Name.
According to Indeed, the average teacher working in the United States makes $20.12 per hour or around $32,074 per year. Forbes reports that the average annual salary in the US is $59,428 per year or around $28.34 per hour. With this in mind, it’s clear that the average American teacher is grossly underpaid.
Although money isn’t everything (a sense of purpose and career growth are also vital), you want your educators to feel stable about putting food on the table. If you want your educators to be patient, empathetic, and go the extra mile, you can’t have them worried about cash.
I mentioned bringing my lunch to work and a kid put up his hand to ask where I worked.
Right after lunch. In class. Where I teach him.
I teach swimming lessons and lifeguarding courses. During one, I was trying to teach them cpr and instead of showing them first, I told them to show me what they already knew about it.
I then proceeded to observe 15 16-20 year olds do the weirdest s**t to those poor training dolls. My favorite though was the kid who did a two foot jump onto the chest of the dummy. The dummy slid out from under his feet like a cartoon banana and he landed on his rear end on the pool deck. Good times.
If your teachers are underpaid, burned out, and overwhelmed, they might not have the time, energy, or willpower to give struggling students the attention that they need to improve.
However, let’s not forget that a teacher’s salary can vary a huge amount depending on where they’re based and what school they get a position in. How much experience you have is also going to affect your starting salary.
For example, some of the highest-paying cities in the US include New York City (an average of $68,364 per year), Los Angeles ($66,820), and Chicago ($56,164).
Though, that might be a mixed blessing. Sure, you may be earning more. But your cost of living is likely much higher in these cities, too. How much you end up saving will vary depending on your lifestyle, rent, etc. Eductors need a support system in place that goes beyond finances.
I teach Intro. Geology. I gave a lab quiz on the Density and Buoyancy lab we had done the week before. One of the questions asked how are we able to build ships out of steel, considering that we measured steel to be more dense than water the week before.
Almost the entire class gave variants of "The ocean is so big compared to a boat, that all the water is able to keep the boat afloat . . ." as an answer. I get some version of this answer every semester, but it really struck me because so many of them put it. (And they weren't just copying each other.)
This school happens to be right next to a bay. So I took a large, uninteresting rock from the prep room and marched the students outside to the bay. I said "This rock is about 8 kilos and has a density of about 2.4 g/cc. But, according to your last test responses, the bay is so big that it should float . . ." I threw the rock into the bay and we all patiently waited for it to bob back up to the surface.
I have a poster on my wall that says something about not believing everything you read on the internet, and it attributes the quote to Abraham Lincoln. Student said, “Wait, did they have internet back then?”.
"Students, tomorrow's lesson will be about sarcasm and irony. Your homework is to go home tonight and look up those words and then try to explain what they mean tomorrow."
College instructor, you would be shocked. Just last year: multiple students can't save word docs as pdfs, students take smartphone pictures of every single slide while I lecture even though I upload them to our LMS. Personal favorite: when asked to insert a picture into a word document, one student prints the word doc, prints the picture, puts the picture on the word doc, takes a smartphone picture and uploads the file.
Miss my millennial students.
We were interested in getting the OP's personal perspective on what a truly good educator is like. "A great teacher for me is one who is patient and will always try their hardest to ensure that all students are gaining the knowledge. They are open to all questions and viewpoints, listen to each one, and respect them," redditor u/12345burrito told Bored Panda.
"They are patient, kind, and understanding of all students. Bonus points if they are easily reliable (via email or phone) and have a perfect balance between discipline while still maintaining leniency."
According to the author of the thread, students who feel like they've fallen behind their classmates in their studies shouldn't be afraid of reaching out for help. It's one of the best things they can do to get back ahead. Being proactive is a massive plus here.
One of my 16 year old students asked, while starting a multiple choice test, if it mattered what letter he chose. I just stared at him. Sometimes there are no words.
My class had a math test over polygons. So I was grading their tests and one of the throw away multiple choice answers was fiveagon. I laughed out loud, so my class naturally asked me what was so funny. I told them that no one could be that silly as to pick fiveagon as an answer. I immediately saw one kid slouch really low in his seat and about three papers latter I realized why. He had answered fiveagon for pentagon. I felt like the worst teacher in the world. After class, I went up to him and apologized. He said not to worry but I could tell it made him feel bad. I never forgave myself for that one. I now grade papers after school.
In the intro of a paper, a kid (8th grade, teenager) wrote “In this SA, I’m going to explain...” and throughout the paper he wrote “SA” several more times.
He meant essay. S-A. This kid’s first language is English. I had literally no words.
"Email the professor, visit their office hours, maybe stay a few minutes after class to help go over things. I know a lot of students feel afraid to, but once they get into the habit of it, doing so will feel like a normal thing for them. I myself would feel afraid at times to reach out to the professor, but honestly, at the end of the day, being brave and taking that step is the best thing you can do,” they told Bored Panda.
Meanwhile, we were curious about what had inspired u/12345burrito to start the online discussion in the first place. According to them, it was partly influenced by their personal experience as a student struggling with their classes and feeling like their professors were "secretly annoyed" with them.
One of my sixth graders had a brain fart moment. Couldn’t remember the word for ‘suspenders’. Called them farmer straps (complete with hooking his thumbs through his imaginary suspenders and moving his hands up and down, like an old guy wearing suspenders might do), and I laughed so hard I cried and almost fell outta my damn chair.
Not my story, but my Brothers. I still chuckle about it
He taught at a trade school, and he’s a super nice, patient guy. One of his students calls in him in a panic that she can’t get to school bc of a flat tire, she’a frantic and has no one else to call for help - np, this will be a good teaching moment,
So he drives out to help her, and as he’s examining the tire, explains to her that the she’s got a nail right in the top, and is going to show her how to change it
She scoffs at him, rolls her eyes, and proceeds to tell him that that’s absolutely impossible bc the tire is flat on the BOTTOM, not the top where the nail is....
Needless to say, my brother didn’t even bother explaining to her how to change the tire...
I teach on the college level and students try to convince me dumb stuff is true a lot. At least once a semester a student will try to fight with me saying Africa is a country.
The confidence level for that is astounding. Slightly worrying though that they won't listen to a teacher.
"When daydreaming, I always spend a lot of time thinking of random hypothetical questions or scenarios in my head a lot. It’s the reason why r/AskReddit and r/NoStupidQuestions are always some of my favorite places to browse on to see what kind of random content they have but also to post questions myself when bored," they opened up.
“Something worth noting, though, is the fact that I posted that question when I was still going to a community college nearby. I will admit there were a few classes I had to take that were pretty difficult for me -- math of any kind being the main culprit. I am sure there were times when I just couldn’t get an answer right no matter what, and the professors were probably thinking, ‘How is it this difficult for him to answer?’” u/12345burrito shared with us.
Watching a video about dinosaurs. A 13 yo asks 'how did they get video of real dinosaurs if they are all dead?' Same girl also wanted to know how Mayans communicated with each other if they had no cell phones or 'wall phones' as she called them. Yeah. And my evaluation and raises depend on these kids.
Does she know of CGI? If not, explain it to her. And her not knowing how Mayans communicated shows a lack of knowledge, with a thirst to learn.
"Are mermaids real?" followed shortly by "I don't believe in dinosaurs."
She was 16.
When teaching a health class to sixth grade girls and having to stop and explain that babies don’t actually grow in a stomach and they have 3 exits in their nether regions.
They literally had no clue about their own anatomy.
Parents, please talk to your children about this stuff. Get them a book. Something. They need to know this stuff.
My dad is a history teacher and he had a student tell him the statue of liberty was in pearl harbor.
I asked my class of 5th graders what city they live in, and the first response was “Texas”.
Student 1: yeah, my aunt had cancer, and my mom, and my grandma.
Student 2: wow, that's awful, do you think you'll get it as a result? Is it hereditary?
Student 1: nah, it's not hereditary, its genetic.
Freshman in College.
I teach science. Sometimes I teach remedial science so I have to hype up my lessons. When students start showing an interest in things I get super excited and help support their interests as best I can. A girl came to my desk wearing a cute white marshmallow jacket with a NASA symbol on the back. I said "oh, super cool of you to be repping NASA!" Her response "Thanks, it's a cool new brand everyone is wearing." I asked a few more questions and turns out, she seriously didn't know what NASA was! She was 18 years old.
Another story - two kids just talking to each other working on laptops. Silence for a few minutes, typing etc. Then randomly, one boy says, "if mandarin is a fruit, how do people speak it?" He was 16, and dead serious.
During a unit on Vietnam I was discussing the number of bombs dropped by the US and a student asked me if all those bombs are what killed the dinosaurs.
Had another student ask if Pearl Harbor was still alive after doing a mini-lesson on it last December. She thought it was a woman’s name.
I have a lot more but those are my two most recent, egregiously dumb ones.
How old are these kids? They sound like 3rd graders but you don't teach things like Pearl Harbor and the Vietnam War to kids that young.
University course - paper on Witches - spelt Which throughout the whole paper. Favorite sentence - Whiches and broomsticks. footnoted a phone number as a source!
Marking those papers broke me.
Me: Name one of the states of matter.
Student: Massachusetts.
How can I type lowercase 'a'? All I have in my keyboard are capital letters.
Not a teacher, but this is from when I saw a Teacher's face which clearly showed it.
Blonde Girl [Literally the stereotypical bimbo; bottom in all ability sets and dumb as a brick; but Geography wasn't in ability classes] in my Year 9 [13~14 y/o] Geography Class:
"How are we in Europe? I thought we were in America."
We're in the UK
The Geography teacher had a look of pure horror and despair. Bonus points since we were his first class at that school.
My friends daughter attends a small college 120 miles due north from her family home. When talking with her mother, she asked what time it was at home, mom replied it was 8 o'clock same as where she was. She replied, "Ok, I was wondering because it takes me 2 hours to drive up here".
My students tried turning in plagiarized papers. Unfortunately they're so dumb that they neither bothered changing the file name or paraphrasing the content. I think almost 50% of the kids in class sent me the same paper over and over again. Spelling mistakes and all.
Kids at lab tables.
Suddenly, there is a bright blue flash and a loud pop.
I turn and look directly at a kid, still holding a pair of scissors and a now severed laptop cord, his eyes wide.
"I didn't realize it would do that.".
Well, now you know. Science is all about trying things out and observing the results!
Don't know if this counts, but I was a TA for a semester in grad school (never again). One student submitted this paper I will never forget. Basically, the author was wrong because the student found the argument "boring." In explaining the author's argument, he got most points wrong and then proceeded to say he had a better argument. His argument WAS the author's argument.
Oh my, here's my sister's story. She was present when her tutor (or whatever you call the head teacher for your class in highschool) was grading some essays and asked her for an honest opinion if she'd fail a student for entering a completely off-the- topic essay of another classmate (who's dad was VERY generous with school donations, important). The essay was for a literature piece, and this dude I guess didn't even read the book but instead wrote an entire essay on the time he went with his pals to a football match
I asked my students to write a sentence and give an example.
One of the students (age 12/13) asked "what's an example?"
Actually really hard to explain.
“When did the world change from black and white to color?” They honestly believed that from like 1970 (when color photography became prominent in publications) to THE BEGINNING OF TIME, humans lived in a totally black and white world.
One of my third graders pointed at the moon in the sky and asked, "Is that the Phillipines?".
A classmate of mine in elementary school had this exchange with our teacher:
"What's the answer to this [multiple choice question with 3 choices]?"
"A?"
"no"
"C?"
"no"
"I don't know.".
Me: I’m thinking of a fruit that is yellow and very sour!
Student: Chickenpox!
As an adult, I once said "E for idiot"! We all have brain farts 😂
For women’s history month, I had my students give presentations on famous women in history. One student got up and, dead serious, gave a presentation on “Anne Franklin” and said that “the holocaust was a guy called Hitler.” She had researched all of this. I still don’t understand.
An old friend of mine used to be a tutor. She had her math notes out. She used to use "#" instead of writing "number".
One of the kids saw and they all kept asking she put hashtags everywhere. Even whem she explained it, they kept saying "no, idiot. Its a hashtag."
Gotta love middle schoolers.
Four students in the same class had copied work from each other for an assignment on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. I don't know why they thought I wouldn't recognize four of the exact same paper, but the cherry on top was the fact that each paper made several references to the "Ideas of March". I'm not sure which was worse: plagiarizing an idiot or not even being able to see the difference between "Ides" and "Ideas". It was a reading comprehension class, by the way.
Spent 15 minutes with my 9th graders going over MLA headings in great detail. Even gave them a reference sheet to keep at home. Later received at least 3 essays from students named Your Name. Truly sad times.
Oooh yes, this has happened at the university where I work as well. I made some example forms to show newly accepted students how to fill them in, and, of course, some folks copied the info from the examples instead of filling in their own data. So what I did was remove specific examples, and instead give super-detailed explanations what has to be filled into each space (as if explaining to a 3-year-old). This significantly reduced the number of incorrectly filled-in forms... though exceptions still occur. These are 19-year-olds. It's not like they are dumb or anything, they just seem to lack common sense... or, perhaps, basic life skills.
Not a teacher, but a witness to the face mine made which was definitely, 'how are my students this dumb?' It was 7th grade Lit and we were reading through The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. We had discussions throughout and the teacher would have us write a summary of what we had just read before class ended. When we were done with the book she did a slide show of pictures showing the attic they were in and the secret entrance. About halfway through these pictures we hear a boy in the back go, 'wait a minute. WHOA! This really happened?' She stared at him for a very long time.
Not a teacher, but a friend of mine once said that Internet is a liquid. Not the dumbest thing she said, but the only one I can remember.
I was talking about CFL lightbulbs and the fact that they contain mercury. One high school freshman raised his hand and asked if they had to go to Mercury to get it.
Teaching Assistant (of French) here. Once I have asked my students to choose a word and then to describe/define it to the class so that someone could guess the word (it helps to remember and learn their vocabulary). They all thought they were supposed to describe the word "word" and then they didn't understand who could win the game as they all knew the word they had to guess....
So a task was explained so poorly that of the entire class not one student understood but aren't they dumb for not getting it?
When I TA'd chemistry in college I had marks on the whiteboard to keep track of how many times I said "Don't lick that" through the semester. It was...a lot.
Once I was grading tests about Cold War. The question asked who were involved in said war. Most of the kids answers were “USSR which fighted for communism” ok, so far so good. “and the USA fighting for socialism” what?
The same test had answers about how the Missil Crisis was a social movement, kids saying that USA was communist, and a kid that said that every country till 1970 was a monarchy and democracy wasn’t a thing yet.
I quit teaching a few years later. Kids are stupid beyond any repair.
I'm a student and in my physics the teacher was explaining how space is a big vacuum and one student was super confused and after asking some questoons it eventually became clear he was thinking of a vacuum cleaner.
Well, I often hear americans refering to vacuum cleaners as "vacuum" so I think it is at least understandable error.
In the second Airplane! movie, Strike opens a door labelled 'vacuum' and a vacuum cleaner pipe and head comes out and attacks him!
Spaceball 1 did transform into a giant maid with a vacuum cleaner.
Load More Replies...
I'm not worried about "Questoons" in the least. Word.mashups are a sign of brilliance! Now a proper meaning is needed...
"Animated features about heroes going off on ambitious adventures".
Load More Replies... I teach almost exclusively college freshmen.
A few years back, one said she didn’t believe in science.
One said “who is Paul McCartney” out loud (more ignorance than stupid but STILL)
One said “I didn’t know ‘Houston we have a problem’ is from a movie” bc he had heard it so many times elsewhere.
One student emailed me and tried to get me to excuse his absence because his friends pet rabbit got out and he wanted to help find it.
One student could not grasp that they needed to use first person pronouns in a personal essay so they kept referring to themselves in third person.
One student (my very first semester teaching) wrote his personal essay about his ex girlfriend and said that he wished he had gotten her pregnant before he went to college bc then they would still be together.
I could go on
Edit: one got real mad bc I said something about buffalo roaming free and she yells BUFFALOS DON’T EXIST and I was so shocked I let the classroom get a little out of control but 15 minutes later we discovered that a teacher in her past said in no uncertain terms that all Buffalo were extinct.
This is sad............my high school history teacher in 1969 was a Bataan Death March survivor from WWII. One student challenged him saying he was a liar and just making stuff up because how could he survive a "death march" and no one survives "death".
I use the name Benny McStudent for all of my sample work, and I always have a few students who ask if he is a real student.
Two, both from 15 year olds.
A boy honestly asked if elephants use their ears for hearing.
A girl thought God put the baby in the womans belly. She had no concept of female anatomy, although she likely was past puberty. Not long after she was dating a 17 y/o at the school and good lord I hope she learned anatomy quick.
During a spelling test last year, I said a word three times and a student asked, "Miss, how do you spell that?".
Hopefully the kid was trying to be clever and sneaky and not just woefully idiotic!
College teacher here, one of my students who was finishing up writing their thesis emailed me saying: "they just told me I haven't finished all my courses yet, so I can't graduate." He honestly was mad at the guy who noticed the 8 (!!!) courses he hadn't finished yet, like it was the guys fault for not handing in HIS assignments.
HOW ARE YOU BLAMING THE PEOPLE WHO TOLD YOU AND WHY HAVEN'T YOU CHECKED YOUR STUDY PROGRESS IN THE LAST 3 YEARS?
Edit: can = can't.
When I was a professor, I so looked forward to becoming an advisor (at my school only more experienced profs could be advisors). I wanted to talk with students about career plans, what classes they were excited about, etc. But the reality was, they just wanted me to go through their record, tell them what they needed to take to graduate, and sign them up for whatever that was. They never looked at their own record, the course catalog, the university requirements, or anything. They didn't seem to think of their education as being their own -- it was just a set of arbitrary requirements handed down to them. And this was at a flexible school, where there were literally thousands of ways to satisfy the degree requirements. I was never able to break through that passivity.
My full name starts with one letter, but the shortened version of my name starts with another. I had to change my email address because multiple students could not comprehend that the name which I went by was a shorter version of a longer name with a different letter.
"George Clooney was the first president right?" 10th grader
"Coach (I was a bball coach as well for a high school), our bio teacher was talking about menstrual cycles. What is that?" 9th grade female
"Coach, I walked into the weirdest (women's) restroom. There were toilets with no stalls. I couldn't figure out how to pee in them" "you walked into the men's bathroom. Those were urinals you saw" "oh... How to men pee in them?" same 9th grade female
"what is Vladimir Lenin's first name?" 8th grader (I replied Joseph)
"Does a male octopus have 8 testicles?" 9th grade boy, in history class.
Not a teacher, but I was surprised when a classmate didn't know what continent we lived on in 7^(th) grade.
If they're from the USA this does not surprise me, since apparently a "world series" sport involves playing games between american teams.
I was giving a quiz over the US Civil Rights Movement in a US history class. This was a regular high school class. I decided to out on a easy question because I needed one more question to make 20.
"What city did the Birmingham Bus Boycott take place in?"
Only 13 out of 28 got it correct...
Grade 10 Student: Sir, my calculator is broken. When I do 11x1 it gives me the same number (11)!
Me: so what is the problem?
Grade 10 Student: It does the same thing for all the numbers! (And proceeds to show me 6x1=6, 7x1 = 7 etc)
Me:...
I had a kid tell me Friday that the Rhinoceros is the last living dinosaur. I told him it wasn’t a dinosaur, he said yeah it was.. “Tyranno-SAURUS.... Rhino-SAURUS.. see? Same thing.” - he’s 16 - I teach at a DYS facility.
Taught really, really, really, remedial math in NYC High School. Always looked for reason for students incorrect answers to help them understand. One student gave the answer '2' to a question that in no way could come to that result. OK. Going through few more papers, same question, same answer appears. Hmm, cheating? While handing out papers next day, I casually asked one student how he arrived at the answer '2?' Response: My teacher, that phrase always meant they were referring to their Middle School teacher, always said to guess if I didn't know the answer, but don't guess the first answer because that's probably not right. Is it apparent to you they are talking about taking a multiple choice test here? Well, boy genius has 'translated' this bit of educational nonsense into guessing '2' for anything he didn't know. Never bothered to ask the second kid! BTW, I had finally decided to give only True/False exams, and partial credit. Still couldn't get passing marks for most kids.
I'm not a teacher but when I was 13, someone in my class asked the teacher how to spell DNA.
I had a 9th grader tell me that everyone is born with cancer, and that most people just grow out of it.
His or her parents can't wait to vote for RFK Jr. in November. That cancer clears up unless you get your MMR vaccines. Pardon the dark sarcasm but this level of ignorance is getting kids killed.
I'm not a teacher but in my IB Math Studies course, we spent a good hour and a half explaining to a group of girls that you can't divide anything by zero. It was frustrating to watch them try to argue that you can divide 7 calculators into groups of zero. My teacher just couldn't comprehend the people he had to deal with.
We’re discussing the industrial revolution. I’m going around the class asking kids things we wouldn’t have without factories.
This one girl, with ludicrous confidence, answers “DOGS.”
The whole room went kinda quiet. Everyone just looked at her. She follows up with “what?”
That class was interesting.
In the same class hour, the same student not only tore apart a pen and covered himself with ink, he pulled the spring apart and clamped it down on his tongue. It cut him so deep, he couldn't get it off. He them somehow managed to dig a pencil into his hand and then the lead broke off inside him. It was like every moment I looked over, he had hurt himself in another way.
He has a bright future as a dance instructor specializing in the Masochism Tango.
On a regular basis, my freshmen students cannot work a pencil sharpener. It all started with a regular, old school sharpener screwed onto a counter. But, within days they broke it. So, I bought an electric powered sharpener. I always get a 'Mr., the sharpener isn't working'. Me: 'what's the problem?' Usually a) lead stuck inside b)its clogged up from all of the pencil waste. In either case they always ask 'what should I do?' My response is the same every time, 'I don't know. Figure it out.' They never do and put the sharpener back down. Usually, resulting in them borrowing a pen from a classmate. It's both ridiculously hilarious and pathetic.
I was an adjunct instructor in our community college's skilled trades program. It's amazing how many students signed up because it looked easy or fun. It's no joke that some people can't walk and chew gum at the same time.
University first year biology student. Lab lesson comparing structures of plants. Upon examining a basil plant: "You can eat that? But it's just leaves!".
Not a teacher, but one freshman in my class took a rip of his vape and got caught by the substitute teacher. He tried to deny it by saying he could make vapor out of his mouth with nothing else.
Geography teacher here...
I might have mentioned some of these before.
1. Student handed in a paper on the moon. Most of it was astrology. Dad helped her write it.
2. Student had to write paper on Mars. Handed in the Wikipedia page on Mars. Not edited or anything.
3. Flat-earther... Need I say more?
4. Student was adamant that giants once walked the earth. She could know because she had seen a documentary.
5. Student believed humans and dinosaurs had once co-existed.
6. 2 students couldn't find Great-Britain on a map of Europe. (we're in West-Europe) One pointed to the south of France and then Norway, the other just stared at the map. They were seniors.
7. Caught a student plagiarizing on a paper. He got mummy involved to prove me otherwise. By the time I was finished with him, it turned out that there were 2 sentences not plagiarized...
8. Had a student thinking that a continent and a country were the same thing. I think we all know what she believed about Africa.
9. Had one student who didn't understand why the planets didn't fall out of space.
10. I had 2 students sketch a solar eclipse as moon - sun - earth. (I responded that this would be the apocalypse)
I'm probably forgetting at least another 10 or so...
For all intents and purposes, the fact that we (the Earth) and other planets just hang out in the universe IS effing crazy
Not a teacher, but a girl in my class asked my geography teacher that if we had another ice age, would dinosaurs come back.
Had a classmate who didn't know which religion Jesus was worshipped in. She was Catholic.
I taught human anatomy labs in college. We had three different practicals throughout the semester and every test we would put a couple of really easy questions, or at least as easy as we could so that there was a slight mental break and a confidence boost. The last practical we did included the digestive, circulatory, and urogenital system. The structure that was used was the male model with a pointer stuck right in the middle of the shaft of the penis. The student missed it by answering that it was the urinary bladder....the student was male.
I wouldn’t call him dumb but I did stop and stare at him thinking it was a joke.
When I was student teaching last year one of my students made a comment about the 52 states- I corrected him and said there are 50 states and he asked me if I remembered to count both Washingtons. As in Washington and Washington, D.C.
Not a teacher, but a girl in my college bio class asked, “If a woman doesn’t have a uterus, how does she go to the bathroom?”.
I teach high school. During a lab I told my students to use string for something and I told them to tie the string in a knot. They legit responded "we aren't boy scouts, we cant tie knots".
It's a skill everyone needs to know. Knots are so useful. + I went to scouts myself. Definitely recommend it. :)
2 moments come to mind.
One high school student spelled "if" and "turtle" wrong and they were in honors English.
Another high school student in AP US History signed a Constitution created with their small group, and she made her autograph as fancy and large as possible like John Hancock. She turned to me and said "Look, I made my autograph like John Quincy Adams!".
I had a student put a Geiger counter in a microwave then turn it on to measure "nuclear radiation.".
None of my students have ever been "dumb" but they had brain farts at times.
I was teaching in the East End of London in a school that was 98% Bengali.
I had one lesson about our names and that they have meanings to our families, culture, or in other languages etc. I shared why my name was what it was and the meaning behind it.
Some children were sharing about their names. One of my students got very excited and yelled out "what does my name mean?" The whole class did a face palm. His name was Mohamed.
Not me, but my wife is a secondary school (high school) teacher.
One of her students (let’s call this student Jenny) had a reputation for not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, but this was on another level.
Jenny was stood in the corridor staring at a wall-atlas.
After a while, my wife approached her and asked if she was ok.
Still staring at the atlas, Jenny, in total seriousness, says “Miss, what’s on the other side?”
My wife had to walk away to avoid laughing in her face.
Not a teacher, but was helping my friend who's a TA go over some first year essays. It was an essay about video games, and aside from the format being nonexistent, one of the first sentences was something along the lines of "There are many examples of video games, such as the Wii and PS4 and Zelda". Unfortunately, she wasn't allowed to grade any papers below 50%. He got a 50%.
Why were they not allowed to grade any papers as less than 50%? Allowing a child to pass without putting in any effort means that kids who are struggling and in need of more help fall through the cracks. Its an awful thing to do to them in the long run, because once they get out into the real world, there are no free passes. The child will be without the necessary basic skills to move forward in life
4th grade here
- half of my class this past year never heard of Hitler
- Assignment was to "describe how you know that Ramona loves her mother." Kid submits a list of 10 things that babies like their mothers to feed them. Heeeeey buddy, I think you misunderstood the assignment.
- every year only about half of them know how to read an analog clock. This is supposed to be taught in first grade. I just have that in my lessons every year now.
- a girl thought that the idea of lice living in her hair was "cute"
- while coaching track I gave a kid a rake to rake out the sand in the long jump pit. He just stood there looking at it. I asked him if he knew what it was and he said that he knows it's a rake but he doesn't know how to use it. I told him to figure it out and he honestly didn't know what to do with the thing.
Y1/2 (5-7 year old) assembly, the Mayor of our town comes in to present an award and speak to the kids. She's wearing ceremonial robes. Explains the whole Mayor thing and what her job is etc. Kid puts hand up and asks "are you Henry the 8th?".
One of my seniors had to solve a single variable equation (isolate the variable). I tried walking him through it, and asked what the opposite of subtraction was. He looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "DUH-VISION.".
I teach college in the UK so 16-18 year olds. Mainly teach Maths resit so they've failed before but no excuse. Group of them having an argument, I go over and ask what's wrong. Majority of them trying to tell one student that you get 10 marks on every exam just for writing your name and ID number on the front. Other one only disagreed because he said last time got less than that on the exam.
.... Marks just for correctly filling out your name...
That's an urban legend that all students have heard. Also the one about automatically getting straight A's if your roommate dies. Hopefully that legend hasn't inspired any murders! Although I admit there were times I was tempted. :)
We were doing some school culture lessons at the start of the year. Part of it was about respecting the school. A leading question I asked my 9th graders was “How much do you think it cost to build the school?” The highest one guessed $50,000 and the lowest was $5,000. It was a school that housed more than 2,000 students.
8th grade: We were having student-teacher debates in a mock-up of labor unions. Half the class were teachers, the other half were students. In this particular incident, we were arguing about whether students should receive harsher punishments for swearing in the halls. The debate was going along pretty well, until one of my friends, who was leading the opposing side, and I'll never forget this, said, 'Well, you hear people dropping [N-words] in the halls all the time-' She quickly realized her mistake, but everyone else, including myself, just kind of pointed and said ;OHHH!!!' The debates were brought to a quick end after that, but I must have been in hysterics for the rest of the period.
10th grade: We were in biology having a discussion about animals and the reproductive cycle. Another one of my friends literally didn't know chickens mate. She even tried to say that she just thought that chickens laid eggs randomly. I was probably in hysterics for a good while afterwards.
Chickens don't have to mate to lay an egg - like the females of most species. Eggs are 'laid' whether mated or not.
I teach Animation (Adobe Flash) as a summer job every year.
One time, one of my students raised his hand and I come over to see some alert on his screen. He goes, “How do I click ‘ok’?”
I was so baffled at his question that I just walked away.
About five chapters into "To Kill a Mockingbird" a student asked me, "Who is this 'Scout' kid, again?"
TKAM gives me a LOT of these moments from the kids who don't bother reading--for example, I have a quiz in which there's the following question--"Who is Tim Johnson?" and the answer is a neighborhood dog that gets rabies, and Atticus Finch kills him. Occasionally I'll get, "He's Scout's dad" or "He's a family friend of the Finch's"...
That's one of my favorite books and I didn't remember the name of the dog either.
One of my kids asked how she should answer a question about winter because there’s no character in the poem named winter. The question said ‘writer’.
A story from a football coach I worked with:
He said August practice was from 10-2. A player shows up at 1:50. Coach said to him "You're late. There's only 10 minutes of practice left". Student "but you said practice was at 10 to 2 aka 1:50"
True story.
Three weeks into writing a research paper.
"Okay today we'll continue writing the body paragraphs of the essay."
Student: "What essay?".
I teach computer science. At GCSE level students have to learn 4 data types. Integer (whole numbers), real (decimal numbers), Boolean (true or false) and string(a collection of characters). We had done 4 lessons on this because some of the group are a little less able. First thing lesson 5 I ask a student who we shall call Ade, to name the data type we would use for the number 47 (correct answer integer, acceptable answer with explanation ...real). Ade answers "bi". Puzzled I ask another student the same question. Integer he replies. I go back to Ade for the answer and he replies....."Bi". I write integer on the whiteboard in 8 inch high letters, point to it and ask the question again. Ade replies......"Bi". I explain to him that the number 47 is a whole number and all whole numbers can be stored as type integer. I ask what data type we would use for the number 47 and he replies "Integer". Brilliant. I ask what data type we would use for the number 48 and the little darling replies............."Bi". By now the whole group was in tears so we moved on. One year later he still can not identify even the simplest of data types.
One time a guy in class didn’t know the answer to the equation, so the teacher gave him hints, after so many hints he still couldn’t come up with an answer, to this day I still remember his reaction, the teacher got so angry he literally called the poor kid an [R-word].
Dear teachers: if most of the class have the wrong answer, then could it possibly be that you didn't teach it clearly? Evidence suggests you didn't. How about you try again? Signed, a fellow teacher.
I agree with you but also whatever happened to having a child repeat the grade or special education if they need a slower learning environment. There were a few kids in my hs that Def shouldn't have been in the grade level they were at. If you failed a class they sent you to summer school which was a joke, anyone could pass those classes. Some teachers are having a hard time because other teachers are letting them pass when they aren't ready. Then you've got high school teachers having to teach things those kids should've learned in grade school plus their own curriculum. I'm not a teacher or anything but even when I was in school it was disappointingly easy to graduate.
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First time teaching high school in China. Practicing TOEFL essays, "Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?" I explain they are asking for an opinion. The whole class, " Teacher you haven't told us our opinion yet." Used to western students I didn't realise Chinese teachers would usually give them the official party opinion on the issue.
A good number of these seem to be showing that adults failed these children - and don't forget how many of these are children you're calling dumb - instead of something inherent to the child themselves.
I agree. Most of these are just kids who are young or need a little extra help, not dumb.
Load More Replies... I had to stop reading this. I am so sad that None of these teachers even thought about the kids might have ADHD or other issues. I have said "dumb" things because I blurt out words before I think. Also kid's minds can race out of nervousness or being overwhelmed even being sleep deprived! Seems to ne that most of these horrible teachers are dumb one's.
Where is the accountability of the parents? Some of these examples point to neglect - parents need to be involved with raising their children, spending time with them and teaching common sense & at minimum the basics about the world they're growing up in.
Sometimes mom and dad are just high school drop outs themselves. If they don't value their own education...why would they stress it's value to their kids ?
Load More Replies... "50 teachers shame children for asking questions". If these were written in good fun they might be cute, but they're just mean spirited. And with respect, teaching is a very demanding job in many ways, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be an elementary school teacher. I'm sure there are plenty of pretty easy questions they wouldn't know the answer to, just as there are plenty I wouldn't.
Well, I guess they were right. Idiocrasy isn't a movie...it's a documentary.
I think prophecy is more accurate, and with each passing year, it seems more valid. I had to stop scrolling through these before #40. Mild amusement yielded to despair from the cumulative effect of too many anecdotes from too many levels of schooling.
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My 17 year old phone addicted niece just moved in with us and she is so stupid. It makes me cry sometimes, I’m not exaggerating. Simple words she doesn’t know the meaning of, doesn’t know the months or their order, does not know basic life skills, and any time I try to help her with something basic she argues with me that I’m wrong. I ask why she thinks that and her answer every time is "I saw a TikTok on it".
I do volunteer tutoring (mostly math) with high school students. I have found that most of them are unable to read the time on an analog clock. Also, some of them don't know the name of the planet they live on.
None of this is new. I remember talk shows in the 80's getting laughs posing basic questions to people on the street, just like they do today. I specifically remember people not being able to find their own state on a map. My SIL grew up in Vancouver in the 70's and told me a lot of kids thought Newfoundland was fake, like it didn't exist.
Teachers, kids are dumb. You get paid (poorly) to make them less dumb. Get to work. 🤷♂️. In my perfect world teachers would be so well compensated, competition would drive excellence. But that's not the case; aside from those truly answering a calling, many teachers are the freshmen in the stories above. Thank you Republicans. Decades of open hostility to public education have finally paid off. Our teachers average like $25/hr. Our military spending is more than the next 9 countries combined though, so there's that. 👍
I know some real idiots in my school but thankfully nobody is this stupid that ive met. This is a small minority.
“50 Times a Student Asked a Dumb Question One Time, Humanity Doomed”
Welcome to the dumbing down of the American public. Brought to you by your Republican governors.
I once had a university student ask me what the equator is. I don’t think that student was dumb. It is weird to me that they didn’t know, sure. They had the confidence to ask though and then they learned what it is. I would so much rather my students ask then go away feeling confused.
Four students at our school were assigned a group project in their science class. They stole a completed project out of a display case and turned it in as their own work, thinking no one would miss it or recognize it. (The display case got a lock the next week.)
Why is BP lately just posting hateful posts from reddit? This makes it seem like this is the reality and this is true everywhere. It's stupid and irronically a consequence of social media.
I can't even begin to comprehend how many brain cells I lost reading this thr.......
I had a kid in my biology class ask me during a lesson if ladybirds spots showed their age because that's what his mum had told him. I kindly told him that no different spotted ladybirds are different species and his mum had been misinformed he was quite happy and said he was going to tell mum when he got home....my TA later admitted to me that she had thought the same 🤯
Not sure which is funnier: The dumb things these kids say, or the BPers wailing and gnashing their teeth in the comments because they're so offended. 🙃
I think if kids spent more time actually having conversations with their peers, family, and others, instead of being on their devices, some of their ignorance would go away.
I've had kids write an entire paper on "mountain grillers" (year 10) A but one example of a year 8 girl with innocent naivety was when they asked if I dyed my hair. It was pretty obvious so I sarcastically told them it goes dark when I'm cold. She genuinely thought I was telling her the truth and excalimed that she wished her hair did that. The same girl was convinced by her class that one of them had died in a very minor tremor we felt in my city the night before. The entire class just didn't talk to him directly and pretended not to see or hear him. She thought he was a ghost. I had the class at midday and the poor girl was so upset and confused that I told them either they tell her by x o'clock, or I would.
"Horseshoe crab? What's a horseshoe crab? Or is it extinct, like the barnacle?" Quote from a student from the college level biology class my former girlfriend TA'd
Ok so some of these come across as pretty dumb. But bear in mind intelligence and common sense are often two different things..... ;)
This list was way too long, it probably should have been two different articles.
student here, not teacher. i’m in 11th grade, and retaking a Biology class i took in 9th grade. i’m the only 11th grader in there, the rest are a grade below me. i know most of it, so my teacher has directed the students to me whenever we are working on our own and they had questions, because these kids are so oblivious. i’ve heard some crazy things. one project involved making an origami box, and the teacher was walking us through it. the teacher said something like “now bring the other side of the paper to the fold we just made”. simple. a girl next to me stared at me and goes “what does she mean by fold? what’s a fold?”. even worse, we where labeling bones in class once and a student at a table near mine genuinely asked how you spell ‘rib’.
All this kid blaming instead of blaming the cause: parents, religious fanatics, and "schooling" before this (usually "homeschooling"). Kids don't show up unable to think and lacking basic facts, they get that way because nobody read to them, put tablets in their hands instead of books. Nobody encouraged them to question, instead making kids swallow absolutist ideology like "belief equals knowledge". Nobody challenged them or taught them how to reason. How is that the kids' fault?
Do teachers expect kids to be genius prodigies? If kids are constantly being shamed for not knowing something, then all the joy of learning is absolutely drained from them.
Is this the state of the western world? Even the dumbest kid in my class is still better than everyone on this list
No its not the state of the western world, these are extreme examples with a high change of being fake, besides the "western world" is not just these few countries. Lots of these post are just being hateful and some people like being hateful.
Load More Replies... Dear teachers: if most of the class have the wrong answer, then could it possibly be that you didn't teach it clearly? Evidence suggests you didn't. How about you try again? Signed, a fellow teacher.
I agree with you but also whatever happened to having a child repeat the grade or special education if they need a slower learning environment. There were a few kids in my hs that Def shouldn't have been in the grade level they were at. If you failed a class they sent you to summer school which was a joke, anyone could pass those classes. Some teachers are having a hard time because other teachers are letting them pass when they aren't ready. Then you've got high school teachers having to teach things those kids should've learned in grade school plus their own curriculum. I'm not a teacher or anything but even when I was in school it was disappointingly easy to graduate.
Load More Replies... First time teaching high school in China. Practicing TOEFL essays, "Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?" I explain they are asking for an opinion. The whole class, " Teacher you haven't told us our opinion yet." Used to western students I didn't realise Chinese teachers would usually give them the official party opinion on the issue.
A good number of these seem to be showing that adults failed these children - and don't forget how many of these are children you're calling dumb - instead of something inherent to the child themselves.
I agree. Most of these are just kids who are young or need a little extra help, not dumb.
Load More Replies... I had to stop reading this. I am so sad that None of these teachers even thought about the kids might have ADHD or other issues. I have said "dumb" things because I blurt out words before I think. Also kid's minds can race out of nervousness or being overwhelmed even being sleep deprived! Seems to ne that most of these horrible teachers are dumb one's.
Where is the accountability of the parents? Some of these examples point to neglect - parents need to be involved with raising their children, spending time with them and teaching common sense & at minimum the basics about the world they're growing up in.
Sometimes mom and dad are just high school drop outs themselves. If they don't value their own education...why would they stress it's value to their kids ?
Load More Replies... "50 teachers shame children for asking questions". If these were written in good fun they might be cute, but they're just mean spirited. And with respect, teaching is a very demanding job in many ways, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be an elementary school teacher. I'm sure there are plenty of pretty easy questions they wouldn't know the answer to, just as there are plenty I wouldn't.
Well, I guess they were right. Idiocrasy isn't a movie...it's a documentary.
I think prophecy is more accurate, and with each passing year, it seems more valid. I had to stop scrolling through these before #40. Mild amusement yielded to despair from the cumulative effect of too many anecdotes from too many levels of schooling.
Load More Replies... My 17 year old phone addicted niece just moved in with us and she is so stupid. It makes me cry sometimes, I’m not exaggerating. Simple words she doesn’t know the meaning of, doesn’t know the months or their order, does not know basic life skills, and any time I try to help her with something basic she argues with me that I’m wrong. I ask why she thinks that and her answer every time is "I saw a TikTok on it".
I do volunteer tutoring (mostly math) with high school students. I have found that most of them are unable to read the time on an analog clock. Also, some of them don't know the name of the planet they live on.
None of this is new. I remember talk shows in the 80's getting laughs posing basic questions to people on the street, just like they do today. I specifically remember people not being able to find their own state on a map. My SIL grew up in Vancouver in the 70's and told me a lot of kids thought Newfoundland was fake, like it didn't exist.
Teachers, kids are dumb. You get paid (poorly) to make them less dumb. Get to work. 🤷♂️. In my perfect world teachers would be so well compensated, competition would drive excellence. But that's not the case; aside from those truly answering a calling, many teachers are the freshmen in the stories above. Thank you Republicans. Decades of open hostility to public education have finally paid off. Our teachers average like $25/hr. Our military spending is more than the next 9 countries combined though, so there's that. 👍
I know some real idiots in my school but thankfully nobody is this stupid that ive met. This is a small minority.
“50 Times a Student Asked a Dumb Question One Time, Humanity Doomed”
Welcome to the dumbing down of the American public. Brought to you by your Republican governors.
I once had a university student ask me what the equator is. I don’t think that student was dumb. It is weird to me that they didn’t know, sure. They had the confidence to ask though and then they learned what it is. I would so much rather my students ask then go away feeling confused.
Four students at our school were assigned a group project in their science class. They stole a completed project out of a display case and turned it in as their own work, thinking no one would miss it or recognize it. (The display case got a lock the next week.)
Why is BP lately just posting hateful posts from reddit? This makes it seem like this is the reality and this is true everywhere. It's stupid and irronically a consequence of social media.
I can't even begin to comprehend how many brain cells I lost reading this thr.......
I had a kid in my biology class ask me during a lesson if ladybirds spots showed their age because that's what his mum had told him. I kindly told him that no different spotted ladybirds are different species and his mum had been misinformed he was quite happy and said he was going to tell mum when he got home....my TA later admitted to me that she had thought the same 🤯
Not sure which is funnier: The dumb things these kids say, or the BPers wailing and gnashing their teeth in the comments because they're so offended. 🙃
I think if kids spent more time actually having conversations with their peers, family, and others, instead of being on their devices, some of their ignorance would go away.
I've had kids write an entire paper on "mountain grillers" (year 10) A but one example of a year 8 girl with innocent naivety was when they asked if I dyed my hair. It was pretty obvious so I sarcastically told them it goes dark when I'm cold. She genuinely thought I was telling her the truth and excalimed that she wished her hair did that. The same girl was convinced by her class that one of them had died in a very minor tremor we felt in my city the night before. The entire class just didn't talk to him directly and pretended not to see or hear him. She thought he was a ghost. I had the class at midday and the poor girl was so upset and confused that I told them either they tell her by x o'clock, or I would.
"Horseshoe crab? What's a horseshoe crab? Or is it extinct, like the barnacle?" Quote from a student from the college level biology class my former girlfriend TA'd
Ok so some of these come across as pretty dumb. But bear in mind intelligence and common sense are often two different things..... ;)
This list was way too long, it probably should have been two different articles.
student here, not teacher. i’m in 11th grade, and retaking a Biology class i took in 9th grade. i’m the only 11th grader in there, the rest are a grade below me. i know most of it, so my teacher has directed the students to me whenever we are working on our own and they had questions, because these kids are so oblivious. i’ve heard some crazy things. one project involved making an origami box, and the teacher was walking us through it. the teacher said something like “now bring the other side of the paper to the fold we just made”. simple. a girl next to me stared at me and goes “what does she mean by fold? what’s a fold?”. even worse, we where labeling bones in class once and a student at a table near mine genuinely asked how you spell ‘rib’.
All this kid blaming instead of blaming the cause: parents, religious fanatics, and "schooling" before this (usually "homeschooling"). Kids don't show up unable to think and lacking basic facts, they get that way because nobody read to them, put tablets in their hands instead of books. Nobody encouraged them to question, instead making kids swallow absolutist ideology like "belief equals knowledge". Nobody challenged them or taught them how to reason. How is that the kids' fault?
Do teachers expect kids to be genius prodigies? If kids are constantly being shamed for not knowing something, then all the joy of learning is absolutely drained from them.
Is this the state of the western world? Even the dumbest kid in my class is still better than everyone on this list
No its not the state of the western world, these are extreme examples with a high change of being fake, besides the "western world" is not just these few countries. Lots of these post are just being hateful and some people like being hateful.
Load More Replies...