We might idolize our university and college professors as authority figures who put the pursuit of knowledge and education above everything else. However, they’re as human as you or I. From time to time, these Ravenclaws take a break from unearthing the secrets of the Universe and show their gossip-loving Muggle sides in public. Or rather—online. Because the way that some students act makes it hard not to share.
Redditor Redmambo_no6 asked the professors of Reddit to share their stories about the students they encountered that made them shake their heads and wonder how they ever graduated. And, wow, some of these have made our eyebrows shoot into our hairlines. We’d say they’re unbelievable, but we’ve met students like this ourselves. Heck, we’ve been in some of these situations.
We’d love to hear which of these posts you liked the most. Be sure to slap the ‘upvote’ button and leave us a comment so we know! Now, let’s charge head forth into the weird land of (un)education.
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I worked with students in a class that was supposed to prepare them for real life. Things like making resumes, finance, etc. Part of the class was job interviews. One of the stress questions often asked in interviews is, "What's your biggest weakness?" I always told the students to have something prepared for that because the only wrong answer is, "I don't have any weaknesses."
So I'm doing mock interviews and I get to this guy and throw out that question. Without missing a beat, he says, "I steal sometimes."
I now tell my students that there are two wrong answers.
Student handed in a 1-page essay of complete gibberish. Like, utter stream-of-consciousness of a gerbil on LSD kind of garbage.
After receiving an F on this assignment, this muffin had the audacity to come to my office hour and demand that I explain this grade to them. After I walked them through their river of word-garbage, they tried to tell me that I just didn't understand their writing because I am not an English native speaker.
First time I almost kicked somebody out of my office.
"You do not understand because it is too complex for you". It takes a lot of courage to say that straight into your teacher's face... And also some stupidity.
I taught English as a Second Language at a community college for a decade. My colleagues and I were pretty tough on the academics, but it paid off when our students started regular classes. Often I ran into my former students around campus & asked them how things were going. I lost count of the number of times they expressed disbelief at how badly their native-speaking American classmates were at writing sentences, doing math, and giving presentations in front of a group.
The redditor’s thread got 6.5k upvotes and over 3k comments. This goes to show just how many university and college professors there really are browsing Reddit and other similar sights. This might just change how you view your own professors in the future: after all, you might be fans of the same online communities!
The anonymity that Reddit provides means that the professors can share their stories pretty much without any chance of others finding out who they are. It also lets these educators vent about their students without exposing their identities either. It’s a win-win for everyone, including online users who get to grab some popcorn and absorb all of these entertaining tales.
I once got an exam essay that mentioned how much Mandela hated the Jews. After scratching my head for a bit and wondering if I’d missed some obvious signs of his anti-Semitism I realized she meant Mengele. As in Josef Mengele, the Nazi “Angel of Death.” Hard to think of a worse person she could’ve confused him for.
My wife has had multiple students who are fundamentally technologically illiterate. Numerous students have had no idea how to use Word or Excel--including one who used their email as a word processor (the University provides students with Office). There have also been students who struggle with installing programs on computers. What's disconcerting is it's becoming an increasingly common issue--as an older millennial, the idea that kids are becoming less technologically proficient is so bizarre.
Same way we did, by practicing and doing it. This is where the "stop needing your hand held" actually comes in to play. No one teaches you, College does not teach you. You teach your self, and if lucky will find and mentor or guide. Otherwise you learn it all by yourself, school doesn't teach you, it gives you assignments and papers you need to read and learn..you can ask questions, but you are teaching your self at all times. No one teaches kids to play video games or do anything else they love doing, they just start doing it and doing it until they are good at it. So if they are not good or can't do something its's on them for never having done it, especially when it's something so common. Kids are on phones and computer and game systems everyday all day. No excuse, you don't need to be taught anything...you just do it like a normal person and slowly get better.
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You can use a spreadsheet on your smartphone. Trust.
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Word and Excel are learned skills. If you have never used these before, why would you be expected to know them?
Yeah, I have students who hit a hard return at the end of every line instead of letting the text wrap.
Give them a typewriter and tell them they're hipsters.
Load More Replies... But in all fairness, I went to a small country primary school and the only time we touched the school laptops was for writing on word. I also remember the school getting some tablets a few years before I left, but apparently they were never used. And I'm pretty sure a few of the teachers wouldn't know what excel is as a matter of fact XD. Btw, it's in Ireland.
This is the same for me. (Australia) Except, we had desktops in the computer room and there was only ever enough for half the class (Sometimes less depending on which school and how many kids in the class). It wasn't until 10th grade (16yrs old. About 3 yrs ago) that we finally got laptops. (1 year at that school left :/) We didn't learn much on the desktops though... Just Word and Google. (But we did had a family laptop at home thankfully).
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I work with a lot of older Gen Xers that don't know how to use a computer either. My dad, a boomer, was so convinced computers were the future he made me take keyboarding and a class on how to use Microsoft Office basics in high school (graduated 2001). Then while in college I had to take a semester on Excel and Access. Now, I'm pretty much the only one in my late 30's - everyone else is 10 years older or younger, and rely on me for pretty much everything Excel. I guess that's job security?
I’m 35 and an employer. I love people with good Excel skills. Not everyone has it. My dad is a boomer and he’s an Excel pro. I’m really not that great with it and end up googling everything.
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It's a lot to assume proficiency. There are many, many young people who grow up in schools that are so poorly funded, that the kids never see a computer there, and that goes hand in hand with lower income communities, where the kids can't afford technology. Add to that, Microsoft now sells Office as an annual subscription that is out of reach for many people. Assuming stupidity says more about the writer than it does about the students.
Maybe they were just poor, went to poor schools and had poor families and therefore no experience with computers.
I think the actual problem is that all consumer tech made in the last 10 years has been designed for the lowest common denominator. Long-gone are the days when you had to understand at least some of the inner workings of your operating system to actually get anything out of a computer.
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Well not every student has access to a computer, so they probably learn how to use the different programs during school time. This is quite normal for poorer families, which can't afford to buy a computer, let alone pay for the internet bill.
They learn to use different programs during school time, yes. But not once during 12 grades? The post said these were University students - they've left high school with no computer knowledge. It's a poor reflection on K-12 standards if learning during school time means "get to university first"
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This is a judgmental post. I just graduated from college with an English degree. I know word, but only because I had to learn it. As for excel, no one told me I needed it and I didn’t. So to make a statement like this implies stupidity when school doesn’t provide or require it. If you think it should be learned, create a core course in high school.
I'm a millenial that's currently upgrading so I can go to university. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING is done threw google classroom in our school division. This includes "word" and "excel" type programs. I don't blame the students at all. I use word and excel but my 12 year old has never touched the programs.
And what if they were not able to afford a computer to lear earlier? Yes, there are still families that cannot afford it. I will not judge them so easily and call them dump. It is dump to think that just because you have a computer from 5-10-20 years and had the chance to learn how to use it for so many years, the rest should have the same background as you.
Oh come on, who knows how to use Excel if you're not taught it specifically because you're going to be using it?
We aren't taught that at school my teachers wont show me how to log into a test he just does it for me, so now when I have a test I have to walk to the teacher and waste test time.
I had a coworker (mid 20-s) who couldn't use WinRar. She received a .zip file and said she couldn't open it, so IT went to her desk thinking it was a permission issue or she didn't have the software installed, but nope. Just an old case of ID-10T
Did those students have computers at home or in their schools? I hate it when criticism is lobbed at someone who either didn't have access or someone to teach them.
I grew up with hardly any tech, I was buried alive when I had to suddenly do everything on a computer. 😖
In my work place (hospital) every 3 months they offer an optional course on how to use basic Microsoft programs. It's aimed for the older population but it sounds like the universities should be offering this as well!
Also so bizarre to me, the boomer, that I am more technologically proficient than my students! But some of it is class - they come through underfunded k-12 systems and had no access to programs.
Exactly, Ryan- nobody is teaching Excel, unless you go to a college specifically for those classes. And I highly recommend it. I got a BUSINESS (AA) degree and realized no software had been taught the entire program.
Office is expensive! No effing way i'll spend 200USD on that! I do use free'sh substitutes, but if a curriculum includes macros - that won't work
ahh the reason our school makes us take tech. class from 1-12 2x's a week also most of us can now hack the computers and undo all the preventions so it kinda backfired on the school
I think some people have been scared into thinking they can permanently destroy a computer by clicking on the wrong button. Unless you go digging around in the depths of your OS you are probably not going to break your computer. Read the pop up windows and don't delete anything that you haven't created yourself and you'll be fine! Click all the things! :)
This is true. I used to teach senior citizens how to use the computer. Most were so afraid of breaking something. I found that teaching them how to play solitaire really loosened them up, and from there it was easier to teach the office apps, etc.
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I work in a healthcare companys billing office at the corporate level. When the pandemic hit and people had to start working from home, the people who had been working at this company the longest started freaking out, because they did NOT know how to work a computer!!! They knew what buttons to push in order to get where they needed to go in the programs, but they knew ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about working a computer or its basic functions!! And with ME being the only one in my department with actual computer skills, guess who had to "crash course" them in one hour???
The best example is the car. When cars first came out, only earlier adopters bought them because they were strange and complex. There were no experts/mechanics so the earlier adopters had to know nearly everything about cars themselves. As cars become more user friendly, they become more popular and people buy them. They are easier to use. There are mechanics around. As a result the car owners become more and more ignorant about how the car operates. Today, 100+ years after the introduction of the car, no one knows how a car works. No one knows how a four-stroke engine works. What’s gas for? What’s a starter? What’s a radiator and why do you need it? Push a button and away it goes. Same with computers. All of our technology is so user friendly there is no need to understand how any of it works on any level other than push the post button.
Millennials grew up in a time where all this was new and exciting. We truly experienced the digital revolution and saw our options grow. That is some serious motivation to learn how to work that magic machine that would make our lives much easier and more entertained. Also, back then you couldn't do with just basic knowledge and intuition. So yeah, I do understand there is not much need as there used to be to learn how to use a computer.
Nobody taught us either - it's was just trial and error, but most of the things are intuitive and you only say "proceed".. so it sounds like they lack the spirit of adventure (they want to have a safe recipe for everything). And here I was thinking that the spoon feeding has truly ended..
They don’t teach technical skills or any civics classes. What do they teach, then?
They're supposed to learn basic word processing in elementary school, aren't they? I don't know about excel.
I noticed similar issues while training new hires at work. I was really amazed until I remembered I never had a computer class after 8th grade and so much is done with chrome books now.
Well, when you use a computer to just play games and/or watch porn, what do you expect? I guess gone are the days of saying “just get the 14 year old kid next door to install and program your computer for you”. A kid from the generation that was born into the world where there are computers in nearly every home is becoming just as tech clueless as their 70 year old neighbor.
My youngest godkids have no clue how to do anything unless they can swipe or tap a screen. Word and Excel require... data entry. Blows their minds tht my generaton (GenX) just figured it out using, y'know, a how-to guide and some thinking.
if it's not something they can install or use on their cell, they have no clue. it's sad. we should have computer literacy classes. I had one in my middle school- that was 25 years ago. i was also required to take home economics- which explained budgeting, balancing your checkbook, and mortgages. no cooking lol. i took keyboading (typing) as an elective, and it's what allowed me to land a cushy office job despite only having an high school diploma. all three of these classes should be at least electives, and parents should make their kids take them. (my mom made me take the keyboarding class- i wanted to take an art class. her theory was that i could independently research art if i was so keen on it. guess what, i wasn't.)
Once had identical twin sisters who turned in identical essays. Both were directly plagiarized from a Google search and received identical zeroes.
I’ve been a student and I’ve seen my fair share of coursemates and professors. Some educators were (and still are) so magnificent that I miss their lectures like Harry Potter misses Quidditch. They’re the people who still make me consider doing my PhD sometime in the future. Meanwhile, others were petty, bureaucratic, and concerned only about following the curriculum instead of being beacons of knowledge.
However, just like there’s a range of professors, from great to gruesome, there’s a spectrum for students, too. On one side we have young adults who are diligent, ambitious, and see education as a gateway to bettering themselves into veritable giants of intelligence. On the other side, we’ll find the slobs, the endless party-goes, and the cheaters who want the diploma without the hard work. It’s the eternal debate between doing things the right way vs. doing them the easy way.
I had a girl come in with a research paper bibliography that listed "my mom" as a source several times.
When I pressed, she told me her mom looked up everything and sent it to her and she just...put it in the paper. She told me she had always done it that way.
That’s sweet, but I also hope her mom knows how to Google credible sources.
A friend who taught in the politics department received a paper about ‘gorilla’ warfare in South America. It was so poorly written she couldn’t tell if it was a typo, or if they genuinely thought Colombia had been overrun by a Planet of the Apes style revolution.
This was in the UK and English was the student’s first language.
One student wrote in a discussion board about Lord of the Flies, 'I like how they saved all the flies. That was my favorite part.' If you've read the book, you can guess the look on my face.
Being a bad student is as easy as gobbling down a greasy kebab or slice of pizza after a fun night out. Stepping up, taking charge, and being a good student is much, much harder, however. It’s less about getting good grades and more about who you are as a person and your attitude towards hardship.
I had a student include numerous emojis in a term paper.
A different student came to my office a week after the final, and asked me why she had failed the course. She hadn’t turned in a single assignment, or written the final.
All the comments so far are about the second student not doing jack sh1t. I'm still tickled over the emoji student!! :p
I had a student put in their presentation, 'Women's suffrage has destroyed the American family structure,' and 'feminism has turned women away from their naturally obedient nature.'
My dad taught junior college biology and A&P, and at times zoology and botany, for 25 years. He has soooooo many stories, from multiple people showing up with roadkill for him to identify, asking advice on growing weed and shrooms, and thinking he was a medical doctor. The one that sticks out to me was a poor girl who lingered after class to ask "if pregnancy tests can ever be wrong, because I took a bunch this morning". He explained about human growth hormone and told her false negatives are possible, but not false positives. He said her face just kept falling as it slowly dawned on her. She told him, "three were negative". He asked if any were positive and she said yeah... he asked how many and she said, "Twelve... so... you're saying... it's not possible that I'm NOT pregnant?" He was like, "Sorry honey, unfortunately yes, that's what I'm saying. You need to go see a doctor". She came back a couple semesters later and let my dad meet her very adorable baby.
You’ve got a paper due in a month. What do you do? Do you put it off until literally the last moment, working through the night and pounding energy drink after energy drink, only to turn the paper in ten minutes before the deadline? Or do you get started right away, getting to grips with the issues, tackling the problems, and handing it in early so it doesn’t weigh on your mind? It’s everyday choices that draw the line between a good and bad student.
I had a football player in class, and he could barely write on the sentence-level. I think he had just never been expected to learn how to write since he was an athlete. When he failed his first paper, he came to me and asked how to improve. We agreed that he’d come to my office hours, and we would work through the process of writing a research paper together. Y’all, this kid worked so hard. Every week he’d show up, and we’d talk about how to write an intro paragraph or how to build evidence in the body of a paper, etc. He wasn’t going to get an A in my class or anything, but he was definitely on track for a C- (with a little extra recognition for how hard he worked all semester).
When he turned in his final paper, he had SIGNIFICANTLY improved over his previous paper. I pulled him aside and asked him about his process this time around. With absolutely no guile, he told me that he told his brother what he wanted to say, and his brother wrote it down for him.
I was bound by the Honors Council and a sense of duty to my other students to do what I saw as the ethical thing, which was to fail him, but I do think about him sometimes and that was 20 years ago. He tripped at the very last step.
One student wrote a paper about the causes of the Salem Witch Trials. She sided with the accusers because she'd 'seen some stuff,' clearly not understanding the assignment.
I was a graduate instructor for a scientific writing class, where students were trained in how to consume and report on research in the form of a literature review. One student kept quiet the whole semester and declined help when I reached out to him periodically throughout.
His term paper came in with the rest, but it was…uh…markedly different. He had written 20 pages on why science was a tool of the devil, complete with quotes from the Bible, and didn’t even format the paper the way I had been teaching students all semester. Included in the paper was a snippet of an interview he conducted with his pastor.
I gave a failing grade on the paper and recommended to him that he change majors to religious studies or something.
Excelling in your studies requires discipline and having structure in your life. If you wake up whenever you want and only study sporadically, in between parties and meeting up with your friends, you’ll be relying on luck rather than skill.
My old History of Modern Art prof loves to tell the story about an exam essay featuring the topic of "the male gays" instead of "the male gaze".
I have taught numerous students who are unable to read for meaning. They can read the words on a page out loud to you, but ask them to explain what they just read, they will repeat the words on the page. Our country's education system is very broken.
Teaching an English subject on academic writing, including the structure and importance of paragraphs, and a student then handed in a first essay that looked more like poetry - one sentence per line.
When queried, she insisted "they don't have paragraphs where I come from".
Turns out she was British...
The more orderly and less chaotic your schedule, the easier it will be to focus on your studies. Naturally, that means avoiding distractions like having Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter open while you’re supposed to be doing research. Multitasking isn’t as efficient as focusing on one thing at a time because you’ll have your flow broken. (Pssst, this works for everything, not just devouring books and articles for your studies.)
Two girls were swapping thoughts on the exam and a asks b who she wrote about. B says ‘I wrote about Lenin’. A says ‘really? I don’t remember him mentioned in the lectures a lot’. B says ‘oh I know but I know a lot about him. My mum is a huge fan of his music.’
She had written about John Lennon. Not Vladimir Lenin, who’s name was clearly printed on the exam paper.
This is the same girl who, while we’re being taught about the Holocaust and shown pictures of dead inmates, said ‘what diet do you think he was on? I want my ribs to show like that’.
We were in a teaching degree, btw.
It is called the "genocide diet". But most doctors actually don't approve, and neither do basically decent human beings.
I used to cover for some of my profs in their intro classes. I thought it was ridiculous, but one of the profs decided she wanted to test her students on the states.
Yes, a map of the states that they just have to fill in the name of the state. The students knew a month in advance and she said they did a lesson on it.
I had to proctor and grade the test 3 times. The international students passed with flying colors just as consistently as the American students epically failed. She kept making them retake it until they, at the very least, made something more than an F.
I wonder about the backstory for college level assignments like this considering this was a test I took in fourth grade.
I used to TA for undergrad organic chem lab courses. Had a... challenging student once who was not great at reading directions or thinking critically. We were setting up an experiment that required GENTLE heating of a volatile solvent. I explicitly told the class, multiple times, “only turn your hot plates up to 2 when heating, these things get very hot.” Maybe 30 minutes later I’m making my rounds through the lab and I pass said guy’s fume hood and notice his reaction is smoking. I look closer and see that all of the liquid in his flask is gone and its just a charred, black smoking mess (which is still heating). I ask, “Student! What’s going on with your reaction??? What’s the temperature set at?!” The guy goes, “oh, I wasn’t sure how hot to heat it, so I just turned the plate all the way up to 10. Is my reaction going to be ok?” No, no man, it’s not going to be ok... he literally boiled the thing dry
Meanwhile, being a good professor has more to do with how you communicate with people rather than how disciplined and orderly your life is. Even the most brilliant specialist, a true Einstein in their chosen field, will be derided by their students if they’re full of themselves, dismissive of others’ views, and poke fun at their ‘colleagues-in-learning.’
There have been disturbingly high numbers of students on a performance based music degree who can't read music. Not musicologists or conceptual composers who could in theory get away with it. No, these were people turning up expecting to study western classical performance.
I always felt the same way about guitar tablatures, but to be honest, I haven’t memorized by notes either. Fun fact, my phone doesn’t recognize tablatures as a real word, so is tablature a singular noun? Please lemme know
In undergrad I was taking an American history course. Our professor was from Maryland and was probably in her early forties. This kid asked her if she was one of the pearl harbor survivors. He couldn't grasp the fact that she was very much not alive at that time and that Pearl Harbor was not a harbor in Maryland.
My kids keep asking me how stuff was in the Olden Days. I still don't know when these were --- I suppose they keep sliding? It used to be the 19th C, then the Interbellum (1920s--1930s), so now it's when...?
I was teaching a class about college campuses in the 1960s and 70s centering on protests and activism during that time. The final paper asked the students to take an example from that time period and compare it to a more recent instance of activism on campus.
One student chose to write about instances of Martin Luther King, Jr. visiting college campuses to speak on issues of equality. That's when the student said that he had won the Nobel Prize in Sports and I just had to stop. I reread that paragraph about 10 times before I confirmed with myself that this student did indeed write what I thought they did. The rest of the paper was equally well researched and, needless to say, they did not get a good grade.
On the plus side, Martin Luther King, Jr., sports superstar, has become a running joke among my friends who were around at the time.
‘Inside Higher Ed’ suggests that educators should look at students as real people and complex individuals instead of a grey and problematic mass that’s full of the new generation’s issues. There’s a lot to be said in favor of treating people as, well, people in all areas of life. Crafting genuine connections with others will always, always trump a purely mechanical approach where every student is seen as interchangeable and a ‘temporary nuisance.’
When a professor sees their students as partners in learning (however cheesy that might sound!), learning becomes a collaboration, an unending brainstorm of ideas, a feedback loop where everyone’s a learner and a teacher at the same time.
I worked at my university writing center and saw a lot of really terrible writing. SO MANY poorly written essays. I really don’t know how you can graduate from high school without at least being able to perform simple tasks like “Point to your thesis statement.”
The whole point of a writing center was to teach students to correct their own work, but there was a direct correlation between how awful a paper was and how likely the student was to throw it at you and say “I’m going to go have lunch. Will you have it fixed in an hour?” then try to leave.
The tutors all got really good at an authoritative, “Stop right there! Sit down. Now let’s talk about how YOU are going to improve YOUR paper.”
The most frustrating papers were the science majors. I could never tell if the paper was terrible or I just wasn’t following the details of their experiment on chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons or whatever.
The absolute worst was the ENGLISH MASTERS DEGREE STUDENT who came in several times with absolute gibberish. To be fair, English was his second language but... are you absolutely sure you do not want to consider a career change, my good sir?
One time we had an indigenous guest speaker give a lecture about misrepresentation of First Nations culture in media at my art university. During the Q&A a student MEANT to ask the question “how do you feel about cultural appropriation of imagery from your culture by corporations?” Instead she asked “how do you feel when like H&M sells like... underwear and stuff that has like feathers on it” I have never cringed so hard in my life. The guest speaker had no idea what she was even asking him.
Gross overuse of the word "like" when it serves no purpose in a sentence is a crime in itself
Professor at a middle of nowhere medium sized state school with a 80-ish% acceptance rate. Had a graduate student who couldn't code for the life of him but was a software engineer at an undisclosed incredibly large aviation company. He couldn't accept that other students who didn't have jobs were better than him and that the people grading him "didn't have jobs". Sent death threats because we failed him on an assignment where his code didn't run.
He complained to the higher ups and got a C.
However friendly a professor might be, they still have to have authority in the classroom. So if their students are taking advantage of their good nature or trying to pretend they’ve read a text when they clearly haven’t, the educator has to risk being blunt and call them out on this. Politely but firmly. Bluntly but with a knowing smile.
I taught a new remedial algebra class for students who had a non-traditional pre-college experience or who hadn’t taken enough math in high school to take even basic college level math.
An early section on exponents really tripped up one student. When a professor saw his grade, he instructed me to meet with the student to try to help get him on course. Upon reviewing his exam, I realized he had problems with negative numbers. I quickly sketched up a lesson about how exponents worked with negative numbers, but I was floored when his first question was “What are negative numbers?”
I spent an hour and a half working with him to no effect. I’m not even sure he even believed there was such a thing as a negative number.
Well... it's a weird idea, if you think about it. Less than nothing. If you have a glass of water, and you empty it, you have zero water...you can't have negative water. If you have temperatures, and you go below 'zero' 'zero' was an arbritary point. In personal banking, it is a change in relationship, from saving to borrowing. If you have five apples, and you give away five apples, you have zero apples. You can't give away more than you had to start with, there are no negative apples. You can promise someone more apples, and have apples you owe someone else, but these are imaginary future apples, and they still aren't negative. I was very confused by negative numbers at about age 8, and the teacher finally explained it as 'numbers moving in the other direction' and we did imaginary steps backwards from the zero line.
As a college freshman I took Advanced English with a student who didn’t know how to write a research paper or even possibly read (I don’t know). When I realized she didn’t know how to research, I gave her my sources and showed her how to navigate them. The next class when we were supposed to edit each other’s rough drafts. I handed her my paper to edit, she gave it back to me after 10 seconds without reading it and said it was good. She then handed me her “paper” and it was just a list of random dates.
I had a student who told me, being 100% serious, that he wouldn’t be presenting on his assigned day because he 'didn’t do the assignment and he’d go the next day.'
Which of these stories did you enjoy the most, dear Pandas? Are any of you professors? If so, we’d love to hear any similar stories if you’ve got any. Meanwhile, if any of you are students, let us know about the strangest and most ridiculous things your coursemates and your professors have done.
I hate to stereotype, but pretty much all male student athletes make me think this. Oddly, the majority of the female student athletes I've taught have been hard workers. If they don't do well on an assignment, they email me to discuss their grades and what they could do to improve.
The male student athletes...I often struggle to understand how they made it out of middle school. Their verbal fluency is far beyond grade level, their writing is abysmal, they put no effort into class, they're lazy...it's frustrating because they have way too much institutional support.
Yes, but they are athletes, so everyone likes them and they get advantages.
Had a horticultural major believe that milk and eggs came from the back of the grocery store. Specifically that "milk was just water with things mixed in".... She went to an ag. college.....
This is both "wow, that's embarrassing" and "well, technically . . . "
I teach college economics. Students had to pick a developing country for their topic. Every term, I have students pick Africa or South America. I am very specific in the instructions that it has to be a country. They never understand.
That´s because they think they´re countries, like America is their country. And many also think that in Europe we speak European.
A student said that you can't use pressure bandages on head, because it would compress the brain. Also that you shouldnt use them because head doesn't bleed much. He said that on an oral exam. In 3rd year of medschool.
Maybe he should use a pressure bandage on himself. Maybe that'll nudge the braincells in the right direction
I have a job instructing at a community college: writing skills are incredibly bad; time management and ability to follow instructions are horrible.....but the worse was were a pair of females twins that turned in identical papers, one clearly copied from the other, on the assigned topic of Epistemology by cutting an pasting a Wikipedia article on Episiotomy. I gave them a zero for the content, and ignored the cheating and the plagiarism. They DEMANDED I review it with them, I did and wouldn't change the grade, so they appealed the grades to the Academic Dean, who invited them to leave the college.
Had a student steal a paper from the internet, discussing the predicted outcome of a US Supreme Court case that was decided 20 years prior. The student tried to claim that it was a current case.
My friend's student teacher (early 20s, about to graduate college) is working in a lower elementary classroom... and spells words wrong all the time. Everyone can have a brain fart now and then, but this is a few words, every day. Here she is, teaching the kids... and there are misspelled words on the board. Every day.
This type of thing annoys me because by now she knows she can't spell perfectly. Check it with another teacher. She may be a wonderful teacher in other ways and this her only flaw, so that can be forgiven, but ffs just ask the teacher in the next door classroom to check every morning.
One of my student-athletes literally could not recite the months of the year in order.
And those kids get scholarships for college, while other kids who study don't get them, or can't afford to go to college.
One of my students (outside of class) explained that she and her whole family truly believes that microwaves mutate the DNA of your food (they don’t) and mutated DNA is dangerous to eat (it wouldn’t be).
I couldn’t help myself for calling her out. It was such a strange thing that it didn’t even occur to me to be sensitive. I just said she clearly needed to take my biology class again.
I once spent an hour explaining to college junior that an even number is divisible by 2.
I have a genuine curiosity as to how these people graduate high school?
For a couple years I taught first-year college students in an ENGINEERING program, the majority of whom didn't know how to do unit conversions. Not even, like, inches-to-centimeters. To repeat ... college ... ENGINEERING ...
My graduate school classmate wrote “America is a country that has been around for thousands of years.” It was a group paper on social policy.
As a TA while I was working on my teaching degree, we had a student that was missing her lab workbook in Chem II on the 2nd day. She said it wasn't lost, just that she no longer had it.
When pressed on the subject, it turns out she refunded it for cash (after buying it on stipend) so she could get new hair extensions.
I had to teach one student how to use numlock on a keyboard and then I had to explain to another who was trying to look up "Utah" that it isn't spelled "Yutah". Had another sit on top of a box with about half a million dollar's worth of equipment in it today without checking to see if it was a box full of expensive stuff. Teaching college is wild.
I had a student who had failed the previous year, due to missing too many labs to pass and not handing in assignments. I had rewritten the curriculum. I noticed that this student hadn't been handing certain things in and had been skipping lectures, so I decided to chat with them. They thought their marks for that semester were cumulative with their previous year's, so they just had to make up enough marks to get a passing grade. This is a post-grad program. They had a Bachelor of Science degree in dietetics.
It's scary to think a majority of these idiots will eventually become employees, bosses, trainers or, even worse, parents.
I took a course where a girl admitted she didn’t know how to use apostrophes. Like “cat’s, they’re, Emma’s” and so we spent a week on it and I never wanted a refund on an experience so bad.
Had to explain what the moon was ... for a history class because someone asked what happened to Pluto and I just.... it was a dark rabbit hole.
None could write legibly by hand. Few could spell. Next to none did the reading. At least half regularly skipped class and/or assignments.
Mummy and Daddy’s influence was clearly strong on admissions...
A week after a midterm, a student came up to my friend and said she took longer on the midterm than expected, didn't have enough money in the meter to cover the additional time, and got a parking ticket as a result. She asked my friend who in the department should she submit the ticket to for reimbursement
I've had students think that including the logo of the search engine they used counted as citing a source. That's when they even bother to cite a source. I've had to lower my standards from "APA format required" to "Please don't copy/paste wikipedia and pretend it is your paper, at least tell me what website you used, and please don't use a color scheme that causes seizures. Thanks"
I used to TA physics. I had a student who had gone to a decent private high school tell me the value of pi was 2.28. I can kind of understand the .28, because that's 2pi, but I don't know where the 2 came from.
From an essay on World War II Germany: "And then crystal snatch happened."
The student who labeled Canada incorrectly on a map.
And so on and so forth.
I had a student who didn’t know what the stapler was or how to use it. I accepted his assignment as separate pages. Unsurprisingly, his writing was similarly disjointed.
Maybe just.... SHOW him how to use the stapler? It would take a couple seconds to show him how to use it. Then there would be no issue.
I had to do a peer review. We were supposed to write 5 pages of a persuasive argument.
Well, the girlI got, she just wrote a story of 9/11. No argument. Just a story about what happened.
I felt soo bad writing on the paper,b"Rewrite entire paper to make an argument, not a statement"
Unless she came from a household where they deny that those events happened... where a simple statement would be considered an argument.
This young woman was sitting right in the middle of a History of the Middle Ages Course. They are writing down possible investigation topics for a monograph and she raises her hand and says: “Does it have to be about the Middle Ages?” “Well Ma’am, since the class is called Medieval History, I’d prefer you to write something about something that happened within the Middle Ages”.
Someone printed a 3 page resume for an assignment in our "job readiness" class. Complete with a mugshot.
Rule #1 in the assignment was bold underlined "1 page front only"
First story: masters student didn't know how to convert from seconds to minutes. Second story: no one from a class of 4 phd students in an engineering field knew how to add two 2D vectors.
I’m a French professor, and a few weeks in to a 200-level French class (taught entirely in French) a student tells me that he’s struggling because never took French before. Zero understanding of what we’d been doing for weeks!
Not sure how a professor didn't notice within all those weeks that a student understood nothing? Facial expression? Eye contact? Lack of contribution? No work handed in?
I used to adjunct in the summers while working on my Phd. I taught organic chemistry and a few other low level science classes.
I had a junior in my class that thought that Celcius and Fahrenheit were the same thing, but that Celcius was just the European translation of the word Fahrenheit.
We were doing peer editing in English 102. I got an essay on why suicide being illegal was stupid. I still remember the opening line 15 years later:
"There are plenty of ret**ded of laws."
I stared at that sentence wondering what to do and realizing how low my school's standards of admission were
Indeed, the second "of" should not be there, but this mistake, as silly as it can be, is not that remarkable.
I was a teaching aide for a Space Systems class. Final project, the students had to apply everything and do system Engineering for a small satellite mission. One student just turned in a hand drawn picture of a cartoon looking satellite orbiting the Earth. This was a senior / Grad level course.
I am a computer engineering tutor at a research university. I get a lot of students asking to cheat, but the craziest one to me was how some student managed to get into a sophomore level computer architecture course and quite literally did not know what “multiplication” even meant.
I was teaching a first-year religion class, and we were talking about the story of Adam and Eve. I told my class that a colleague of mine joked Adam had a C-section because he wasn’t conscious when God took his rib and made Eve. The class had a giggle, but one student raised their hand and seriously asked why everyone was laughing, because men have the ability to regrow their ribs once in their life, thanks to this original moment.
To everyone complaining in the comments about religion being taught, who its not true, etc. I would like to repeat what Lizz Lor said, because L think you all need to understand it. "One can learn about religion from an academic standpoint without believing in that religion...or any religion. Much like a history teacher can teach about Roman, Greek or Egyptian mythology and not believe in THOSE religions. You're pretty dense if you think someone is stupid just because they have knowledge of religions."
In grad school we had to do weekly presentations on individual scientific studies within the focus of our thesis and this one girl was completely bombing on a study about biomechanics. The professor gently tried to guide her to a different conclusion and she began to argue with him. That’s when the professor asked her to read out loud the authors of the study and, of course, he was the lead author. She unknowingly chose to butcher a study that her own professor authored...
I have had large handfuls of students come to our tutoring lab on campus who do not understand basic addition and subtraction while being in Calculus or above. I use math so frequently in my life for so many little things...how do you end up so deep in your college career without algebra?
A college freshman worked a problem until she got to 12/4 and then got stuck because "I don't have a calculator." She was an Education major.
When discussing the Civil War, a student asked whether the South or the north won...
Even pre-covid every assignment was online. I tell the students that the online system tracks when they logged in and what activity they do when they are logged in. Every few semesters I get someone that goes to the department chair or somebody complaining that they missed an assignment because of the online system. I then go pull a report that shows that they either a) did not login at the time they said, or b) did not take the action they said.
Student evaluation comment direct quote “the professor included material on the test that was not directly from the lecture slides. In order to get an A someone would have to do research in the textbook and attend he optional review sessions which not everyone has time to do. Why are we paying professors if we have to teach ourselves the material in the first place?”
I teach physics labs. One student came to every lab but never submitted a single assignment. I contacted them a few times throughout the semester to let them know I hadn’t received anything from them. Then, the last week of classes, they emailed me saying “Hi, I’m worried that I’m going to fail this lab. Is there anything I can do to pass?” I just replied and said “At this point all of your labs are past two weeks late, so you’d get 0s on all of them even if you turned them in.”
I don't have any specific stories, but I've found the answer to the question a dozen times over: their high school teachers held their hand the whole way. They even get packets at the end of the year they can complete to pass a class if they failed to do a single thing all semester. They come to college and expect the same treatment.
high school teachers are under immense pressure to pass students any way they can. it's awful because it sets them up for failure, not only in college, but in real life. how many students pass often dictates how much funding a school gets. so they have to pass them. education system= broken
One student never did any homework in high school, not even once. He doesn't know anything about history and could not tell where Russia is if you asked him. But he is extremely smart and took some exams at the end of the semester to improve his grades. He learned 1 year of math in 1 week and always passed. It's very disturbing to see how lazy he was and how he still got what he wanted.
It sounds like he was bored, not lazy. This happens a lot in public schools where support is given to the kids who need help (rightfully so) but very little is given to the kids whose abilities to learn surpass the common core education curriculum. Some are identified because their parents had them tested, many others slip through because they come off as “lazy”
I've seen Calculus students who didn't know how work with fractions.
I've had College Algebra students who couldn't multiply single digit numbers.
Tutored a girl in College Algebra who didn't know what a square root was.
I've had students type completely incoherent essays. It looked like something was run through a translation website about 5 different times. Every time I show some of these examples to people, you can visibly see the shock on their face increase as they flip each page, trying to figure out what is written.
I used to work at an English help lab at my university. I had no problem helping the English as a Second Language students because they had a tough challenge working outside their primary language.
What killed me is how some of these native English-speaking kids got out of high school still writing incomplete sentences, run-ons, tense disagreements, and having basic vocabulary and grammar errors. I went to an engineering school, so yes...some of these guys probably were good at math and bad at English, but you still need to be able to communicate.
Knowing your first language's grammar is the least one should be expected to do to even graduate highschool, let alone get into college.
The sheer lack of critical thinking skills and the inability to follow any sort of directions.
Who needs critical thinking when it only gets you into trouble? Critical thinkers usually are the people who call out the bigots, sexists, racists and corrupt fraudsters. They are not the people who support greedy old people in getting richer.
Woman was enrolled in a sophmore level class of mine. The class was twice a week, 3 hours each class. She didn't show for the first 7 classes. She shows up for class 8 wearing an extremely revealing outfit and asked me if we could go discuss her "catching up" in the student commons area. I had a very bad feeling about this (I am male). I agreed, but I met her in the commons with another student in-tow. She didn't say much. I called the Dean's office the next day to discuss the student's situation. The office advised that she dropped out of the course twice already and asked special permission to take the class with me (my class was remote, about an hour away from campus). She needed to pass my class or she'd be dropped from the University. She did not show for class 9 (or any other class).
Was an assistant to a professor. Every few weeks we would have in class writing assignments that were on paper. Every time there was always a paper that was written in something completely unprofessional.
This kid wrote in thick Crayola washable markers. It would take up two lines because it was so thick. Usually he wrote in black but a few times he used purple or blue. I have no idea how this kid made it out of high school.
The amount of students in calculus classes do not know how to add fractions, multiple algebraic expressions (using the distributive law), do not know how to calculate percent increase/decrease has always astounded me. I always think about the fact that they have to sign a federal loan before learn how to calculate interest.
I had a student place an object on a digital balance in a biology class. The digital number popped up and she asked if the number was the weight or the length of the object.
In her defense, if she had warehouse experience, she might have used a dimensioning scale which in addition to weighing an item also outputs its dimensions.
My dad taught college when he was younger, he had one student that was in his physics class that couldn’t understand a problem for some reason. He kept trying to make it easier and easier, and eventually asked: “what’s 1/2 + 1/3?” To which the student replied “1/5”.
Not to such an extent but every email I get from a student shows how awkward they are at sending emails. Some overly formal and on the other hand some don’t even bother addressing me.
When I was at school (I'm Gen X) we were taught how to lay out a letter. Are kids nowadays taught how to lay out an email? If not, if there's no recognised official way of doing it, I can see the problem for them.
I was once supervising an inductive logic exam including a question asking for an explanation of why a formalisation was "ambiguous". Student raises his hand and asks "what's 'ambeejus'?"
Maybe they're dyslexic or have some other sort of learning difficulty/disability?
I had a student call in to miss class (the day he was to make a presentation) claiming an "emergency funeral" he had to attend at the other end of town. His classmates called him on speakerphone and got him to admit to making up that story.
I TA physics labs and classes at a technical college. Part of that is having them graph things. More than one student has called it the Why axis
I also had two students cheat on an ethics exam. One student said that though she had been earning an A-, a question was ambiguous and she had to know the answer, so she Googled it during the exam. The other student denied cheating though I had proof. He continued to deny it until I reminded him that he was logged on to the University WiFi, and thus we could track his browsing, private or no.
My department chair and dean wanted me to let both instances go because it would be too much paperwork. Instead I failed the students from the exam and would not let them drop the class, ensuring they would have to retake it with a colleague the following year.
I was a TA for a social stats class (about 200-300 students in the class). I corrected homework and exams, mostly.
There was this guy, I'll call him Jake... Jake just couldn't write legibly, nor write coherently.
Torn off paper (because he can't use an eraser)
Grey paper (because he used a pencil and rubbed his fingers and arms over his copy over and over)
WRITING THIS BIG
but all was written in overlapping lines, a big spaghetti.
If the numbers for the example were 1234, he pulled his own numbers from his own head. It didn't seem like dyscalculia, because it all seemed to come out of nowhere. There wasn't a single moment where you'd find a "common" thread. If it was 1234, he might well input 189734119.
A student called me at 3AM on a Saturday to tell me that he submitted an assignment for me to grade. Yeah dude, I'll get right on that.
Another example of how a phone call at 3 am is rarely good news.
MBA program. Student were asked to write a short paper on environmental scanning in their strategy class.
A students paper was sent to me for review because the plagiarism software flagged it as a direct match to something on the internet.
The student had flagrantly copy and pasted a bunch of shit about hurricanes. I read the paper and saw that he was talking about how hurricanes can “are bad for business.”
As a professor, I’ve enjoyed seeing how people write things they’ve never seen written before. Like “brass tacks” or “full proof”.
"could of" is one I read a few times a day and it always makes my blood boil.
During an open note exam, had a student ask me what lecture slide they could find the answer.
The inability to write is the biggest.
About half my students will go on to become paralegals, and the other half will try and go to law school.
I’m continuously shocked by the amount of terrible writers. I’m not talking about people that haven’t learned proper legal citation, or the associated bullshit that attaches to writing. I’m talking about people who give me arguments like “the statements of the defendant should be suppressed because the Supreme Court says so.” Or people that can’t write complete sentences. Or the people that use no punctuation.
Technically, "Or people that can’t write complete sentences" is an incomplete sentence. Or intentional irony.
I used to be a sculpture prof. The number of students that didn't know how to use a broom or tape measure before taking my class was frightening.
Joke: An engineer goes to his first day of work, and asks his supervisor what he has to do. Supervisor: 'You can start by sweeping the floor' Engineer: 'Excuse me, but I am an engineer' Supervisor: 'Oh, of course, sorry, I'll show you how to use the broom'
Kid used the word "strategery" a couple times in a serious discussion and I honestly have no idea if she meant it as a reference to the snl joke, someone fed it to her as a joke on her, or she truly meant it non-ironically, and the fact I wasn't totally certain is what worried me.
In the final year of high school I had to intervene during a pratical exam when a student attempted to heat a plastic petri dish of water using the blue flame of a bunsen burner.
I was just grad student TA for a psych 100 level class. But holy hell. The average paper I graded was absolute rubbish! Like, so many of the students had what I can only describe as a nodding relationship with the written English language.
Our courses use "Moodle" as our course organization thingy, and the EBook we use for the online section of the course I teach is through another website. So you need to buy the access code, go to their website and do assignments there.
To ease with the access of the site, I recorded a video of myself navigating Moodle, mock purchasing the ebook code, going to the website, registering the code, and navigating the ebook showing all aspects of the site to the students. I then posted that video so it's quite literally the first thing you see in the Moodle page.
Fast forward a couple semesters to this one. The midterm opens up in February 15 and closes 30 days later. I get an email from a student to the effect of, "Hey so I've been waiting for you to upload materials to Moodle only to find out it's in an ebook? I'm confused and don't know how to get access to it."
Like... There's legit no way to make up half of the material before the end of midterm access. I just... Sigh
I taught a course on the geology of national parks and one time a student submitted a paper on a park which was copied and pasted from the geography section of its wikipedia page (including the hyperlinked sources and all)
I taught at a Community College for a while. I was absolutely flabbergasted at how many students couldn't write a complete sentence. Subject. Verb. Punctuation.
I teach design related stuff at a private university. There was an older guy, with a poor background. I had them to make Facebook posts. I expected well designed posts, for commercial pages. He sent me screenshots of pictures of himself that he had posted in his personal Facebook page.
I worked with engineering graduate students as a non academic support staff. I instructed one student to put a tray of crucibles into the furnace at 550C. I thought he understood that he should place the individual crucibles into the furnace one at a time, but he inserted the entire PLASTIC TRAY that into a 550C furnace. It started to melt before he had it half way in, and he STILL continued to proceed. Within seconds it was a smoking disaster.
They were asked to "put a tray of crucibles", not "the crucibles which are in the tray", so...
Some girl in my grad school program quoted Wikipedia in a paper. We then had to listen to 15 minute speech about why you can’t do that.
I have students who don’t know how to take notes, study for tests, or present their work. I’m surprised a lot of them made it to college, let alone being upperclassmen.
Had a med student that didn’t know if sodium was an ion. When I said “yes”, I watched her write in her notebook “sodium is an ion”.
Only if the particle is charged . . . ? In atom of sodium isn't always an ion.
I'm a physics professor. Basically everyone in my algebra-based physics classes. The worst part is that they're mostly science majors! English majors in my GenEd astronomy course is one thing. I'm not expecting miracles. But some of these people want to go to medical school, and they can't even solve a quadratic equation!
I had a student who was thoroughly incompetent (couldn't figure out how to use Excel, etc.). At the end she excitedly said she found a job opportunity, and could I write a reference letter? Curious, I looked up the job. It was very clearly a scam.
Stop worrying about their computer skills at age 5-13 and teach them grammar, please. I am appalled by the fact that my friends and family who speak English as a second or third language use better written English than most native speakers. (This includes US, UK, NZ, Australia, &, yes, Canada.) And BAN AUTOFILL/AUTOCORRECT. Give quizzes on meaning of similar words. If I see "palatable" for "palpable" one more time? And that is in a *medical setting*... Palate and palpate are *reallllly* different, FFS. Argh. *headdesk to tenth*
Educators have a tough job. But this is nothing more than teachers complaining about how poorly their students have been previously taught. It's not amusing, it's sad.
My one friend recently retired fro teaching high school. She often had to re-teach them common concepts like sets and fractions before she could begin basic algebra. It's a tragedy. "No Child Left Behind".... Not so much.
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How did these college students even make it this far in life? That is a mystery to me.
it was dubya's no child left behind bulls**t. Teachers taught to the test to get the test scores so the school gets more money. Fail them. No can do. Pass them on to the next level so now their snowflake is some one else's problem.
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I've posted this on bored panda, ill post it once again. I knew a kid, let's call him LikeBoy, or lb because he says the word like a lot. Anyways, our class was having a discussion post about reducing are carbon footprint and all the eco friendly stuff like that. We are all asked a question and we discuss about it. The question comes to cutting down trees, and LB is asked what he thinks about it: "Like, you know, I think, like it would, like, be bad for the, like, environment, to like, you know, cut down all the, like, trees, but I guess, like, all the rich people, like need, their like, fancy golf courses, and like, mansions, so maybe like, it's ok, like". (Sorry, about like, all the, like, 'likes')
It makes me sad to see a large portion of people in the U.S don't know basic grammar. Whether it is the broken school system or people being lazy, I don't know, but grab a damn book if you don't know how to spell!
I think that instead of showing dumb students this post shows poor education. Calling them dumbs would not improve the things. The problem is in the early education thay got, both from schools and from their parents.
When highly articulate and erudite professors get hauled over the coals 3 times for compromising the institutions security by falling for Phishing attacks. The students seem relatively harmless.
Load More Replies... There's a difference between STUPID and IGNORANT. Stupid means that someone does not have the appropriate mental acuity to understand that what they've learned in their little private bubble of existence, does not work or relate to anything or anyone in the outside world, or in reality. They will never "get it". Ignorant means that someone was raised without the proper tools to learn. These people are open to learn, and most actually like to learn, because they understand the concept of what is needed to function in society and the real world.
Sorry but why is anyone surprised. We have put education into the hands of governments who have shown over and over and over again that they are pretty much incompetent at implementing most things. And then we as a society decide that the results are just fine. Those with money can take their kids out of failing schools or get tutors, the rest can't but we do nothing about it. In may ways I'm glad that I'm 65 and given my family history probably have 15 - 20 years left, because by that time the Western world will be toast.
I honestly think that two things cause students to fail so badly. The first is bad teaching. The world is full of atrocious teachers who have no business being in a classroom. The second problem is ridiculous expectations of the good teachers, who are expected to get through preposterously overstuffed curricula in overcrowded classrooms, while being required to accommodate any number of special educational needs students, and often having to pay for their own tools, supplies and resources. There are two things that determine a civilized society: investment in healthcare and investment in education. So many nations have failed badly.
I agree - we have lowered the standards for teaching (while at the same time demanding teachers get paid more and have more resources) and we have lowered the standards for student results. But your second point is important - schools have become the dumping ground for any society problem - bullying, drugs, sex education, etc. etc. etc. There is no way that teachers have expertise in any of those things (they barely have expertise in the subjects they teach - don't get me on about math and science 'teachers). So schools spend more and more time on issues like bullying rather than teaching johnny to read, and then we are shocked when johnny can't read or write, or add or multiple, or know anything about basic science. Which might be the plan - if your population is ill educated they can be easily lead.
Load More Replies... When I was studying computing in the 80s we had an assignment to write a program in machine code and I duly got on with it, 3 days before the due date a pal asked to see my working code which I said was awful but he could take a look. I then rewrote the whole thing and handed my new code in. When the assignment was due to be returned to us the Lecturer sent me and a couple of others off the have a coffee with a stern look. As we left feeling very anxious we saw the head of the first year entering the room after us. Later I learned that the whole class bar myself and the other 2 had handed in my dubious first attempt verbatim. this collective act of plagiarism was a major scandal as it meant a major telling off and 40+ students with permanent black marks on their records. I got 90%.
Precisely why my niece taught for only one year, then changed to a much better position within the school system (IT, but not teaching it). She said that it was mighty discouraging to see the 'work' the so-called "gifted" students she taught turned in. One year, and she chose to get out of teaching altogether. Can't say I blame her. She's a lot happier now, and both she and her husband have excellent careers without having to deal with the idiocies of teaching.
I worked with a girl who was a senior in college who didn't know how to use a broom. She literally held it on front of her and patted the floor...
I had to stop reading this before I facepalmed myself into unconsciousness. The educational [sic] system in the U.S. is in desperate need of a serious overhaul!
In the case of the for profit colleges like ITT Tech and Corinthian College, they make money pressuring students to take out these predatory loans. ITT Tech charged something like $20K for an AA degree that can;t be transferred. Most likely they recruiters (more like used car salesman) went to the unemployment offices and homeless shelters. Then when they default they are screwed.
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Once I was in a 9th grade class (world history) and the teacher had us do an assignment where we'd go over and label the continents. Apparently there was an issue with kids not knowing where/what the continents were. Then the teacher went on to say that anyone who had a problem with the assignment had a ''high superiority complex'' and that he was ''glad you have such an ego, but some still have to go over it.'' Mind you, the kids in class were 15-16.
Now do professors. I once had a professor come to my office and asked me how to use the microwave. I said just put the food in, press how many minutes and then hit the start button. She asked me to show her in person. I did, even though I had never used this particular microwave before. I will make an allowance for her since even though she had a PhD, it was in women's studies. Similar issue with copiers. All the professors had a Phd, but all asked how to use the copier. No one showed me how to use it, I just figured it out. But I had to show all the "brains" how to use it.
Stop worrying about their computer skills at age 5-13 and teach them grammar, please. I am appalled by the fact that my friends and family who speak English as a second or third language use better written English than most native speakers. (This includes US, UK, NZ, Australia, &, yes, Canada.) And BAN AUTOFILL/AUTOCORRECT. Give quizzes on meaning of similar words. If I see "palatable" for "palpable" one more time? And that is in a *medical setting*... Palate and palpate are *reallllly* different, FFS. Argh. *headdesk to tenth*
Educators have a tough job. But this is nothing more than teachers complaining about how poorly their students have been previously taught. It's not amusing, it's sad.
My one friend recently retired fro teaching high school. She often had to re-teach them common concepts like sets and fractions before she could begin basic algebra. It's a tragedy. "No Child Left Behind".... Not so much.
Load More Replies... How did these college students even make it this far in life? That is a mystery to me.
it was dubya's no child left behind bulls**t. Teachers taught to the test to get the test scores so the school gets more money. Fail them. No can do. Pass them on to the next level so now their snowflake is some one else's problem.
Load More Replies... I've posted this on bored panda, ill post it once again. I knew a kid, let's call him LikeBoy, or lb because he says the word like a lot. Anyways, our class was having a discussion post about reducing are carbon footprint and all the eco friendly stuff like that. We are all asked a question and we discuss about it. The question comes to cutting down trees, and LB is asked what he thinks about it: "Like, you know, I think, like it would, like, be bad for the, like, environment, to like, you know, cut down all the, like, trees, but I guess, like, all the rich people, like need, their like, fancy golf courses, and like, mansions, so maybe like, it's ok, like". (Sorry, about like, all the, like, 'likes')
It makes me sad to see a large portion of people in the U.S don't know basic grammar. Whether it is the broken school system or people being lazy, I don't know, but grab a damn book if you don't know how to spell!
I think that instead of showing dumb students this post shows poor education. Calling them dumbs would not improve the things. The problem is in the early education thay got, both from schools and from their parents.
When highly articulate and erudite professors get hauled over the coals 3 times for compromising the institutions security by falling for Phishing attacks. The students seem relatively harmless.
Load More Replies... There's a difference between STUPID and IGNORANT. Stupid means that someone does not have the appropriate mental acuity to understand that what they've learned in their little private bubble of existence, does not work or relate to anything or anyone in the outside world, or in reality. They will never "get it". Ignorant means that someone was raised without the proper tools to learn. These people are open to learn, and most actually like to learn, because they understand the concept of what is needed to function in society and the real world.
Sorry but why is anyone surprised. We have put education into the hands of governments who have shown over and over and over again that they are pretty much incompetent at implementing most things. And then we as a society decide that the results are just fine. Those with money can take their kids out of failing schools or get tutors, the rest can't but we do nothing about it. In may ways I'm glad that I'm 65 and given my family history probably have 15 - 20 years left, because by that time the Western world will be toast.
I honestly think that two things cause students to fail so badly. The first is bad teaching. The world is full of atrocious teachers who have no business being in a classroom. The second problem is ridiculous expectations of the good teachers, who are expected to get through preposterously overstuffed curricula in overcrowded classrooms, while being required to accommodate any number of special educational needs students, and often having to pay for their own tools, supplies and resources. There are two things that determine a civilized society: investment in healthcare and investment in education. So many nations have failed badly.
I agree - we have lowered the standards for teaching (while at the same time demanding teachers get paid more and have more resources) and we have lowered the standards for student results. But your second point is important - schools have become the dumping ground for any society problem - bullying, drugs, sex education, etc. etc. etc. There is no way that teachers have expertise in any of those things (they barely have expertise in the subjects they teach - don't get me on about math and science 'teachers). So schools spend more and more time on issues like bullying rather than teaching johnny to read, and then we are shocked when johnny can't read or write, or add or multiple, or know anything about basic science. Which might be the plan - if your population is ill educated they can be easily lead.
Load More Replies... When I was studying computing in the 80s we had an assignment to write a program in machine code and I duly got on with it, 3 days before the due date a pal asked to see my working code which I said was awful but he could take a look. I then rewrote the whole thing and handed my new code in. When the assignment was due to be returned to us the Lecturer sent me and a couple of others off the have a coffee with a stern look. As we left feeling very anxious we saw the head of the first year entering the room after us. Later I learned that the whole class bar myself and the other 2 had handed in my dubious first attempt verbatim. this collective act of plagiarism was a major scandal as it meant a major telling off and 40+ students with permanent black marks on their records. I got 90%.
Precisely why my niece taught for only one year, then changed to a much better position within the school system (IT, but not teaching it). She said that it was mighty discouraging to see the 'work' the so-called "gifted" students she taught turned in. One year, and she chose to get out of teaching altogether. Can't say I blame her. She's a lot happier now, and both she and her husband have excellent careers without having to deal with the idiocies of teaching.
I worked with a girl who was a senior in college who didn't know how to use a broom. She literally held it on front of her and patted the floor...
I had to stop reading this before I facepalmed myself into unconsciousness. The educational [sic] system in the U.S. is in desperate need of a serious overhaul!
In the case of the for profit colleges like ITT Tech and Corinthian College, they make money pressuring students to take out these predatory loans. ITT Tech charged something like $20K for an AA degree that can;t be transferred. Most likely they recruiters (more like used car salesman) went to the unemployment offices and homeless shelters. Then when they default they are screwed.
Load More Replies... Once I was in a 9th grade class (world history) and the teacher had us do an assignment where we'd go over and label the continents. Apparently there was an issue with kids not knowing where/what the continents were. Then the teacher went on to say that anyone who had a problem with the assignment had a ''high superiority complex'' and that he was ''glad you have such an ego, but some still have to go over it.'' Mind you, the kids in class were 15-16.
Now do professors. I once had a professor come to my office and asked me how to use the microwave. I said just put the food in, press how many minutes and then hit the start button. She asked me to show her in person. I did, even though I had never used this particular microwave before. I will make an allowance for her since even though she had a PhD, it was in women's studies. Similar issue with copiers. All the professors had a Phd, but all asked how to use the copier. No one showed me how to use it, I just figured it out. But I had to show all the "brains" how to use it.
