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Stupid Things Teachers Have Said

Junior high science teacher: "Plasma? What's that?"
Me: "The stuff the sun is made of."
Teacher: "That's hydrogen."
Me: "Hydrogen plasma. It's so hot the gas is ionized. Ionized gas is called plasma."
Teacher: "Never heard of that."
 
My english teacher - "Who threw that?"
Everybody else knew, why didn't she? Stupid teacher.
 
TubbaBlubba said:
Junior high science teacher: "Plasma? What's that?"
Me: "The stuff the sun is made of."
Teacher: "That's hydrogen."
Me: "Hydrogen plasma. It's so hot the gas is ionized. Ionized gas is called plasma."
Teacher: "Never heard of that."
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Seriously? Science teacher actually said "never heard of that"?

That's... sad...
 
In second grade I had a teacher spend most of one class arguing with me. She was convinced that the antennae in the picture of a moth's head were wings.
 
EeneyMinnieMoe said:
To Cainkane1:

Oh, if you think that's bad-

I had a racist and conservative Catholic teacher in high school who said that sex education was a conspiracy by condom manufacturers to sell condoms and an overall conspiracy to limit the numbers of white people so that blacks and Latinos could multiply and take over.

She said that white girls should strive to be chaste and pure as teenagers and not rush because they are beautiful and their beauty will last for years- while a black woman in her 30s "already looks like a beaten bag of potatoes" and so "needs to start having sex and having babies when she's 14".

Amazingly, this woman also appeared to be sober.
Click to expand...
When and where was this?
 
Eight grade science teacher sometime around 1933 give/take. "Some scientists think they can split the atom but they are wrong. The atom cannot be split because it is the smallest element in the universe".

I wonder where she was in the forties.
 
When I was about 10, we moved into my grandparents' old house and there were about 20 boxes of books in the attic . One geology book from the 1920s mentioned this "continental drift" theory, and illustrated how the continents on both sides of the Atlantic fit together.
Some time in the middle 1950s, I mentioned this theory in a high school science class. The teacher, who I respected highly, said words to the effect of, "How can you be so foolish? Everyone knows the continents are solid rock. How could they ever move?"
A few years later there was an article in Scientific American about all the evidence for Plate Tectonics. I sent him a copy.
 
Jeff Corey said:
When I was about 10, we moved into my grandparents' old house and there were about 20 boxes of books in the attic . One geology book from the 1920s mentioned this "continental drift" theory, and illustrated how the continents on both sides of the Atlantic fit together.
Some time in the middle 1950s, I mentioned this theory in a high school science class. The teacher, who I respected highly, said words to the effect of, "How can you be so foolish? Everyone knows the continents are solid rock. How could they ever move?"
A few years later there was an article in Scientific American about all the evidence for Plate Tectonics. I sent him a copy.
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Right, Jeff. That happened to me also. Perhaps children have more imagination than adults who are hemmed in by the work-a-day world. Now we can tell them how the Loch Ness monster got trapped in that loch. Yes? :D
 
RE teacher, UK, 70's - roughly " 'Abba', 'Father' in Hebrew. In fact a band from Sweden have called themselves that very name, to honour God - 'Abba'."
 
Since we were reared to believe that all adults were perfect (something to strive for), it was good to discover how few were even then.
 
Wrathernaut said:
"The Mafia pressured Microsoft into putting solitaire into windows. They make it so you think it's easy to win, so when you go to the casinos, you think you can win there." - My WordPefect (yes I'm that old) teacher from High School.
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If that is true, then why do I lose almost all the time?:confused::(

On the other hand, if my wife won half as often on slots in real casinos as she does with the games you purchase on disk, we would be wealthy!!:D:D
 
Couple of more I remembered:

We were holing class on the U.S. Civil War in our American History class in High School.

In the middle of the lecture, the teacher stopped calls, announced that she had these really great shoes she'd recently gotten from her husband, and then passed them around class for the students to smell.

In sixth grade we were supposed to list different forms of matter.
Me, I read ahead. I couldn't remember all of the ones we were supposed to know for the test, so I put down plasma, and got marked wrong.
I contested it, my dad contested it.
She explained that since we hadn't covered it yet, it did not count as a correct answer. I should have memorized the correct answers from the book.

Same lady who made the DNA comment, I think I stopped paying attention in class after that.

What was really sad is she replaced a great science teacher who passed on. The following science teacher who replaced the idiot after I left that school gave me one of his boxes of rocks and fossils he'd collected - I still have it.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
Biggest mistake I remember is the teacher who said a scientific idea progressed from hypothesis through theory to law.
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I think most people, teachers included, believe that. My students are always surprised when I tell them it's wrong.
 
ShadowSot said:
Couple of more I remembered:

We were holing class on the U.S. Civil War in our American History class in High School.

In the middle of the lecture, the teacher stopped calls, announced that she had these really great shoes she'd recently gotten from her husband, and then passed them around class for the students to smell.

In sixth grade we were supposed to list different forms of matter.
Me, I read ahead. I couldn't remember all of the ones we were supposed to know for the test, so I put down plasma, and got marked wrong.
I contested it, my dad contested it.
She explained that since we hadn't covered it yet, it did not count as a correct answer. I should have memorized the correct answers from the book.

Same lady who made the DNA comment, I think I stopped paying attention in class after that.

What was really sad is she replaced a great science teacher who passed on. The following science teacher who replaced the idiot after I left that school gave me one of his boxes of rocks and fossils he'd collected - I still have it.
Click to expand...

I know this is about stupid things teachers have said, but this and the continental drift story reminded of one of my Jr. High science teachers - Mr. Lee Barney. First two days of class he made us do real science. First part of class he stated that most of the volcanoes around the earth were in the "ring of fire". We were to get in a group of 3-4 students and come up with a theory of why this was so, and how to prove/disprove it. The next day we were introduced to convection cells, plate tectonics and a bifurcated earth diagram.

This guy also introduced me to "the internet", Nikola Tesla, relativity and I'm sure a lot more.

And for something on-topic?

"You'll never pass if you don't do this assignment" - My 8th grade biology teacher in reference to the final report.
I had the syllabus, I knew it was worth 10% of my grade, I had 100% on every assignment up to that, and just turning it in on time was worth 50% of the grade for the report.
 
RE teacher, UK, 1980's. "VD was caused by Ancient Egyptians having sex with dead bodies."
I assume this is wrong but have never bothered to research further.

Pink Floyd, 1979. "We don't need no education."

For our younger viewers, VD is what we used to call STDs.
 
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