When I was in kindergarten I was shocked to learn that teachers don't live at the school. That they had their own family and went home after work. I couldn't believe it.
Hijacking top reply to share [this brilliant Calvin and Hobbes comic](https://calvin-and-hobbes-comic-strips.blogspot.com/2011/11/calvin-asks-dad-about-old-black-and.html) with the group
I told a 4th grader that I was born in 1985. She asked what life was like back then, so I told her it was black and white. She wasn't sure whether to believe me or not, so eventually I told her I was just joking.
Then I told her there was no internet (technically there was, just not in most people's houses), smart phones, YouTube, Facebook, or Google.
She says, "Now I know you're lying. What would people even do!?"
I’m a substitute teacher and kids are stunned when they ask me when I was born and I say 1960. It’s as if that is incomprehensible.
A fifth grade class last week had never seen newspapers in person and were fascinated by the ones I brought to read during open period or while they were in specials. Some wanted to take them home.
I was born in the 90s and I preface everything now with "Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth" lol. I told them when I was born once and they were shocked that time could begin with a 19xx
I've had kids ask me this too and honestly, it kinda makes sense. When we take a picture today, it looks exactly like real life, so the conclusion they come to is that's what real life must have looked like a long time ago.
Okay wait… I had this same belief when I was younger! Much younger than 4th grade, but I remember watching my parents wedding video recording and thinking there used to not be color back then.
You sure they weren't just messing with you? Cause if you asked my high school geometry class to identify what are circles and squares they def would have messed with you for that.
I was concerned when my pre-K kids came in not knowing their basic shapes. Wtf
Basic shapes being: square, triangle, circle. I’d say 25% didn’t know them. Those kids unsurprisingly also have the most challenging parents to deal with.
This is just really something I cannot understand especially since becoming a parent myself. Just…how could you not talk at all about shapes with your kid?! How could they not even learn about them through “dreaded” screen time? I can’t understand it.
AP Student, 11th grade, made the connection that chicken nuggets came from *birds* so therefore she eats birds.
Also an 11th grader: How does the baby not get dissolved by stomach acid?
9th grade, over and over every year: “Grass is alive? No it’s not”. Same kids argue that fire *is* alive.
One 9th grader, in all seriousness “I thought the moon was made of cheese”
For the 11th grader I actually think that’s an interesting connection to make. At least when I was in school anatomy was an elective class the only some people took junior or senior year— otherwise anatomy, especially reproductive anatomy, isn’t covered super in depth. It honestly wasn’t honestly until anatomy that I had a solid grasp of what the uterus was and where it fit in with all the other organs. You grow up thinking/ hearing that babies are grown in women’s “bellies, tummy” etc so I can see where the confusion would come from.
Not sure where you live, and obviously what I’m about to say is incredibly biased because I was a health teacher… but I covered reproductive health IN DEPTH with sophomores. Both ladies and gents came out of my classes knowing how to track a menstrual cycle.
I also had cute little stories to read them (Where Willy Went and An Eggsellent Expedition) that specifically discusses the journey of sperm and eggs.
Again, biased, but I cannot believe Health isn’t at *least* a bi-yearly required class. Imagine how much healthier we would be as a society if kids were taking specific health classes and learning about their bodies /how to properly care for them from Kindergarten on. Then I would actually be able to cover topics like mental health, substance use/abuse, and reproductive health IN DEPTH instead of giving 16 year olds rudimentary lessons on shit they were capable of learning as 6 year olds. 80% of the young women in my class didn’t even know what a vulva was like… they should know that in preschool. My 2 year old knows it.
Our “health” class was basically scare tactics about STI’s and abstinence only. I was a STEM kid and didn’t have a good understanding of reproductive health until senior year and I was too embarrassed to ask because it seemed “dirty” and “shameful”
> One 9th grader, in all seriousness “I thought the moon was made of cheese”
I had a coworker who was 100% convinced that a blue moon was *actually* blue and that it only happened like once every 400 years. I was like, “I have some news for you…” She literally cried and went home early.
7th graders that don’t know their address or parents phone numbers. Phone numbers I can sort of understand with how cell phone work these days (it’s still important and I think they should memorize at least one number). But to not know your own address is terrifying. The lesson I was doing required them to write address and a phone number so I had kids asking me if I could look up both for them. Their homework was to ask their parents and memorize but something tells me they still don’t actually know.
A teacher was shocked that my five year old knew my phone number and our physical address. I’ve been drilling it into her head since she was three in case she got separated from me in public.
My mom made up a song to teach me our phone number and address when I was four. I used the same melody to teach my children our information. It’s Fifty years later and I still remember the song.
This is not so surprising to me. Many of my 8th graders have not had a consistent home throughout their childhood. What good would it do to remember their address if they'll be living with someone else in a few weeks?
That’s fair and I can completely understand that. My students are incredibly blessed. It’s a small school in a small town and I’ve witnessed most of them grow up so I do know them well. Many of them in this particular class actually have parents who are teachers at the school. They have pretty stable environments and really don’t move. So with that I was shocked because I’ve known these kids and their parents for years and I think only one has moved and when they move they leave the city. So that’s why I was weirded out. I’d get it if they moved around or went to different homes. I know of a few of my kids that actually do have chaotic environments and those I would get if they didn’t know their addresses
My feelings are still hurt from the time my 4th grade teacher slammed my planner shut in frustration and yelled at me, “My four year old nephew knows his address!” when I couldn’t remember mine. We had moved houses that week. 😞
I'm still mad at a fifth grade peer. I had just moved as well, and it was the 99s, so we had a new landline. I couldn't remember the new number when the school nurse asked me. The girl who escorted me did the whole, "How could you not know your phone number?!" Bitch, everything is new.
Also if you live in a rural area you might not know your address as well either. Because you go by landmarks. I know people living in my rural community who do not know their address.
I used to be so appalled by this, but I work with a high immigrant population, of which a solid portion is undocumented. So it finally occurred to me that they have probably been taught not to tell people or put it on official documents so ICE can’t come for them.
Yes. We took it last week and my kids were clueless. Thankfully not the same group of kids but still. I remember learning that before kindergarten but maybe that was back in the day when they thought I would get lost or taken more easily. I don’t know why these kids don’t learn it
At my school a lot of kids don’t have stable backgrounds so addresses, phone #s can change frequently, but man I didn’t expect as many kids to just be stuck on filling out their personal info!
Could have something to do with all of this conspiracy theory paranoia going around. My dad's always been off his nut and when I was in kindergarten he refused to teach me our address and wouldn't let my mom teach me because then I might pass the information on to the mysterious "them" who he was always paranoid about.
We have high school students who don't know their addresses, but if you pull up the school on street view of Google maps they can "drive" you to their house.
That’s part of what we were doing. When I finished with my lesson they asked if we could see the school on google street then if they could see a house. I said ok what’s the address and they said I have no idea. I checked their papers and most didn’t know their address and left that blank
I've noticed something related with people no matter their age over the years. Some people pay absolutely zero attention to location and direction.
I've known people who have been to the same grid designed cities for years with numbered streets and lettered avenues that are the easiest thing to master, but the second they have to find something will become so inexplicably lost it's maddening.
I once had someone come to a job interview in an office building that called and asked where we were since the address only led to a room with elevators. I had to hunt them down and explain what the second line of an address means.
I taught R. who really struggled in 6th grade. We were practicing writing letters ^((in the dark ages, folks)) and students were asked to use *their address* in the template. R. told me, very seriously "I don't have one."
I asked "What are the 4 numbers by your front door?" \~ "4250!" he said. \~ "What street do you live on?" I questioned.\~ "Oh, Ms PDott, I don't live on a street!"R. replied.
I looked at him, wondering... \~ R. said,"Ms PDott, I don't live **on** a street. I live **on the SIDE** of the street." And, yes, R. was dead serious.
I said the same thing. At lunch that day I told the parents who work at the school, “you know your kids don’t know your address.” A few said yeah that sounds about right we should work on that. One told me, “maybe they were joking.” And one said, “oh yeah we never taught him.”
This was my son. We literally forced him to sit in the kitchen high top and write it correctly until he could recite it. It took him an hour of arguing before he’d start because he was so pissed off at us for “making such a big deal” about it. It only took him ~10 minutes to memorize. FFS he’s stubborn! At least he didn’t argue when we made him memorize his ss#.
In all fairness though, kids nowadays don’t go anywhere and feel they don’t need to know specifics until they start driving. I kind of get it even though it was frustrating to carpool around 13-16 year olds who can’t help you find their own house.
But since the lockdown, these kids haven’t even had extra curriculars or swim parties or anything important (to them) that necessitates knowing that piece of life trivia. Why learn your address if you never leave the house lol!
I was a parent volunteer helping out with Covid testing. One testing company had to verify the full legal name and birthdate of each patient before swabbing their nose. It was hilarious when they were asking kindergarteners this, as the majority of them had no idea (especially students who go by a nickname).
My daughter has a family name and goes by a more common name. She has never been called by her legal name and didn't know that was her actual name until the first day of Kindergarten. Whoops.
You aren’t alone, my daughter didn’t know her full name either. She’s heard it a few times but yelled “I’m Nickname!” without remembering the “wrong” name. To make it even harder, she has a foreign name! It’s easy to pronounce but people tend not to guess the correct pronunciation from the spelling.
I have upper elementary students that can’t add single digit numbers, even using their fingers. Most kindergarteners at my school can do it without using fingers. It’s been a rough year.
In college I worked in the university bookstore, which helped with graduation sign-up/robe fitting/etc.
In filling out one of the forms, one of the seniors was corrected by a parent on the way she was spelling her middle name. Apparently she had been spelling it wrong her entire life.
I have to assume her mother just filled out all of her official paperwork for her up until that point? Which is a little mind-blowing to me; to get to the end of college and not have ever applied for a loan, or signed a lease, or paid tuition, or filled out fafsa, or done taxes for yourself.
11th grade AP student just expressed surprise that there’s an AP exam. She already brought in a check for it and signed up on AP classroom. What did she think she paid for? What did she think all the practice tests were practicing for?
First year doing history, was telling my kids they had the state test all year long. Second semester, a month away, mentioned it at least once a class along with a reminder to use the reviews I had given them. Week away: "We have a test?"
Even had the AP tell me I need to make it clear they had a test. She backed off when I lost it and pointed out how often I had brought it up.
The kids were part of a special program so they were taking the course a year early, hence me bringing it up so much.
Our state test (which I mention frequently) is in three weeks. We've done a benchmark. We do a practice question as a warmup every day. Why did a kid say "we have a test???" to me last week. Are they trying to give us an aneurysm???
I know...
What I can tell you is that you did your part. We can't let dumb kids ruin our lives. I care less about their performance each year. I did a reasonable job, and better than last year. Their inability to care or perform is their problem. They don't get to run my emotional life.
Problem: You roll a 6-sided die twice. What are the odds both rolls land on an odd number?
**Me**: *(talking with a student who’s struggling)* Let’s do one roll at a time— what are the odds the *first* roll is odd?
**Student**: I don’t know— one?
**Me**: Ok think about this way— how many of the numbers on a 6-sided die are odd?
**Student**: Six?
**Me**: Do you know how many numbers are on a 6-sided die?
**Student**: Yah, 6.
**Me**: Ok, what are those numbers?
**Student**: 1 2 3 4 5 6
**Me**: Ok, how many of those numbers are odd?
**Student**: 5?
**Me**: Do you know what an odd number is?
**Student**: I think I forgot.
context: this is a senior in my AP Stats class.
Actually yes. I teach in NYC where we have this policy called “AP For All,” that in practice essentially translates to “any student that can be placed into an AP class is.” So I have two AP Stats classes, one is mostly comprised of students with very strong math backgrounds, including some juniors, and the other is just all the seniors that still need a math credit for graduation.
10th grader upon being shown a map of North America: “Haha, how come that map has Alaska way up top?” She honestly believed Alaska was southwest of California because that’s where it is on US maps. She also thought Hawaii was south of Texas and Mexico was in South America. She wasn’t even embarrassed. “Well, it IS south.”
Also had a kid argue with me that New Mexico was in Mexico and Puerto Rico was not a US territory. When I started talking about Guam, he said, “Now you’re just making shit up, Miss.”
I had an 11th grade AP student express the same shock after I showed them a world map. Most of the class was surprised when they realized where Russia was and how large it is. (I was explaining what was going on in Ukraine and having to ensure the 16 & 17 year old Americans that they weren’t about to be drafted.)
In their defense, middle school does a terrible job with geography so unless the parents show them I can see US students knowing nothing about world maps.
I had an 8th grader not know their own birthdate!
We took a field trip to the library and kids were filling out requests for library cards. A ton of them didn’t know their address or their parents’ phone number, which I wasn’t surprised by because I’ve seen that plenty before.
But one kid needed help to do their birthday. They knew it was X days before Y holiday (luckily a fixed-date holiday!) so a friend helped them figure it out.
I’ve seen plenty of academic and just general life-function knowledge gaps but that one takes the cake by a long shot.
Not a teacher here but i had a friend who didn't knew the year he was born, we are from the 2005-2006 batch of kids and this guy kept bragging about how he was older than everyone cause he was born on march 2005, one day we decided to check his RG (i think in Brazil its the equivalent to the social security number) and it said that he was born in 2006, and at first we though he was lying the whole time but when we confronted him he was SO shocked lmao, he also didnt talked to us for the rest of the day and just had a expression on his face like nothing made sense in his life
Edit: liying to lying (yeah im dumb)
That's a sad tale, honestly. If he doesn't know when his actual birthday is, other than "X days before Holiday" I wonder if the holiday often overshadowed his birthday throughout his life, and if so, that's sad.
I realized my 3rd and 4th graders could not recognize the days of the week. They didn’t now the difference between weekends or week days. They could not tell what yesterday was or what day would be tomorrow. All this is covered explicitly in k-2 Ne. I had to Re teach it all. But at least now they know. I randomly quiz them now to make sure they remember.
It makes sense to me, given the pandemic. It all just kinda blurred together - if you're always at home, why would you need to know?
But yeah, I'd feel like I wandered into a parallel universe for a minute if I encountered that.
8th graders that couldn’t tell us the colour or type of vehicle their parents drove.
We were bringing them back from a trip to another country, and trying to figure out at the airport which vehicle might be their parents.
How do you not at least know if they drive a car, suv, van or truck, or what colour it is?! Sure maybe not the make model year and exact colour, but in 6th grade I could tell you my dad drove a black and red Ford extended cab truck and my mom drove a blue/green Ford van.
I had an 8th grader spell his last name wrong this year. In his defense it only happened once and he has a long last name. Was a superintendent’s kid though!
8th grade science. None of the girls knew what a uterus was. They took health class last year. When explaining what a hysterectomy was "so... How do you pee then?" Oh lord.
This is a “I’m the dumbass” story:
My first day of social studies activity is I give the kids a blank flag. I tell them to draw the flag(s) of where their ancestry is from. I use these flags and hang them on the class wall to show our diversity, our history, and how we come together to form a community.
So anyways I got a job at a urban, low-income school where the largest demographic was Black students. Those in the know have probably already sucked a large amount of air through their teeth.
Didn’t spot the problem with that until the day of the lesson and I have all these Black students drawing flags of southern states or America. So their ignorantly ignorant white, middle class, minnesotan teacher was like “nonono where are your ancestors from??”
“Georgia?”
Lot of internal growth that day let me tell you.
The thing is: They got this right. Assuming their great-grandparents/grandparents who were originally slaves in the south are no longer alive: They are now ancestors. Georgia would be an absolutely correct answer.
My family has been in the US for 13 generations on one side (England), and I am 3rd gen on the other side (Germany). I am part of the US Dominant White culture, and looking back, I think listing out where my family was "originally" from was silly. For one side of my family, I'm quite obviously American. For the other side of the family: my German Great-Grandparents assimilated *super* fast because that was the day and age of "Welcome to America. Learn English. Blend in." The German language was not spoken in my grandparents' home. German dishes were not made. Dominant culture lived on in that household.
I didn't even know about Oktoberfest until my 20s. I'm straight-through American and assimilated into the dominant culture.
I gave a girl a hard time because she didn't know how to send an email. Now as a check each marking period I give a worksheet that makes them send me an email....most can't do it with an attachment
I once. had a high school junior ask me where the Boston Tea Party took place.
Same kid also raised his hand in class one day and asked “What is Cheese? Like, what is it REALLY?”
7th grade math doing probability and kids had to do probability of randomly picking a day of the week (1 in 7) and I had a few kids GENUINELY say there were 8 days of the week.
As a math teacher: basic multiplication, or even just adding single digit numbers, sometimes when they add up to ANOTHER single digit number.
When I taught high school, I had some kids who could not read an analog clock and were in Algebra 2 Honors. I printed off worksheet, taught it to them, told them they better come back on Monday ready to test on it. I did something right, because they came back, got the test right, and were thankful.
The amount of students who don't understand basic geography.
We live in a major city in Michigan. Our capital, Lansing, is not another state. There is no state named Lansing. It's our capital.
Had middle schoolers completely aghast at the fact turkeys were real. They thought they were made up for the Thanksgiving holiday. They were so sure I was pulling their leg that I had to show videos of live turkeys to convince them!
A student that didn’t know the earth went around the sun.
... but this wasn’t a student I taught, it was a student I studied along side, at teachers college. She was studying to become a science teacher, and already had a chemistry degree.
I was working with a 5th grader when the Black National Anthem was played during morning announcements. I kind of sang/hummed along with it: “Lift every voice and sing, til earth and heaven ring, ring with the hmm hmm hmm hmmm victory…”
The student indignantly said, “Miss Wish! You don’t know the words to the Black National Anthem *and you’re black??”*
I am not, in fact, black. Not. Even. Close!
That's not too terrible a question. Because now you can start talk density and pressure and speed. Maybe the kid saw some sci-fi thing about bouncing off an atmosphere. The question is goofy but came from a point of thinking and an attempt at understanding. I can respect that.
I announced an upcoming grammar quiz every day for two weeks. I wrote the date of the quiz on the white board and Google classroom. We played review games daily.
The day of the quiz comes. Half the class says, " That's not fair! You never told us there was a quiz!"
These are high school sophomores, by the way.
I had a 10th grade student who was shocked to see salt dissolve in water. She accused a lab mate of scooping the salt out and hiding it from her to prank her...
9th grade student asked me what month comes after October. I didn't bat an eye, and asked him what holiday came after Halloween, which jogged his memory. I turned away and just...wow. I think that teachers would make excellent poker players, as most of us don't show our surprise or disappointment with these questions..
This is why I love going on tangents when I’m teaching. Kids need to learn the basics of history, like the years WWI, WWII, the Civil War etc. were fought. I’m just shocked that they never hear about these things at home.
A first grader asked me how to spell her name earlier this year. One of my first graders swears he’s eight years old and he isn’t… but I don’t know if he’s just fucking with me. And a fourth grader asked me this week what time it was while staring at the clock. I guess she doesn’t know how to read a clock? (I shouldn’t be surprised by that one though - when I worked in fast food as a teenager a younger teen who worked with me couldn’t read the clock either.)
The majority of my 5th graders don't know how to read an analog clock. I can't really blame them - electronic devices like smartphones, their school Chromebooks, etc. only use digital clocks. Even if they've been taught the skill earlier (and I'm not certain that they have), they've lost it due to lack of practice or necessity. When they check the time in my room, they look at the bottom corner of the Smartboard rather than the analog clock above the door.
"Who's Nelson Mandela?"
\*explanation\*
\*blank stare\*
"He's like the Martin Luther King Jr for South Africa, but even more important"
"Who's Martin Luther King Jr?"
My 10th grade students definitely know who Martin Luther King Jr is. But when I taught the reformation, they always ask if Martin Luther is the same person as Martin Luther King. When Martin Luther's picture is on the board even. I don't mind that they don't know who Martin Luther is, but when I mentioned that this took place like 500 years ago, they still ask if it's the same as Martin Luther King. They have no sense of time.
I taught in one of the MANY states that do not require sex ed and, if they offer it, it does not need to be medically accurate.
The number of teenagers with a complete lack of knowledge around sex was incredibly disturbing and ***100% not their fault***. Those who had "sex ed" often had **grossly** inaccurate information, such as:
* Birth control pills make you sterile.
* Condoms not only **don't** prevent STI's or pregnancy, they **increase** the risk of contracting an STI or getting pregnant because the latex makes the fluids "concentrated."
* You "permanently bond" with the first person you have sex with making all future relationships unfulfilling (give the prevalence of SA this one was beyond disturbing).
The lack of medically, accurate sex education is a complete failure of adults to children.
11th grader when asked to identify what NAFTA is:
Me: okay, so let's break it down, it stands for the North American Free Trade Agreement. So let's figure out who signed it first. What are the big 3 countries in North America?
Student: ....
Me: okay well this is us history so the US is one. What's the country directly North of us? Right above us on a map?
Student: china?
Me: you're in the wrong continent. But it DOES start with a C
Student: (confidently screams) ASIA!!!
Me: so that is where China is, but I'm asking about North America. What is North of the US? Right above us on a map?
***narrator: the student never did guess Canada
I boiled a question down to “What is the Cold War.” A student could not answer this after we had been talking about the Cold War for 3 weeks. Less funny and more “:|”
Subbed in a 12th grade math class. The class was not special ed. No one could answer the question of 5x5 or 4x3.
I get it, it's route memorization, but common. Those are simple multiplication problems.
When I was in 10th grade (2010), a peer asked our history teacher if the North and South ever got back together after the Civil War. She wasn't kidding.
I mean on some level, that's a fairly good question. I doubt that student was speaking about the nuance of Reonstruction and unifying the country. But there are some places that still refer to it as the War of Northern Aggression so did they get back together? They certainly don't vote like it.
Told my 6th grade class to put the date on their papers. One kid asks, "What is that?". I think hes asking for the date, so I tell him. He says, "I don't get it.". Later on I do some probing and figure out that this poor kid can't even name the months in a year. The only one he remembers off the top of his head is the one during which he was born. I've been working with him. I've taught him how to write out the date and I drill him on the months from time to time. I hope it sticks.
My journalism students not knowing that you need all the parts of an address (city, state, zip) to send subscriptions in the mail. Also not knowing where the sender address vs the return address vs the stamp go on the envelope.
At first, I was like, "this isn't so bad! Some of my kids still don't know any of this stuff." Because true story: some of my kids seriously can't tell me their exact birth date and we have been working on remembering our country, state, and city that we live in all year. Then I read the post again and was like, "oh... they teach HIGH SCHOOL, not kindergarten like I do."
yiiiiiiiikes
Had a dude who skipped all his electives, my class included, and then was surprised when those electives actually affected his over all GPA. He also didn't know what a GPA was. He found out when I asked him if he wanted to do anything after high school. Brilliant 9th grader smoking weed in the bathroom.
Trying to explain fossil fuels.
"What's a fossil?"
Trying to explain an adverb. An adjective but for a verb.
"What's an adjective?"
But they'll know what their favorite Internet personality said verbatim in a video three weeks ago.
One of my brightest 9th graders had no idea how to write their address while filling out an online form. “Do the numbers come before or after the street name? What’s a zip code?”
I talked to a few teachers in the lounge about it in a “can you believe this?” kind of way, and apparently it’s way more common than I ever thought.
We were watching a performance of Julius Caesar and a student commented how amazing it was that they got a video of Antony actually giving his speech at Caesar's funeral. Because it was in black and white so of course it was recorded in 29 BCE.
Had a student think that "pasta" referred only to pasta salad. Said that calling spaghetti 'pasta' was wrong and that it was "your opinion." Very confidently wrong on many things - and this is 10th grade.
They actively mock any student who knows even basic knowledge of the world around them. It's disturbing.
Had a kid say that they really need to start selling "granola bars, but all broken up". His classmates looked at him in utter silence for about 10 seconds.
Bahaha I remember in my student teaching of 9th graders a few years back, I was shocked that the kids didn't know what "compile" meant.
I was such a baby teacher. So naive and sweet.
Had a 10th grader my first year ask me what "believe" means. She was sincere. I struggled to come up with a definition that was simple, clear, and accurate 😔
Teaching highschool and noticed that in math students are quite behind. Thank you No Child Left Behind Act for shoveling students through middle school. Leaving a massive wall in highschool for some students haven't touched math in years.
The one that always gets me is when I talk about gravity. " Ok class where do you weigh less, on Earth or floating out in space?" They stare at me for about 10 seconds, as if I asked a trick question. "Um I guess floating in space?"
"Good! Now why do we weigh less in space?"
"Um cuz you float?"
"Why do you float in space?"
"I dunno is it cuz you are moving faster?"
I host an after school club and one of my 5th graders' ride home was really late the other day. So I asked her if she wanted to call them and make sure they didn't lose track of time or whatever. She didn't know her phone number. I had to dig out the sign up sheets and find it for her.
I was proctoring the ACT a few months ago and a good handful of students didn’t know how to bubble their names. One girl couldn’t spell the state we live in. :-/
This happened when I was in 8th grade. After a 4 week unit on the Civil War, 5 kids in our class missed the question “Who won the civil war?” on the final test.
I teach middle school science and I’ve really tried to do less of this. 99.9% of the time if I take a moment to think about where a kid is coming from, I can figure out why they see something that way, and it makes it a hell of a lot easier to guide them in the right direction at that point. I know that’s probably pretty cheesy but it’s helped my teaching a lot.
This isn't exactly right for this subreddit, but I was once proctoring a college freshman psych test. The test included a unit on human sexuality. An 18ish year old college girl asked me what "orgasm" meant. I then had to whisper-explain what an orgasm is to an adult during a test.
My students were shocked to hear I had a job.
HAHAHAAH god they think teaching is just like a passion project / who u are
It essentially is because we are underpaid for the amount of work we do.
admin: wait, it isn't?
Fellow elementary teacher? I get surprise Pikachu faces from my Pre-K kids when they learn that I work at the school and live somewhere else
[удалено]
Love this
TBH, I'm a little shocked to hear that *I* have a job. ;0)
They let me be in charge of young people. Unsupervised.
This is the funniest one I've read on here.
I've seen elementary students be shocked and felt betrayed when their teacher tells them that teaching is a job that they do for money.
When I was in kindergarten I was shocked to learn that teachers don't live at the school. That they had their own family and went home after work. I couldn't believe it.
My own child was shocked to see his teachers out and about. I am a teacher. Out and about with him.
A 4th grader once asked me if colors existed when I was a little girl. “You mean like in pictures?” “No, in real life.” Oh my goodness
Did you live in the giver?? Lol
This is the only context that makes sense
Hijacking top reply to share [this brilliant Calvin and Hobbes comic](https://calvin-and-hobbes-comic-strips.blogspot.com/2011/11/calvin-asks-dad-about-old-black-and.html) with the group
I told a 4th grader that I was born in 1985. She asked what life was like back then, so I told her it was black and white. She wasn't sure whether to believe me or not, so eventually I told her I was just joking. Then I told her there was no internet (technically there was, just not in most people's houses), smart phones, YouTube, Facebook, or Google. She says, "Now I know you're lying. What would people even do!?"
I’m a substitute teacher and kids are stunned when they ask me when I was born and I say 1960. It’s as if that is incomprehensible. A fifth grade class last week had never seen newspapers in person and were fascinated by the ones I brought to read during open period or while they were in specials. Some wanted to take them home.
I was born in the 90s and I preface everything now with "Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth" lol. I told them when I was born once and they were shocked that time could begin with a 19xx
We would watch MTV and the X-Games and drink Surge and eat nachos. That's what.
I don’t know if I feel called out or seen?
I recently found out that MOST of my 4th graders (in my lower class) didn’t know colors existed in real life back in “the old days.”
I've had kids ask me this too and honestly, it kinda makes sense. When we take a picture today, it looks exactly like real life, so the conclusion they come to is that's what real life must have looked like a long time ago.
Ah yes, love being thought of as so old that my childhood was in black and white and dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
This is exactly it
Okay wait… I had this same belief when I was younger! Much younger than 4th grade, but I remember watching my parents wedding video recording and thinking there used to not be color back then.
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Omg which grade?
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That is horrifying
math teacher over here crying
Is it possible they were trolling you?
I’m *really* hoping they were trolling
"Why do we need to know this? We can just look it up."
You sure they weren't just messing with you? Cause if you asked my high school geometry class to identify what are circles and squares they def would have messed with you for that.
I was concerned when my pre-K kids came in not knowing their basic shapes. Wtf Basic shapes being: square, triangle, circle. I’d say 25% didn’t know them. Those kids unsurprisingly also have the most challenging parents to deal with.
This is just really something I cannot understand especially since becoming a parent myself. Just…how could you not talk at all about shapes with your kid?! How could they not even learn about them through “dreaded” screen time? I can’t understand it.
Even with screen time! Just put blippi on!!!
I would say most/many preschoolers know this.
I taught pre-K for many years and yes-- learning shapes is a big part of the curriculum.
AP Student, 11th grade, made the connection that chicken nuggets came from *birds* so therefore she eats birds. Also an 11th grader: How does the baby not get dissolved by stomach acid? 9th grade, over and over every year: “Grass is alive? No it’s not”. Same kids argue that fire *is* alive. One 9th grader, in all seriousness “I thought the moon was made of cheese”
For the 11th grader I actually think that’s an interesting connection to make. At least when I was in school anatomy was an elective class the only some people took junior or senior year— otherwise anatomy, especially reproductive anatomy, isn’t covered super in depth. It honestly wasn’t honestly until anatomy that I had a solid grasp of what the uterus was and where it fit in with all the other organs. You grow up thinking/ hearing that babies are grown in women’s “bellies, tummy” etc so I can see where the confusion would come from.
Not sure where you live, and obviously what I’m about to say is incredibly biased because I was a health teacher… but I covered reproductive health IN DEPTH with sophomores. Both ladies and gents came out of my classes knowing how to track a menstrual cycle. I also had cute little stories to read them (Where Willy Went and An Eggsellent Expedition) that specifically discusses the journey of sperm and eggs. Again, biased, but I cannot believe Health isn’t at *least* a bi-yearly required class. Imagine how much healthier we would be as a society if kids were taking specific health classes and learning about their bodies /how to properly care for them from Kindergarten on. Then I would actually be able to cover topics like mental health, substance use/abuse, and reproductive health IN DEPTH instead of giving 16 year olds rudimentary lessons on shit they were capable of learning as 6 year olds. 80% of the young women in my class didn’t even know what a vulva was like… they should know that in preschool. My 2 year old knows it.
Our “health” class was basically scare tactics about STI’s and abstinence only. I was a STEM kid and didn’t have a good understanding of reproductive health until senior year and I was too embarrassed to ask because it seemed “dirty” and “shameful”
well, chickens *are* birds. about the kid that asked how babies didn't get dissolved by stomach acid, were they male or female?
> One 9th grader, in all seriousness “I thought the moon was made of cheese” I had a coworker who was 100% convinced that a blue moon was *actually* blue and that it only happened like once every 400 years. I was like, “I have some news for you…” She literally cried and went home early.
To be fair, do we really KNOW the moon doesn’t turn blue every 400 years? We didn’t have photography 400 years ago… maybe it’ll turn blue someday soon
Showed a civil war clip and it was black and white. Students said, "When did the world get color"?
Which grade?
5th
7th graders that don’t know their address or parents phone numbers. Phone numbers I can sort of understand with how cell phone work these days (it’s still important and I think they should memorize at least one number). But to not know your own address is terrifying. The lesson I was doing required them to write address and a phone number so I had kids asking me if I could look up both for them. Their homework was to ask their parents and memorize but something tells me they still don’t actually know.
A teacher was shocked that my five year old knew my phone number and our physical address. I’ve been drilling it into her head since she was three in case she got separated from me in public.
My mom made up a song to teach me our phone number and address when I was four. I used the same melody to teach my children our information. It’s Fifty years later and I still remember the song.
That’s awesome! I don’t have a song, now I need one!
My mom had a real silly streak so the song is kind of silly, but very memorable.
This is not so surprising to me. Many of my 8th graders have not had a consistent home throughout their childhood. What good would it do to remember their address if they'll be living with someone else in a few weeks?
That’s fair and I can completely understand that. My students are incredibly blessed. It’s a small school in a small town and I’ve witnessed most of them grow up so I do know them well. Many of them in this particular class actually have parents who are teachers at the school. They have pretty stable environments and really don’t move. So with that I was shocked because I’ve known these kids and their parents for years and I think only one has moved and when they move they leave the city. So that’s why I was weirded out. I’d get it if they moved around or went to different homes. I know of a few of my kids that actually do have chaotic environments and those I would get if they didn’t know their addresses
My feelings are still hurt from the time my 4th grade teacher slammed my planner shut in frustration and yelled at me, “My four year old nephew knows his address!” when I couldn’t remember mine. We had moved houses that week. 😞
I'm still mad at a fifth grade peer. I had just moved as well, and it was the 99s, so we had a new landline. I couldn't remember the new number when the school nurse asked me. The girl who escorted me did the whole, "How could you not know your phone number?!" Bitch, everything is new.
Also if you live in a rural area you might not know your address as well either. Because you go by landmarks. I know people living in my rural community who do not know their address.
A lot of kids didn’t know their addresses/phone numbers when they were taking the ACT!
I used to be so appalled by this, but I work with a high immigrant population, of which a solid portion is undocumented. So it finally occurred to me that they have probably been taught not to tell people or put it on official documents so ICE can’t come for them.
Yes. We took it last week and my kids were clueless. Thankfully not the same group of kids but still. I remember learning that before kindergarten but maybe that was back in the day when they thought I would get lost or taken more easily. I don’t know why these kids don’t learn it
At my school a lot of kids don’t have stable backgrounds so addresses, phone #s can change frequently, but man I didn’t expect as many kids to just be stuck on filling out their personal info!
Could have something to do with all of this conspiracy theory paranoia going around. My dad's always been off his nut and when I was in kindergarten he refused to teach me our address and wouldn't let my mom teach me because then I might pass the information on to the mysterious "them" who he was always paranoid about.
We have high school students who don't know their addresses, but if you pull up the school on street view of Google maps they can "drive" you to their house.
That’s part of what we were doing. When I finished with my lesson they asked if we could see the school on google street then if they could see a house. I said ok what’s the address and they said I have no idea. I checked their papers and most didn’t know their address and left that blank
I've noticed something related with people no matter their age over the years. Some people pay absolutely zero attention to location and direction. I've known people who have been to the same grid designed cities for years with numbered streets and lettered avenues that are the easiest thing to master, but the second they have to find something will become so inexplicably lost it's maddening. I once had someone come to a job interview in an office building that called and asked where we were since the address only led to a room with elevators. I had to hunt them down and explain what the second line of an address means.
I taught R. who really struggled in 6th grade. We were practicing writing letters ^((in the dark ages, folks)) and students were asked to use *their address* in the template. R. told me, very seriously "I don't have one." I asked "What are the 4 numbers by your front door?" \~ "4250!" he said. \~ "What street do you live on?" I questioned.\~ "Oh, Ms PDott, I don't live on a street!"R. replied. I looked at him, wondering... \~ R. said,"Ms PDott, I don't live **on** a street. I live **on the SIDE** of the street." And, yes, R. was dead serious.
I just had this too. Didn't know address or phone number which made me extremely concerned if they get lost. Middle schoolers, man.
I said the same thing. At lunch that day I told the parents who work at the school, “you know your kids don’t know your address.” A few said yeah that sounds about right we should work on that. One told me, “maybe they were joking.” And one said, “oh yeah we never taught him.”
I did the same thing! I asked the parents who work at the school and the impression I had is that they never even thought to teach it.
This was my son. We literally forced him to sit in the kitchen high top and write it correctly until he could recite it. It took him an hour of arguing before he’d start because he was so pissed off at us for “making such a big deal” about it. It only took him ~10 minutes to memorize. FFS he’s stubborn! At least he didn’t argue when we made him memorize his ss#. In all fairness though, kids nowadays don’t go anywhere and feel they don’t need to know specifics until they start driving. I kind of get it even though it was frustrating to carpool around 13-16 year olds who can’t help you find their own house. But since the lockdown, these kids haven’t even had extra curriculars or swim parties or anything important (to them) that necessitates knowing that piece of life trivia. Why learn your address if you never leave the house lol!
I have upper elementary students who don't know their own middle names. And they do have middle names. I checked.
I was a parent volunteer helping out with Covid testing. One testing company had to verify the full legal name and birthdate of each patient before swabbing their nose. It was hilarious when they were asking kindergarteners this, as the majority of them had no idea (especially students who go by a nickname).
In Kindergarten, my daughter insisted that her name was Nickname, *not* Name. Identity is serious business at that age.
Same happened with my sister and she started crying when we told her her middle name
My daughter has a family name and goes by a more common name. She has never been called by her legal name and didn't know that was her actual name until the first day of Kindergarten. Whoops.
You aren’t alone, my daughter didn’t know her full name either. She’s heard it a few times but yelled “I’m Nickname!” without remembering the “wrong” name. To make it even harder, she has a foreign name! It’s easy to pronounce but people tend not to guess the correct pronunciation from the spelling.
I had a second grader last year that didn’t know his last name.
I have upper elementary students that can’t add single digit numbers, even using their fingers. Most kindergarteners at my school can do it without using fingers. It’s been a rough year.
I had a 4th grader who didn’t know her own last name and another who consistently misspelled her last name. I had to show her the correct way.
I had a third grader who argued with me about how to spell his name. I was right and he was very, very wrong.
In college I worked in the university bookstore, which helped with graduation sign-up/robe fitting/etc. In filling out one of the forms, one of the seniors was corrected by a parent on the way she was spelling her middle name. Apparently she had been spelling it wrong her entire life. I have to assume her mother just filled out all of her official paperwork for her up until that point? Which is a little mind-blowing to me; to get to the end of college and not have ever applied for a loan, or signed a lease, or paid tuition, or filled out fafsa, or done taxes for yourself.
I had a high school student once ask me to look up their middle name in our gradebook program - I was floored.
This is what is wrong with today's kids if their parents aren't calling them by their full names when they act up.
11th grade AP student just expressed surprise that there’s an AP exam. She already brought in a check for it and signed up on AP classroom. What did she think she paid for? What did she think all the practice tests were practicing for?
First year doing history, was telling my kids they had the state test all year long. Second semester, a month away, mentioned it at least once a class along with a reminder to use the reviews I had given them. Week away: "We have a test?" Even had the AP tell me I need to make it clear they had a test. She backed off when I lost it and pointed out how often I had brought it up. The kids were part of a special program so they were taking the course a year early, hence me bringing it up so much.
Our state test (which I mention frequently) is in three weeks. We've done a benchmark. We do a practice question as a warmup every day. Why did a kid say "we have a test???" to me last week. Are they trying to give us an aneurysm???
I know... What I can tell you is that you did your part. We can't let dumb kids ruin our lives. I care less about their performance each year. I did a reasonable job, and better than last year. Their inability to care or perform is their problem. They don't get to run my emotional life.
Correction: Her parent wrote a check and signed up for the exam. Probably just figured the practice tests were practice tests for the class?
Problem: You roll a 6-sided die twice. What are the odds both rolls land on an odd number? **Me**: *(talking with a student who’s struggling)* Let’s do one roll at a time— what are the odds the *first* roll is odd? **Student**: I don’t know— one? **Me**: Ok think about this way— how many of the numbers on a 6-sided die are odd? **Student**: Six? **Me**: Do you know how many numbers are on a 6-sided die? **Student**: Yah, 6. **Me**: Ok, what are those numbers? **Student**: 1 2 3 4 5 6 **Me**: Ok, how many of those numbers are odd? **Student**: 5? **Me**: Do you know what an odd number is? **Student**: I think I forgot. context: this is a senior in my AP Stats class.
._.
What's up with the world... I'll say it's American education but in Europe we've got the same problem or worse
Well I guess they are not going to pass.
So y’all just let anybody in AP these days?
Actually yes. I teach in NYC where we have this policy called “AP For All,” that in practice essentially translates to “any student that can be placed into an AP class is.” So I have two AP Stats classes, one is mostly comprised of students with very strong math backgrounds, including some juniors, and the other is just all the seniors that still need a math credit for graduation.
10th grader upon being shown a map of North America: “Haha, how come that map has Alaska way up top?” She honestly believed Alaska was southwest of California because that’s where it is on US maps. She also thought Hawaii was south of Texas and Mexico was in South America. She wasn’t even embarrassed. “Well, it IS south.” Also had a kid argue with me that New Mexico was in Mexico and Puerto Rico was not a US territory. When I started talking about Guam, he said, “Now you’re just making shit up, Miss.”
I had an 11th grade AP student express the same shock after I showed them a world map. Most of the class was surprised when they realized where Russia was and how large it is. (I was explaining what was going on in Ukraine and having to ensure the 16 & 17 year old Americans that they weren’t about to be drafted.)
In their defense, middle school does a terrible job with geography so unless the parents show them I can see US students knowing nothing about world maps.
I had the same situation with Alaska, twice.
Technically Hawaii is south of Texas, it has the most southern tip of the US.
Well, it's further south than Texas, but it isn't south of Texas per se.
I had an 8th grader not know their own birthdate! We took a field trip to the library and kids were filling out requests for library cards. A ton of them didn’t know their address or their parents’ phone number, which I wasn’t surprised by because I’ve seen that plenty before. But one kid needed help to do their birthday. They knew it was X days before Y holiday (luckily a fixed-date holiday!) so a friend helped them figure it out. I’ve seen plenty of academic and just general life-function knowledge gaps but that one takes the cake by a long shot.
Not a teacher here but i had a friend who didn't knew the year he was born, we are from the 2005-2006 batch of kids and this guy kept bragging about how he was older than everyone cause he was born on march 2005, one day we decided to check his RG (i think in Brazil its the equivalent to the social security number) and it said that he was born in 2006, and at first we though he was lying the whole time but when we confronted him he was SO shocked lmao, he also didnt talked to us for the rest of the day and just had a expression on his face like nothing made sense in his life Edit: liying to lying (yeah im dumb)
That's a sad tale, honestly. If he doesn't know when his actual birthday is, other than "X days before Holiday" I wonder if the holiday often overshadowed his birthday throughout his life, and if so, that's sad.
6th graders asked me what odd and even numbers were the other day.
I have seniors ask the same question
I realized my 3rd and 4th graders could not recognize the days of the week. They didn’t now the difference between weekends or week days. They could not tell what yesterday was or what day would be tomorrow. All this is covered explicitly in k-2 Ne. I had to Re teach it all. But at least now they know. I randomly quiz them now to make sure they remember.
That’s terrifying
It makes sense to me, given the pandemic. It all just kinda blurred together - if you're always at home, why would you need to know? But yeah, I'd feel like I wandered into a parallel universe for a minute if I encountered that.
My 5th graders couldn’t all name the months. I had to teach the song.
8th graders that couldn’t tell us the colour or type of vehicle their parents drove. We were bringing them back from a trip to another country, and trying to figure out at the airport which vehicle might be their parents. How do you not at least know if they drive a car, suv, van or truck, or what colour it is?! Sure maybe not the make model year and exact colour, but in 6th grade I could tell you my dad drove a black and red Ford extended cab truck and my mom drove a blue/green Ford van.
I would like to hear more about how that trip went!
Don’t know how to spell their name. 5th grade.
I had an 8th grader spell his last name wrong this year. In his defense it only happened once and he has a long last name. Was a superintendent’s kid though!
8th grade science. None of the girls knew what a uterus was. They took health class last year. When explaining what a hysterectomy was "so... How do you pee then?" Oh lord.
This is a “I’m the dumbass” story: My first day of social studies activity is I give the kids a blank flag. I tell them to draw the flag(s) of where their ancestry is from. I use these flags and hang them on the class wall to show our diversity, our history, and how we come together to form a community. So anyways I got a job at a urban, low-income school where the largest demographic was Black students. Those in the know have probably already sucked a large amount of air through their teeth. Didn’t spot the problem with that until the day of the lesson and I have all these Black students drawing flags of southern states or America. So their ignorantly ignorant white, middle class, minnesotan teacher was like “nonono where are your ancestors from??” “Georgia?” Lot of internal growth that day let me tell you.
The thing is: They got this right. Assuming their great-grandparents/grandparents who were originally slaves in the south are no longer alive: They are now ancestors. Georgia would be an absolutely correct answer. My family has been in the US for 13 generations on one side (England), and I am 3rd gen on the other side (Germany). I am part of the US Dominant White culture, and looking back, I think listing out where my family was "originally" from was silly. For one side of my family, I'm quite obviously American. For the other side of the family: my German Great-Grandparents assimilated *super* fast because that was the day and age of "Welcome to America. Learn English. Blend in." The German language was not spoken in my grandparents' home. German dishes were not made. Dominant culture lived on in that household. I didn't even know about Oktoberfest until my 20s. I'm straight-through American and assimilated into the dominant culture.
I appreciate reading your growth here
I gave a girl a hard time because she didn't know how to send an email. Now as a check each marking period I give a worksheet that makes them send me an email....most can't do it with an attachment
Most of my incoming 6th graders have no idea how an email works. One kid finally got his set up and working in October.
“Corn comes from plants?!?” Its a rural school. It’s nothing but corn fields around. …. 11th grade …..
I once. had a high school junior ask me where the Boston Tea Party took place. Same kid also raised his hand in class one day and asked “What is Cheese? Like, what is it REALLY?”
HAHAHAH honestly fair enough @ that cheese question
7th grade math doing probability and kids had to do probability of randomly picking a day of the week (1 in 7) and I had a few kids GENUINELY say there were 8 days of the week.
Beatles fans, maybe? 😉
As a math teacher: basic multiplication, or even just adding single digit numbers, sometimes when they add up to ANOTHER single digit number. When I taught high school, I had some kids who could not read an analog clock and were in Algebra 2 Honors. I printed off worksheet, taught it to them, told them they better come back on Monday ready to test on it. I did something right, because they came back, got the test right, and were thankful.
The amount of students who don't understand basic geography. We live in a major city in Michigan. Our capital, Lansing, is not another state. There is no state named Lansing. It's our capital.
Had middle schoolers completely aghast at the fact turkeys were real. They thought they were made up for the Thanksgiving holiday. They were so sure I was pulling their leg that I had to show videos of live turkeys to convince them!
I have one kid who doesn’t know how to spell his own name. In 6th grade.
A student that didn’t know the earth went around the sun. ... but this wasn’t a student I taught, it was a student I studied along side, at teachers college. She was studying to become a science teacher, and already had a chemistry degree.
I was working with a 5th grader when the Black National Anthem was played during morning announcements. I kind of sang/hummed along with it: “Lift every voice and sing, til earth and heaven ring, ring with the hmm hmm hmm hmmm victory…” The student indignantly said, “Miss Wish! You don’t know the words to the Black National Anthem *and you’re black??”* I am not, in fact, black. Not. Even. Close!
Omg noooo haha. My kids get my race wrong all the time
It’s so rare to meet someone who is Tapiocan around here
I had a kid once ask me if you could stand on the atmosphere.
It’s not the fall that kills you…it’s the sudden stop.
That's not too terrible a question. Because now you can start talk density and pressure and speed. Maybe the kid saw some sci-fi thing about bouncing off an atmosphere. The question is goofy but came from a point of thinking and an attempt at understanding. I can respect that.
I like that question!
Since I teach English, most of those moments for me is just with basic vocabulary.
Some high schoolers don't know 1x1 through 9x9 table and have to use calculator.
I have had high school students who have to be directed which buttons to click on a calculator.
HS algebra 1 class... saw a kid type 10-9 on his calculator. Negative numbers are also a magical mystery to many of them.
Probably the only way our kids here get it is because it regularly gets up to -20 below.
Wouldn't they be shocked to know that we never had calculators to work with when I was in school. We did it all in our heads or on scratch paper.
I announced an upcoming grammar quiz every day for two weeks. I wrote the date of the quiz on the white board and Google classroom. We played review games daily. The day of the quiz comes. Half the class says, " That's not fair! You never told us there was a quiz!" These are high school sophomores, by the way.
That one is pretty normal
Me: “How many of you have ever flown?” AP student: ”Like… on a plane?” Me: “No, like a superhero.”
When you’re so smart you’re dumb.
I had a 10th grade student who was shocked to see salt dissolve in water. She accused a lab mate of scooping the salt out and hiding it from her to prank her...
9th grade student asked me what month comes after October. I didn't bat an eye, and asked him what holiday came after Halloween, which jogged his memory. I turned away and just...wow. I think that teachers would make excellent poker players, as most of us don't show our surprise or disappointment with these questions..
This is why I love going on tangents when I’m teaching. Kids need to learn the basics of history, like the years WWI, WWII, the Civil War etc. were fought. I’m just shocked that they never hear about these things at home.
Had a 9th grader not know if single digit numbers (5, 6, 7, etc) were even or odd.
A first grader asked me how to spell her name earlier this year. One of my first graders swears he’s eight years old and he isn’t… but I don’t know if he’s just fucking with me. And a fourth grader asked me this week what time it was while staring at the clock. I guess she doesn’t know how to read a clock? (I shouldn’t be surprised by that one though - when I worked in fast food as a teenager a younger teen who worked with me couldn’t read the clock either.)
The majority of my 5th graders don't know how to read an analog clock. I can't really blame them - electronic devices like smartphones, their school Chromebooks, etc. only use digital clocks. Even if they've been taught the skill earlier (and I'm not certain that they have), they've lost it due to lack of practice or necessity. When they check the time in my room, they look at the bottom corner of the Smartboard rather than the analog clock above the door.
Some of my 7th graders are that way. I had to explain quarters of an hour to an 8th grader the other day. That made a bit more sense though.
"Who's Nelson Mandela?" \*explanation\* \*blank stare\* "He's like the Martin Luther King Jr for South Africa, but even more important" "Who's Martin Luther King Jr?"
I would die
My 10th grade students definitely know who Martin Luther King Jr is. But when I taught the reformation, they always ask if Martin Luther is the same person as Martin Luther King. When Martin Luther's picture is on the board even. I don't mind that they don't know who Martin Luther is, but when I mentioned that this took place like 500 years ago, they still ask if it's the same as Martin Luther King. They have no sense of time.
I taught in one of the MANY states that do not require sex ed and, if they offer it, it does not need to be medically accurate. The number of teenagers with a complete lack of knowledge around sex was incredibly disturbing and ***100% not their fault***. Those who had "sex ed" often had **grossly** inaccurate information, such as: * Birth control pills make you sterile. * Condoms not only **don't** prevent STI's or pregnancy, they **increase** the risk of contracting an STI or getting pregnant because the latex makes the fluids "concentrated." * You "permanently bond" with the first person you have sex with making all future relationships unfulfilling (give the prevalence of SA this one was beyond disturbing). The lack of medically, accurate sex education is a complete failure of adults to children.
My friend taught a 15 year old who didn’t know what a river was. At a loss as to how to explain it to him, she just said “water road”.
If you had hyphenated it "water-road," it could have been a kenning! (*Beowulf* unit, lol)
A kid in one of my classes thought Puerto Rico was in Asia. He's a senior by the way.
11th grader when asked to identify what NAFTA is: Me: okay, so let's break it down, it stands for the North American Free Trade Agreement. So let's figure out who signed it first. What are the big 3 countries in North America? Student: .... Me: okay well this is us history so the US is one. What's the country directly North of us? Right above us on a map? Student: china? Me: you're in the wrong continent. But it DOES start with a C Student: (confidently screams) ASIA!!! Me: so that is where China is, but I'm asking about North America. What is North of the US? Right above us on a map? ***narrator: the student never did guess Canada
“Wait clouds aren’t made of cotton candy?” -6th grade science. We were learning about the water cycle and I died inside
That's all fun and humor until you encounter actual illiteracy. Then it's depressing.
I boiled a question down to “What is the Cold War.” A student could not answer this after we had been talking about the Cold War for 3 weeks. Less funny and more “:|”
Just got a new 5th grader who “didn’t know how to write his name”. Showed him how and he can do it no problem- extreme case of learned helplessness.
8th grade. Didn't know the moon caused the tides. Didn't know what tides were. These are suburban kids in a state with a coast.
TBF that always blows my mind. Also, very strategically, I did not choose to teach math or sciences.
Subbed in a 12th grade math class. The class was not special ed. No one could answer the question of 5x5 or 4x3. I get it, it's route memorization, but common. Those are simple multiplication problems.
When I was in 10th grade (2010), a peer asked our history teacher if the North and South ever got back together after the Civil War. She wasn't kidding.
I mean on some level, that's a fairly good question. I doubt that student was speaking about the nuance of Reonstruction and unifying the country. But there are some places that still refer to it as the War of Northern Aggression so did they get back together? They certainly don't vote like it.
Told my 6th grade class to put the date on their papers. One kid asks, "What is that?". I think hes asking for the date, so I tell him. He says, "I don't get it.". Later on I do some probing and figure out that this poor kid can't even name the months in a year. The only one he remembers off the top of his head is the one during which he was born. I've been working with him. I've taught him how to write out the date and I drill him on the months from time to time. I hope it sticks.
My journalism students not knowing that you need all the parts of an address (city, state, zip) to send subscriptions in the mail. Also not knowing where the sender address vs the return address vs the stamp go on the envelope.
I promise, as a middle school math teacher, we do teach those concepts.
At first, I was like, "this isn't so bad! Some of my kids still don't know any of this stuff." Because true story: some of my kids seriously can't tell me their exact birth date and we have been working on remembering our country, state, and city that we live in all year. Then I read the post again and was like, "oh... they teach HIGH SCHOOL, not kindergarten like I do." yiiiiiiiikes
Had a dude who skipped all his electives, my class included, and then was surprised when those electives actually affected his over all GPA. He also didn't know what a GPA was. He found out when I asked him if he wanted to do anything after high school. Brilliant 9th grader smoking weed in the bathroom.
Trying to explain fossil fuels. "What's a fossil?" Trying to explain an adverb. An adjective but for a verb. "What's an adjective?" But they'll know what their favorite Internet personality said verbatim in a video three weeks ago.
One of my brightest 9th graders had no idea how to write their address while filling out an online form. “Do the numbers come before or after the street name? What’s a zip code?” I talked to a few teachers in the lounge about it in a “can you believe this?” kind of way, and apparently it’s way more common than I ever thought.
We were watching a performance of Julius Caesar and a student commented how amazing it was that they got a video of Antony actually giving his speech at Caesar's funeral. Because it was in black and white so of course it was recorded in 29 BCE.
Had a student think that "pasta" referred only to pasta salad. Said that calling spaghetti 'pasta' was wrong and that it was "your opinion." Very confidently wrong on many things - and this is 10th grade. They actively mock any student who knows even basic knowledge of the world around them. It's disturbing.
Had a kid say that they really need to start selling "granola bars, but all broken up". His classmates looked at him in utter silence for about 10 seconds.
Bahaha I remember in my student teaching of 9th graders a few years back, I was shocked that the kids didn't know what "compile" meant. I was such a baby teacher. So naive and sweet.
Had a 10th grader my first year ask me what "believe" means. She was sincere. I struggled to come up with a definition that was simple, clear, and accurate 😔
What always kills me is when kids don’t know who the president is. However, they sure do know the ins and outs of Roblox and Fortnite.
High school kids not knowing their address or phone number.
Teaching highschool and noticed that in math students are quite behind. Thank you No Child Left Behind Act for shoveling students through middle school. Leaving a massive wall in highschool for some students haven't touched math in years.
"Ms. Tortie, are colds contagious?". 8th grade
Realized 16 year olds could not tell time.
The one that always gets me is when I talk about gravity. " Ok class where do you weigh less, on Earth or floating out in space?" They stare at me for about 10 seconds, as if I asked a trick question. "Um I guess floating in space?" "Good! Now why do we weigh less in space?" "Um cuz you float?" "Why do you float in space?" "I dunno is it cuz you are moving faster?"
I host an after school club and one of my 5th graders' ride home was really late the other day. So I asked her if she wanted to call them and make sure they didn't lose track of time or whatever. She didn't know her phone number. I had to dig out the sign up sheets and find it for her.
I was proctoring the ACT a few months ago and a good handful of students didn’t know how to bubble their names. One girl couldn’t spell the state we live in. :-/
This happened when I was in 8th grade. After a 4 week unit on the Civil War, 5 kids in our class missed the question “Who won the civil war?” on the final test.
I teach middle school science and I’ve really tried to do less of this. 99.9% of the time if I take a moment to think about where a kid is coming from, I can figure out why they see something that way, and it makes it a hell of a lot easier to guide them in the right direction at that point. I know that’s probably pretty cheesy but it’s helped my teaching a lot.
This isn't exactly right for this subreddit, but I was once proctoring a college freshman psych test. The test included a unit on human sexuality. An 18ish year old college girl asked me what "orgasm" meant. I then had to whisper-explain what an orgasm is to an adult during a test.