Stupid Things Teachers Have Said

[ShadowSot]

I'm split between whether this would fit better in Humor or under education.
If a mod feels the need to move it, their will be done.


I was thinking about the education I received in school, and remembered one of the statements a teacher made that disillusioned me to the class.

The lady made the statement that the discoverer of DNA had made the conclusion that DNA was shaped as it was due to the discoverer looking at a spiral staircase after the discovery.

She followed the statement by saying "I wonder how we would portray DNA if he'd seen a elevator instead of a staircase."
Implying that his perception affected the shape of DNA.

[Skwinty]

"I know this looks like a Spiderman football, but it's not. It's a photon."
- Professor Dan Stancil, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

This one is quite profound:

"So the next time you're outside, looking up at a star, just think: that's a tiny bit of an electric field that was very happily traveling through the universe for tens of thousands of years... until your eyeball got in the way. A new way of thinking about stargazing."
- Professor Colin Morningstar, Physics, Carnegie Mellon University

[GrandMasterFox]

Huh... I can top that easily...

Teacher: "There are more mainframes in the world than PCs"
Me: "Umm... You mean there are more PCs than mainframes"
Teacher: "No, there are more mainframes. Every bank has a mainframe"
Me: "Umm... A bank has one mainframe and over 200 pcs per branch..."
Teacher: "No, you are mistaken. It's a given fact that the most common programing language is Cobol"

[At this point I decided to keep my mouth shut, and dropped out of the class the following week]

[seewhatflows]

Professor: Gay people are their own race.

same professor (to a couple of black kids in the class): YOU'RE ACTING LIKE YOU'RE STILL SLAVES!

same professor: Are people with mental disabilities, you know, like retards, are they as disabled as people in wheelchairs? I really don't know.

Substitute teacher (high school): You can't go home until you've told me your favorite Olivia Newton-John movie.

[rwguinn]

Physics 101 professor "You can't use the Law of Cosines because this is not a right triangle"

[Polaris]

A social studies teacher in my sophomore year of high school told us that the US used larger caliber small arms than the Germans because that way any captured ammo would be guaranteed to not get stuck in the barrels when fired. (He was a huge American Civil War buff, so perhaps he wasn't aware of technological improvements since 1865).

A separate social studies teacher (I think junior year) told us that Hinckley actually had killed Reagan and the person we saw ever since was a double.

Neither of these statements were meant as jokes.

But the gems I remember best were from a poli-sci class on international relations in college (the professor of this course was also head of the department). He was from South Korea, and had a huge ax to grind with the US, but that's no excuse for saying (to paraphrase, it's been the better part of a decade) "the US has been supporting both sides of wars for years - in the Six Day War both Egyptians and Israelis fought each other with American fighter planes." Had I the presence of mind, I would have asked him whether Boeing or McDonnell-Douglas made MiGs and Mirage jets.

I did learn from him that the predecessor to "Winston Church" was "Wilt Chamberlain". Who knew?

[seewhatflows]

A separate social studies teacher (I think junior year) told us that Hinckley actually had killed Reagan and the person we saw ever since was a double.


That is utterly delightful.

[fuelair]

Huh... I can top that easily...

Teacher: "There are more mainframes in the world than PCs"
Me: "Umm... You mean there are more PCs than mainframes"
Teacher: "No, there are more mainframes. Every bank has a mainframe"
Me: "Umm... A bank has one mainframe and over 200 pcs per branch..."
Teacher: "No, you are mistaken. It's a given fact that the most common programing language is Cobol"

[At this point I decided to keep my mouth shut, and dropped out of the class the following week]

I have to admit that I am in no way a computer expert or teacher of classes in same - but I, too, would have vanished -- and probably asked questions of the department head and others in the school c of c.:confused::jaw-dropp

[fuelair]

As a non- idiot teacher, I am officially depressed.

[Damien Evans]

I had my year 8 science teacher try to convince me that Mercury had a 53 day year.

[quixotecoyote]

I had a undergraduate level English Literature class where the teacher bought into the "service learning" ******** hook, line, and sinker. This meant that instead of actually learning about English literature, we spent many classes making posters for the local urban community center.

[paiute]

I had my year 8 science teacher try to convince me that Mercury had a 53 day year.

The word "year" is also used of periods loosely associated but not strictly identical with either the astronomical or the calendar year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year or the academic year, etc. By extension, the term year can mean the orbital period of any planet: for example, a "Martian year" is the time in which Mars completes its own orbit. The term is also applied more broadly to any long period or cycle, such as the Platonic "Great Year".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

This isn't so much stupid as (pardon the language here) crazy bull ****.

Well, actually, it's stupid bull ****, too. :D Really stupid ********.

The New York City subway, for people who might not know, has an automated announcement system. It announces the station, warns people not to block the doors, tells them to "stand clear of the closing doors" when the doors are about to close, etc. and delivers public service safety warnings.

Some- not all- of the public service warnings are about possible terrorist attacks and a few are about the problem of groping in the subway. These warnings are also printed on the backs of metrocards and on posters in the subway.

The New York City subway, for people who might not know, has a problem with the groping of women by men. Is it a large problem? Well, yes, arguably.

This is purely anecdotal but I heard quite a few stories from women about men (usually homeless men but not always) flashing them, touching them, rubbing against them, verbally harassing them, masturbating in front of them and even attempting to rape them. They often use the fact that the subway is so crowded as an excuse or as a cover. Some of the victims of this that I know were in middle school. Yes, girls as young as 11 years old. As a side note, several incidences of actual rape have happened on the subway. Rare, but they have happened.

Now, does this happen every day? No, of course not. NYC has a very undeserved reputation for crime. Does it happen, though? Absolutely it does. And, with this kind of thing, even one time is one time too many, you know? Way too many.

An adjunct professor I had for Post Colonial Literature, a woman from Britain who emigrated to America as a child, got onto the subject of government control and government censorship. It vaguely related to a book or essay we were reading at the time but I can't remember which one and how exactly it related to it.

My paraphrase of what she said:

"What about the government when it comes to the subway? What's that automated message they always have? The one about groping on the subway and terrorism?

I'm on the subway and this voice, this body less voice, comes on and tells everyone on the subway what to do. Isn't it just so bizarre? Well, to me at least, it's just so bizarre to have this machine come over the airwaves and brainwash us twice a day. Think about how much time you spend on the subway. And how many people use it. It's a perfect government indoctrination center in the right hands. It's like something from a science fiction novel by George Orwell. And no one questions it. No one at all. Everyone just listens to this body less voice that regularly issues instructions to us. We just follow it like sheep, this automated voice that's piped in throughout the entire subway.

And what is it about? It tells you that if "you see a suspicious package on the subway or stairs", to "alert an MTA employee or the police". See? It is encouraging people to snitch on one another! It is designed to make us fear one another. To look at one another with suspicion. To keep us all afraid and paranoid and mistrustful of one another. And when was the last time there was a terrorist attack on the subway? Think about it! Never! There has never been a terrorist attack on the subway. It's all just fear!

And this voice about the alleged groping. The message is "A crowded subway is no excuse for inappropriate sexual contact" and to not be embarrassed and ashamed to report it if it happens to you.

Isn't it so bizarre that this voice is pumping these things into our ears? Regulating our sexual lives? Our sexual conduct? Controlling our sexual lives like this? Is that what the government should be doing?

Isn't this just controlling people's private lives? Isn't this just creating a climate of panic and hysteria? Dividing people from one another, keeping people from talking to one another, keeping people from interacting with one another?

And this is only in New York. If you lived anywhere else, this would never happen. You wouldn't be so fearful of the person standing next to you. You wouldn't look at them like they could hurt you at any moment. You wouldn't be ready to report them for something sexual. You would see that if you lived anywhere else. And only in this country. Only in America."

I was absolutely shocked and outraged. And this coming from a woman! A woman!

I gathered my bearings as best as I could and as calmly as I could replied that, actually, I was very glad that the government took action against perverts who groped women.

And told her that I was glad the MTA let victims know that they could report it and without shame or embarrassment because women who are groped often don't even know that they can take action against their attackers.

She replied "Ok, now, the word you used was "pervert". Don't you think that is an unfair label? Isn't that judging them? Isn't that making a call on them?"


Yes, she actually said this. And she was actually sober when she said it.

The only sane responses to this and her entire little spiel:

1) ".........."
2) :major facepalm:
3) :double major facepalm:
4) :rubbing one's ears to make sure you heard it right and then slowly picking up one's jaw from the floor:
5) "Welcome to planet Earth! We see that you are from a previously undiscovered solar system!"
6) "Beep, beep, beep...Hello, is this 911? Uhm, I think I found that escaped patient from Bellevue."

[pipelineaudio]

"aint aint a word"

"We only use 10% of our brains"

"no species of snake gives birth to live young"

[Tsukasa Buddha]

AP Chemistry teacher:

"A Liberal will tell you that you can't kick a puppy but you can kill a baby."

[IMST]

HS Biology teacher:
Explained the synaptic gap and the function of neurotransmitters. The very next thing he said was that by putting the needle into the gap itself, acupuncture works!

[Rage Virus]

A teacher once said:
"As a non-idiot teacher, I am officially depressed."

And I suspect that If I was smarter, I wouldn't be teaching.

[Dr. Keith]

HS teacher stated as fact that big oil had "bought the patent" to the 100mpg carboratuer.

Snopes would have been nice back then.

[IMST]

HS teacher stated as fact that big oil had "bought the patent" to the 100mpg carboratuer.

Snopes would have been nice back then.

oh, I got basically the same thing from a science teacher back in HS, along with cheap unpopable tires.

[rjh01]

I had my year 8 science teacher try to convince me that Mercury had a 53 day year.

The actual answer is that it takes 87.969 days for Mercury to do one orbit around the sun.

Ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet)

[Madalch]

The lady made the statement that the discoverer of DNA had made the conclusion that DNA was shaped as it was due to the discoverer looking at a spiral staircase after the discovery.

She followed the statement by saying "I wonder how we would portray DNA if he'd seen a elevator instead of a staircase."
Implying that his perception affected the shape of DNA.

Wasn't that a joke from a Terry Pratchett book? "If he had taken the lift instead, the whole history of biology would have been different. But faster. And only licensed to carry twelve people."

[Mirrorglass]

"Now, it says here in your books that brain tissue does not feel pain, but personally, I don't believe it."

-My junior high biology teacher

[Wrathernaut]

"Every society has its own creation myth. Our modern one is evolution." - A teacher from my wife's old school.

[jhunter1163]

I had my year 8 science teacher try to convince me that Mercury had a 53 day year.

Mercury rotates on its axis once every 58 days. Maybe that's what she was thinking of. She was still wrong though.

[Wrathernaut]

"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.

[JWideman]

The word "year" is also used of periods loosely associated but not strictly identical with either the astronomical or the calendar year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year or the academic year, etc. By extension, the term year can mean the orbital period of any planet: for example, a "Martian year" is the time in which Mars completes its own orbit. The term is also applied more broadly to any long period or cycle, such as the Platonic "Great Year".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year

That's all well and good, but Mercury's year is 88 days long, not 53. :D

And then there's the story about the chemistry professor who had a penchant for showmanship in his lectures. He would fill two glasses, one with water and one with methanol, speak at length, then drink from one of the glasses after saying something like "now let's see if I'm an idiot". He always chose the right glass... except for that last time.

[Safe-Keeper]

Biggest mistake I remember is the teacher who said a scientific idea progressed from hypothesis through theory to law. But the most annoying teacher overall was one who used the class to preach her deluded ideas on just about everything, but particularly on how horrible a country the US was, to the class, without taking too kindly to contrary opinion. She also rejoiced in pretending to be an expert on subjects she knew next to nothing about. My faourite was when I brought up One Laptop Per Child and she convinced herself it was litterally being given to every kid in the world, particularly children living in stone age-level tribes in the jungle with no contact with the outside world.

[Safe-Keeper]

Error 1: Double post caused by poor Internet connection.

[Damien Evans]

The actual answer is that it takes 87.969 days for Mercury to do one orbit around the sun.

Ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet)

Yes, that's what I told him (ok, I rounded to 88, but close enough).

[SezMe]

- My WordPefect (yes I'm that old) teacher from High School.
Hey! I'm a WordPerfect user to this day. Beats Word by a mile.

[Mirrorglass]

Mercury rotates on its axis once every 58 days. Maybe that's what she was thinking of. She was still wrong though.

I'm pretty sure it's actually 176 Earth days. Where did you get your number?

[eeyore1954]

Professor: Gay people are their own race.

same professor (to a couple of black kids in the class): YOU'RE ACTING LIKE YOU'RE STILL SLAVES!

same professor: Are people with mental disabilities, you know, like retards, are they as disabled as people in wheelchairs? I really don't know.

Substitute teacher (high school): You can't go home until you've told me your favorite Olivia Newton-John movie.

A lot of kids would have never been able to go home.

[Cainkane1]

My history teacher once agreed with a white student that white people and black people could not donate blood to each other.

[eeyore1954]

I had my year 8 science teacher try to convince me that Mercury had a 53 day year.

The actual answer is that it takes 87.969 days for Mercury to do one orbit around the sun.

Ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet)

Mercury rotates on its axis once every 58 days. Maybe that's what she was thinking of. She was still wrong though.

So actually I would think a Mercury year is close to 1 1/2 days long.

[Puppycow]

I think this is stupid, or maybe I'm just ignorant, but a teacher once told me that if you put a cup of hot water in a freezer, it would freeze faster than if you put a cup of cold water in the freezer. I asked if he was sure about it, because it didn't make sense to me. I didn't get an explanation of the physics, but a hostile attitude, like, how dare I question him (he was not a physics teacher). This can't be true, can it? Because hot water would first become cold water before freezing, so cold water would have a head start, right?

[Lolly]

so cold water would have a head start, right?The hotter it is, the faster it cools, I think.

[Puppycow]

The hotter it is, the faster it cools, I think.

But would it take less time to freeze? At some point in between the hot water becomes cold water before freezing, right?

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

To Cainkane1 (http://forums.randi.org/member.php?u=5503):

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.

[Lolly]

But would it take less time to freeze? At some point in between the hot water becomes cold water before freezing, right?
I've no idea, but Google brings up

http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/PhysFAQ/General/hot_water.html

[Damien Evans]

I'm pretty sure it's actually 176 Earth days. Where did you get your number?

Dunno where he got his, but Wiki agrees with you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_%28planet%29#Orbit_and_rotation

[TubbaBlubba]

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."

[Wrathernaut]

My english teacher - "Who threw that?"
Everybody else knew, why didn't she? Stupid teacher.

[Monketey Ghost]

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."

Seriously? Science teacher actually said "never heard of that"?

That's... sad...

[Modified]

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.

[Cainkane1]

To Cainkane1 (http://forums.randi.org/member.php?u=5503):

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.
When and where was this?

[Hazel]

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.

[Jeff Corey]

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.

[Lensman]

So actually I would think a Mercury year is close to 1 1/2 days long.

Dunno where he got his, but Wiki agrees with you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_%28planet%29#Orbit_and_rotation

Wiki appears to be incorrect, check THIS TABLE (http://www.windows2universe.org/our_solar_system/planets_table.html)

(0.24 years equals 87.6 days.)

[Hazel]

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.

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

[Belgian thought]

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'."

[Hazel]

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.

[fuelair]

"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.

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

[jhunter1163]

Wiki appears to be incorrect, check THIS TABLE (http://www.windows2universe.org/our_solar_system/planets_table.html)

(0.24 years equals 87.6 days.)

Wiki does have the correct figure (58.645 days) for sidereal rotation, but they confuse the issue by saying that a solar day on Mercury is 176 days long.

[ShadowSot]

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.

[Madalch]

Biggest mistake I remember is the teacher who said a scientific idea progressed from hypothesis through theory to law.

I think most people, teachers included, believe that. My students are always surprised when I tell them it's wrong.

[Hazel]

It doesn't?

[Mirrorglass]

Wiki appears to be incorrect, check THIS TABLE (http://www.windows2universe.org/our_solar_system/planets_table.html)

(0.24 years equals 87.6 days.)

Wiki does have the correct figure (58.645 days) for sidereal rotation, but they confuse the issue by saying that a solar day on Mercury is 176 days long.

Huh. Live and learn.

[Wrathernaut]

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.

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.

[AgeGap]

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.

[Madalch]

It doesn't?
What doesn't?

[Hazel]

What doesn't?

"Biggest mistake I remember is the teacher who said a scientific idea progressed from hypothesis through theory to law. "

[fossilhound]

I think this is stupid, or maybe I'm just ignorant, but a teacher once told me that if you put a cup of hot water in a freezer, it would freeze faster than if you put a cup of cold water in the freezer. I asked if he was sure about it, because it didn't make sense to me. I didn't get an explanation of the physics, but a hostile attitude, like, how dare I question him (he was not a physics teacher). This can't be true, can it? Because hot water would first become cold water before freezing, so cold water would have a head start, right?

It actually solidifies into clearer ice cubes because the warmth drives out more of the trapped bubbles of gas.

[Safe-Keeper]

It doesn't?Nope. To the best of my understanding, a theory in science jargon is an idea (backed by evidence, otherwise it's a hypothesis) that explains a law. So the law of gravity states that things fall, while the theory of gravity explains how and why.

[7th sextile]

But would it take less time to freeze? At some point in between the hot water becomes cold water before freezing, right?
Ummmm - two cups,one freezer?

[Hazel]

Nope. To the best of my understanding, a theory in science jargon is an idea (backed by evidence, otherwise it's a hypothesis) that explains a law. So the law of gravity states that things fall, while the theory of gravity explains how and why.

Sounds like juggling. I'll think on it a bit. Thanks.

[Madalch]

"Biggest mistake I remember is the teacher who said a scientific idea progressed from hypothesis through theory to law. "
As Safe-Keeper said, a theory and a law are different, and one does not turn into another.

A law is something that is always true- the law of gravity says that two masses attract each other, the law of conservation of energy says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy increases. None of these laws explains -why- these are true, just that they are.

A theory would explain the why of it- germ theory of disease explains why certain diseases occur, the oxygen theory of combustion explains why burning occurs (better than the phlogisten theory, at least), etc.

[W.D.Clinger]

Suppose we want to round 11074996 to the nearest 10000. My sixth grade teacher, whose name I've forgotten, taught us to follow these steps:

First round 11074996 to the nearest 10: 11075000
Then round to the nearest 100: 11075000
Then round to the nearest 1000: 10075000
Then round to the nearest 10000: 10080000 (because, according to her, anything ending in 5000 rounds up)

The correct answer is 10070000.

I protested her algorithm, and was so insistent that she called a meeting of all three 6th grade teachers at our school to consider the matter. Their unanimous opinion: I was wrong.

Her algorithm gets the right answer about 95% of the time. It gets the wrong answer only when the next-to-last step yields a number that ends with 5000, and even then the algorithm gets the right answer about half the time.

I never forgot that, obviously. And so, today, the computer system you're using to view this forum contains several software components that convert decimal scientific notation into binary floating point numbers by implementing an intelligent variation of my sixth grade teacher's stupid algorithm. In certain difficult cases, the algorithm performs a fast computation, related to my 6th grade teacher's incorrect algorithm, to obtain a result that's usually right. The algorithm tests the low-order bits to see whether that fast result could be wrong. If so, then a slower algorithm is used instead. Otherwise we've got the correct result, and we got it quickly.

That algorithm made it feasible for the Java programming language, W3C XML Schema, and the 2008 revision of the IEEE-754 standard for binary floating point arithmetic to require correct rounding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_754_revision#correctly-rounded_base_conversion) of floating point numbers that appear within a computer program or data.

[dasmiller]

Not sure if this example is stupid or just funny, but I had an Electrical Engineering TA who was . .err . .. English-challenged (I know what you're thinking, but he was Scandinavian).

He particularly had trouble pronouncing longer, technical words, so "resistance" became "restence," "capacitance" became "capstence," and "impedance" became ... "impotence."

[leon_heller]

There was this programme about strange happenings at school on BBC2 tonight:

http://www.radiotimes.com/ListingsServlet?event=10&channelId=105&programmeId=128699844&jspLocation=/jsp/prog_details_fullpage.jsp

Unfortunately, my recording had lots of glitches - I sometimes have problems with that digital TV channel - so I deleted it.

I just found it on the BBC Iplayer, it's quite amusing:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tqh0b/Grumpy_Old_Schooldays/

Geoffrey Palmer is the narrator, he's very good.

[Dystopian]

"God Exists"

[schrodingasdawg]

My third grade teacher insisted seasonal cycles were due to how close the Earth was to the sun. I told her it had to do with axial tilt, and in fact the Earth was closer to the sun during winter [in the Norther hemisphere]. Not that she believed me.

[Madalch]

My grade 1 teacher told us about prehistoric life, particularly "dino-sours".

[rwguinn]

Not sure if this example is stupid or just funny, but I had an Electrical Engineering TA who was . .err . .. English-challenged (I know what you're thinking, but he was Scandinavian).

He particularly had trouble pronouncing longer, technical words, so "resistance" became "restence," "capacitance" became "capstence," and "impedance" became ... "impotence."
Similar here, except he was from India. Taught DFynamics.
Got used to verocity being a funyun of itch scared...

[seewhatflows]

"Irony is like pornography. You can't explain what it is, but you know it when you see it." - Mr. Morrison, my 8th grade English teacher

[BillC]

My headmistress told me that there was no such English word as ere (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ere), meaning "before", and argued with me at great length before telling me flatly I was wrong.
Even at the age of ten, I knew she was wrong.

[welshdean]

I think this is stupid, or maybe I'm just ignorant, but a teacher once told me that if you put a cup of hot water in a freezer, it would freeze faster than if you put a cup of cold water in the freezer. I asked if he was sure about it, because it didn't make sense to me. I didn't get an explanation of the physics, but a hostile attitude, like, how dare I question him (he was not a physics teacher). This can't be true, can it? Because hot water would first become cold water before freezing, so cold water would have a head start, right?


I'm afraid he was right!:)
Congratulations you were right!:(

Sometimes hot water does freeze more quickly than cold, but to muddy the (hot or cold) waters a little, the reverse is also true.
I read the answer in one of the 'Last Word' series (New Scientist) a few years ago and from memory it's all about nucleation points being lessened by the heating, removal of impurities and convection currents being far more active in the heated sample.
Google the Mpemba Effect and see if that gives you a better answer.


Slightly off topic, I'd love a 'portal' on these fora where we can ask our questions and have the resident experts answer them.

[welshdean]

My headmistress told me that there was no such English word as ere (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ere), meaning "before", and argued with me at great length before telling me flatly I was wrong.
Even at the age of ten, I knew she was wrong.


You just reminded me.
I had an essay marked down because I spelt 'immense' with the double 'm'.:eek: When I pressed him it was the first time I'd heard the expression 'brain-fart' and he marked me back up.




Oh and to the 'VD' poster, it's STI these days, not STD, showing your age old bean.

[fuelair]

The hotter it is, the faster it cools, I think.Up to a point, but, without looking it up I am pretty sure actual experimentation shows a cup of near boiling w. takes longer than one at 10 degrees C. Ah, heck, I'll check.O733PM E

1). hot faster: http://library.thinkquest.org/C008537/cool/freeze/freeze.html

2). hot faster: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/hot_water.html

3). cold faster: http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae7.cfm

4). either, depends (my favorite!) : http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/422/which-freezes-faster-hot-water-or-cold-water

notice, number four tries two ways, 1 like the first two and one like the third and gets different results AND responds reasonably to his/her results!!:D:D

[roger]

There were so many from a junior high science teacher, but the only one I really remember is an argument I got into with her about how hot you can heat water. Now, I know (and knew then) about issues of atmospheric pressure (more pressure means it takes more heat to turn to steam) and nucleation (if you can't start the bubble then you can super heat the water). No, this was about boiling water without adulterants in a regular ole pot at 1 atmosphere. She contended that you should be able to heat it well above 100C. I explained the physics of it. No dice. Science for her was memorization of facts combined with "common sense" when you don't know the answer (common sense why couldn't you just heat water hotter by adding more heat? It makes perfect sense if you don't understand how/why water turns to steam), not figuring out how things would work based on known principles.

But, for the most part, I got a great education. Just not from her.

[fuelair]

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.

Soo, I suppose Bose-Einstein condensates are right out of it.................:jaw-dropp

(can't test kids on it, it's not in the Sunshine State Standards so it is non-existant and of no importance. I cover it/them anyway.)

[fuelair]

Nope. To the best of my understanding, a theory in science jargon is an idea (backed by evidence, otherwise it's a hypothesis) that explains a law. So the law of gravity states that things fall, while the theory of gravity explains how and why.

NO!! - in the first place, there is no Theory of Gravity: if we ever find out exactly how gravity works, we will have such but.... The Law of Gravity is a mathmatical formula that describes the force of gravity between any two objects in the Universe. A Theory in science essentially explains how something works, a Law points out that it works (often in the form of a formula describing/showing the calculation of a relationship that is the subject of said Law).
Note there is no Law of Evolution (a formula describing it)so Evolution is the reverse of Gravity.

[fuelair]

My third grade teacher insisted seasonal cycles were due to how close the Earth was to the sun. I told her it had to do with axial tilt, and in fact the Earth was closer to the sun during winter [in the Norther hemisphere]. Not that she believed me.

If it helps, and I hope it doesn't, there is a film lots of teachers have been shown of a Harvard graduation some years back wherein an extremely disappointing number of new Harvard grads AND profs answered that question as your teacher....WRONG!!:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp

[fuelair]

My grade 1 teacher told us about prehistoric life, particularly "dino-sours".

I always prefer Dino Sweet'N'Sours!!!:D

[fuelair]

My headmistress told me that there was no such English word as ere (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ere), meaning "before", and argued with me at great length before telling me flatly I was wrong.
Even at the age of ten, I knew she was wrong.
Ere long, she erred!:)
Did she give good......never mind!!

[fuelair]

Seriously? Science teacher actually said "never heard of that"?

That's... sad...It's way better than pretending it was wrong. At least the teacher was honest! I've heard/seen worse here!!:):):)

[RSLancastr]

A lot of kids would have never been able to go home.

I would still be there.

[fossilhound]

Man, this thread is embarassing me. I am going to be very careful about what I say to my kids. I wonder how many totally dimwitted things I've uttered over the last quarter century. :o

I know kids remember snippets of lecture out of context, and then the memory of course does not work like a VCR. Memories are recreated so-to-speak every time they're reimagined, so there's no telling what horror stories there are floating around out there about me.

I dread the thought of inadvertantly putting a student down simply because he actively disagreed with me, whether right or wrong. School was so easy for me. Perhaps that's why I became a teacher. But I know that's not the way it is for most kids.

My point is that well-meaning teachers can spout intellectual flatulance. It's one of the risks of the vocation.

ETA I'm not defending it. I'm learning from it.

[Puppycow]

I've no idea, but Google brings up

http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/PhysFAQ/General/hot_water.html

Well I'll be damned. :D

[schrodingasdawg]

If it helps, and I hope it doesn't, there is a film lots of teachers have been shown of a Harvard graduation some years back wherein an extremely disappointing number of new Harvard grads AND profs answered that question as your teacher....WRONG!!:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp

Sigh... I might regret asking this, but:

Have a video?

[Doghouse Reilly]

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.

So that makes you 90 years old? With such a keen memory of 8th grade too.

[fossilhound]

So that makes you 90 years old? With such a keen memory of 8th grade too.

My Pop's 93, and if he were blogging here you wouldn't know it until he told you the story of taking his civil war veteran uncle to a silent movie. His mind is sharp as a scalpel. :)

[Mark the Hiker]

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.
I had something similar happen in 9th grade science. We had been told that mass is a better way to measure the 'amount' of stuff than volume. We were quizzed on this, and I pointed out that this is because different materials have different densities.

I was only given partial credit because they had not talked about density yet.

[Doghouse Reilly]

My Pop's 93, and if he were blogging here you wouldn't know it until he told you the story of taking his civil war veteran uncle to a silent movie. His mind is sharp as a scalpel. :)
But the thing is, he isn't blogging here. I have no doubt that there are many sharp-minded individuals of very advanced age. They just don't tend to post on message boards. I am curious to find out if Hazel is the extremely rare exception.

[John Jones]

It sux being smarter than your teachers or ahead of your lessons.

It makes bright kids get bored with the educational system.

[Nerd]

"You seem like a smart kid..."
:p

[TubbaBlubba]

Oh, yeah

"The most widespread racism in the world is against whites." - 8th grade social studies teacher based on his experiences in the Caribbean.

[fuelair]

Sigh... I might regret asking this, but:

Have a video?I was gonna say no (because I don't and have only seen outside orgs with it, but, just went to www.dogpile.com and found:
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/05.29/VideoRevelation.html

:D:D:D:(:(:jaw-dropp

[fuelair]

Well I'll be damned. :D

Read my post 78 before you damn yourself:)

[Travis]

My third grade teacher insisted seasonal cycles were due to how close the Earth was to the sun. I told her it had to do with axial tilt, and in fact the Earth was closer to the sun during winter [in the Norther hemisphere]. Not that she believed me.
If it helps, and I hope it doesn't, there is a film lots of teachers have been shown of a Harvard graduation some years back wherein an extremely disappointing number of new Harvard grads AND profs answered that question as your teacher....WRONG!!:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp

Awesome, your third grade teacher was a Harvard Grad!

I'm afraid he was right!:)
Congratulations you were right!:(

Sometimes hot water does freeze more quickly than cold, but to muddy the (hot or cold) waters a little, the reverse is also true.
I read the answer in one of the 'Last Word' series (New Scientist) a few years ago and from memory it's all about nucleation points being lessened by the heating, removal of impurities and convection currents being far more active in the heated sample.
Google the Mpemba Effect and see if that gives you a better answer.


Mythbusters also took that on that at one point I think. Or was it the exploding hot water out of the microwave that I'm thinking of?

[SezMe]

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/05.29/VideoRevelation.html

From that link:

Another student explained that we see because our eyes send out rays, like flashlight beams, which hit objects, then bounce back to our eyes.

What's wrong with that? One of our favorite posters has an avatar showing doing exactly that. ;)

[ShadowSot]

Soo, I suppose Bose-Einstein condensates are right out of it.................:jaw-dropp

(can't test kids on it, it's not in the Sunshine State Standards so it is non-existant and of no importance. I cover it/them anyway.)

If I have to go through school again, I want you to be my science teacher.
Never heard of Bose Einstein condensates before to my memory.

[TubbaBlubba]

Mythbusters also took that on that at one point I think. Or was it the exploding hot water out of the microwave that I'm thinking of?
That one is easy. Just take a flat mug, pour water into it (you might have to use distilled water if you have hard tap water), run it in the microwave for maybe 3 minutes, then toss a coin into it. SPLASH.

[welshdean]

That one is easy. Just take a flat mug, pour water into it (you might have to use distilled water if you have hard tap water), run it in the microwave for maybe 3 minutes, then toss a coin into it. SPLASH.


You forgot the important bit.

Stand well back, it's dangerous, very hot water travelling at speed tends to scald.

[Hazel]

Nice to see the flag still waving, Welshdean. Bore da. Now, back to the proper topic. Hazel

[TubbaBlubba]

You forgot the important bit.

Stand well back, it's dangerous, very hot water travelling at speed tends to scald.

I thought the "exploding hot water" part gave it away.

[Evilgiraffe]

One of my teacher friends is capable of uttering some stunningly stupid things. A typical example from everyday conversation.

Teacher Friend: Are mice mammals?

Me and rest of assembled friends: YES! (in unison)

Teacher Friend: But mice have ears!

:boggled:

To be fair, the person in question wasn't teaching at the time. But still....

[TubbaBlubba]

One of my teacher friends is capable of uttering some stunningly stupid things. A typical example from everyday conversation.

Teacher Friend: Are mice mammals?

Me and rest of assembled friends: YES! (in unison)

Teacher Friend: But mice have ears!

:boggled:

To be fair, the person in question wasn't teaching at the time. But still....

The what I how-

I hope it wasn't a biology teacher.

[Hazel]

One of my teacher friends is capable of uttering some stunningly stupid things. A typical example from everyday conversation.

Teacher Friend: Are mice mammals?

Me and rest of assembled friends: YES! (in unison)

Teacher Friend: But mice have ears!

:boggled:

To be fair, the person in question wasn't teaching at the time. But still....

Stupid? Maybe she was saying, "but mice listen; why don't people listen?" :)

[GeorgeDorn]

[...]
And this is only in New York. If you lived anywhere else, this would never happen. You wouldn't be so fearful of the person standing next to you. You wouldn't look at them like they could hurt you at any moment. You wouldn't be ready to report them for something sexual. You would see that if you lived anywhere else. And only in this country. Only in America."
[...]



Wow what a rant. You've really been thinking about this a lot huh? :)

In Denmark the automated message is almost the same, except the sexual one. Instead it warns about thieves, but all the stuff about suspicious suitcases and stuff is the same.

Then again we're at war together so I guess it kinda makes sense.

[Hazel]

As Safe-Keeper said, a theory and a law are different, and one does not turn into another.

A law is something that is always true- the law of gravity says that two masses attract each other, the law of conservation of energy says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy increases. None of these laws explains -why- these are true, just that they are.

A theory would explain the why of it- germ theory of disease explains why certain diseases occur, the oxygen theory of combustion explains why burning occurs (better than the phlogisten theory, at least), etc.

I think I have it. The misunderstanding is in interpreting the original statement. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think you are looking at the statement as hypotheses and theories creating the law. I am reading it as hypotheses and theories taking us to an understanding of the law. Students ask 'why' (I hope). We start making guess and forming hypotheses. With study, we toss the bad and develop the good into theories. Eventually, we come to the law. Yes, the law was always there and immutable. Now, having worked our way through our guesses, hypotheses and theories (everyone has a theory), we understand why we cannot move Mars out of the Solar System. There is that law of gravity blocking us.

Has anyone read that book? I forget the author but the title was Moving Mars. Good book if you like SciFi.

[volatile]

A-Level theatre studies, mock exam. We were given an extract from a play, which happened to be about Romany Gypsies. One of the questions was "Describe the possible costuming for these characters", and my answer suggested that they would be dressed "eclectically".

On marking, my teacher had underlined the word "eclectically", and marked me down. When we were going through the paper in class the next week, I asked him why he'd given me a poor mark for that question, only to be told that "They wouldn't be dressed eclectically; they'd be dressed in all different, unmatching clothes from lots of different places".

[Dystopian]

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."

I bet you we're a right riot...

[Jeff Corey]

One of my teacher friends is capable of uttering some stunningly stupid things. A typical example from everyday conversation.

Teacher Friend: Are mice mammals?

Me and rest of assembled friends: YES! (in unison)

Teacher Friend: But mice have ears!

:boggled:

To be fair, the person in question wasn't teaching at the time. But still....

At least the teacher didn't say, "But mice lay eggs. Little dark brown eggs."

[AaronMHatch]

Teacher: "Ms. (name censored), it's your birthday today? How old are you?"

Girl: "18"

Teacher: "Ahh, finally legal!"

This was in Catholic high school.

[GrandMasterFox]

I have to admit that I am in no way a computer expert or teacher of classes in same - but I, too, would have vanished -- and probably asked questions of the department head and others in the school c of c.:confused::jaw-dropp

Well... For the record that wasn't the only reason I dropped out but that is preety much how the entire program was run...

[Ian Osborne]

In primary school, a genius teacher told me the moon was a planet. Strangely enough, our moon was the only one in the solar system that qualified as such, though.

[TubbaBlubba]

I bet you we're a right riot...

Sorry, I can't decipher that. What are you trying to say?

[Bpelta]

I was actually offered one of these "$10,000 if you can prove macroevolution" challenges by a science teacher in freshman or sophomore year of a nonsectarian high school (not actually in class, but afterwards when some friends and I were talking to him. I don't remember what he taught us about evolution generally). But I still have a certain nostalgia for him because students would take turns asking him questions while we were taking science quizzes in class and he'd say, "Well, <blah, blah, blah, science jargon>, so it's not A. And <more rambling>, so it definitely can't be C or D. So I can't give you the answer, but good luck."

My science education sucked.

[Bpelta]

Oh yeah, English teacher: "Statistically, most Jews have noses larger than other people."

[welshdean]

Sorry, I can't decipher that. What are you trying to say?

You're as mad as a box of frogs!

[Fnord]

My Home Ec* Teacher: "... and kosher salt is better for you because it has less sodium."

When I tried to point out that if you remove the sodium from salt, all you have left is chlorine, she literally told me to shut up.

*Yes, I took a semester of "Home Economics" back when it was first opened up for boys, circa 1970.

[fuelair]

The salt thing (sodium chloride salt to be more specific) bothers me a lotin the sense: sea salt is not healthier or less healthy for you, sea salt has to have a number of things processed out of it (fish crap and decayed body parts for starters) before you can sell it to consumers legally, so the only difference between sea salt and mined salt is the mined has been dry longer and may have KI (iodized ) added to it to prevent IIRC goiters.
You can evaporate the sea salt (but you can put mined salt back into solution and evaporate it also) in specific ways to make flaky salt crystals or big chunks which do affect how your tongue reacts to it on foods to a small extent, but all-in-all salt is salt is salt.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

When and where was this?

The answer to both might really surprise you.

Brooklyn, New York

This was about five years ago (I was 17 then, I'm 22 now) so in about 2005, maybe 2006. Yeah, probably 2006.


I know, right?

[Quinn]

Senior-year English teacher: "When I was young, drugs weren't something we even had to think about. Back then the only people who did drugs were jazz musicians."

This was in the last weeks before I was to graduate and enter college as a jazz major.

[Dystopian]

Sorry, I can't decipher that. What are you trying to say?

You appear to have been quite petulant as a child (+?)

[Madalch]

I had a teacher explain that the cell membrane was so many "my-CROM-itters" thick. A micrometer (rhymes with thermometer) is a device for measuring the thickness of steel; a micrometre (rhymes with centimetre or millilitre) is a unit of length.

What made it worse was that she pronounced it properly, and then "corrected" herself.

[Mark R]

My math teacher in eighth grade was also the principal and a nun (Catholic school).

A fantasy book I was reading was taken by her and we had to have a meeting before I could get it back.
I was instructed to never bring the book back to school and warned of the peril to my soul for reading such a book.

What was her reasoning: "This book is satanic. There is a character named Cobra!"

Perhaps she was prophetic. After this exchange my religious beliefs rapidly dwindled away.

[Damien Evans]

In primary school, a genius teacher told me the moon was a planet. Strangely enough, our moon was the only one in the solar system that qualified as such, though.

Well, if you took our moon, Ganymede, Calisto, Europa, Io and Titan out of their planetary orbits and put them into solar orbits we'd call them planets...

[ferd burfle]

A friend where I used to live in Vermont said a teacher in the local elementary school told her child that Texas was bigger than Alaska, and to prove it, pointed to the US map on the wall, where Texas was indeed depicted larger than Alaska.

ferd

[TubbaBlubba]

You appear to have been quite petulant as a child (+?)

Teachers didn't get any undeserved respect from me.

[383LQ4SS]

In the third grade I was picked to take part in an informal gifted gathering that would take place once or twice a week. There would be about 15 students that would gather in a separate room and we would do various experiments and have discussions. Well...the very first experiment we did was to make a rudimentary barometer. We used a mayo jar, balloon, drinking straw, ruler and white glue. The balloon was stretched tightly over the jar so the top was flat and sealed. We would then lay the drinking straw on top of the balloon with it hanging over one side of the jar and then glue it directly to the rubber balloon. Finally the ruler was used to mark the start point of our barometric readings. So after all these little devices were built and initial measurements recorded...we were dismissed for the day. The following day we came back and took new readings. Everyones barometer was WAAAYYY out of wack. Some where lower...some where higher...some where exactly the same as the previous days readings. The teachers were both trying to figure out what the heck went wrong....lol. I was looking at the little contraptions and I could see what was wrong rather quickly. All the balloons stretched over the jars were puffed up above the jar rim a bit. So it was clear that pressure had dropped. However...the location of the glue as it affixed the straw to the balloon was critical to which way and how much the tip of the straw moved along the ruler. If the glue dab was in the middle the straw/diaphram..it barely moved. If it was closer to the extended tip...the straw tip went down as the balloon diaphram rose.....if it was near the opposite end of the pointing end of the straw..it would raise the tip.

I tried to tell the teachers where we went wrong but I wasnt able to get the point across....or they didnt want to hear from a little kid. I sat there in frustration with the rest of the class while these two "gifted" teachers made excuse after excuse to a bunch of inquisitive yet disappointed kids. They finally came up with the idea that "hey kids...dont worry about them being the same...its the change that you observed that counts". Thats when about 1/3 of the group shouted "BUT MINE DIDNT CHANGE AT ALL":( (they had put the glue in the center of the diaphram...lol)

I think I went one more time to that special gathering. But the next time those teachers came around to collect the kids I just hid until they were gone. Never went again.



I also got the " I dont believe in plate tectonics. Continents dont float around!"
That was from my 9th grade science teacher.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Here is a real facepalm one-

In college, second semester of freshman year, I had to take a folklore class. One of the assignments was to do a presentation that did a literary theory reading of a fairy tale.

A girl was doing a presentation about fathers and daughters in fairy tales. She was presenting the findings of a study that found that women are attracted to men who resemble their fathers and are more likely to date and marry these men (I forget how this related to folklore but that's not the point of the story).

This study was, if memory serves, performed on women who were adopted as infants. It found that, despite the fact that they hadn't grown up with their biological father, they were still attracted to men who had the same body type, hair type, etc. as the biological dad and not the adopted dad.

The study suggested that a baby may be imprinted with images of certain genetic features through seeing the same person attending to it day in and day out and then find those same features attractive in later life. Something like that, anyway.

A girl raised her hand and asked the girl (with a bit of hesitation and embarrassment at having to say this) "What if she's, like, a lesbian? Does she date someone who looks like her mother?".

Laughter from a good deal of the class.

The girl doing the presentation confessed that she had no idea.

The professor interrupted the girl and yelled "No, a lesbian still dates someone who looks like her father!" and chuckled.

What an idiot.

Amazing that no one got offended.

[Ian Osborne]

Well, if you took our moon, Ganymede, Calisto, Europa, Io and Titan out of their planetary orbits and put them into solar orbits we'd call them planets...

Well yes, but if my grandma had gonads, we'd call her my granddad. :D

[quadraginta]

The fallacy that the Nile is the only major river in the world which flows north was rather widespread when I was in elementary school (and perhaps still is). It was even repeated in our fifth grade geography textbook, so I suppose my teacher in that class can be forgiven for repeating it.

Only thing, the school was about a mile from the banks of the Monongahela River, which is "major" by any standard, and flows almost perfectly due north to Pittsburgh (as rivers go). :boggled:

Maybe I had an unfair advantage because my dad was a geography professor at the University. Maybe my early interest in maps was at fault. But, still ...

I felt like yelling, "OPEN YOUR EYES, PEOPLE!!!". (But I didn't.)

How in the heck can you learn anything if you can't even see the stuff you live right next to and look at every day?

[BaaBaa]

My history teacher once agreed with a white student that white people and black people could not donate blood to each other.

In junior high, our health teacher informed us that the reason that there were so many black athletes was because the sockets of their hips were constructed differently, making them better runners.

Also, pubic hair existed as a sexual shock absorber. Or something.

[skbuncks]

...Now, having worked our way through our guesses, hypotheses and theories (everyone has a theory), we understand why we cannot move Mars out of the Solar System. There is that law of gravity blocking us.

Has anyone read that book? I forget the author but the title was Moving Mars. Good book if you like SciFi.

That would be Greg Bear.

skb

[GrandMasterFox]

I can't tell for sure how authentic the story is, as I mentioned this thread someone told me a story of theirs:

Teacher: "It was something so amazing, it is beyond mere admiration. Like the seven wonders of the world people built at the time. Like the sphinx"
Sudent: "Umm... The sphinx isn't one of the seven wonders"
Teacher: "Fine, the great temple in jerusalem"
Student: "That's not one either"
Teacher: "The mayan pyramids?"
Student: "Nope"
Teacher: "Fine, the Easter Island statues. I know that's in there"
Student: "Sorry, no"
Teacher: "Okay, I give up. You win. Your prize is an assignment for tomorow to do a presentation on the subject"

[Mark6]

Oh, yeah

"The most widespread racism in the world is against whites." - 8th grade social studies teacher based on his experiences in the Caribbean.
Considering that there are more Orientals in the world than whites, this may actually be true. Isn't Chinese word for "foreigner" same as "devil"?

[Mark6]

Teacher: "Ms. (name censored), it's your birthday today? How old are you?"

Girl: "18"

Teacher: "Ahh, finally legal!"

This was in Catholic high school.
Depending what state it was in, the teacher may have been late by a year or two.

[Bluegill]

Teachers didn't get any undeserved respect from me.

Half of 'em are below average!

[Mark6]

The professor interrupted the girl and yelled "No, a lesbian still dates someone who looks like her father!" and chuckled.

What an idiot.

Amazing that no one got offended.
Are you sure it was not a joke?

If everyone else took it as a joke, they would not be offended.

[Mark6]

The fallacy that the Nile is the only major river in the world which flows north was rather widespread when I was in elementary school (and perhaps still is). It was even repeated in our fifth grade geography textbook, so I suppose my teacher in that class can be forgiven for repeating it.

Only thing, the school was about a mile from the banks of the Monongahela River, which is "major" by any standard, and flows almost perfectly due north to Pittsburgh (as rivers go). :boggled:

Maybe I had an unfair advantage because my dad was a geography professor at the University. Maybe my early interest in maps was at fault. But, still ...

I felt like yelling, "OPEN YOUR EYES, PEOPLE!!!". (But I didn't.)

How in the heck can you learn anything if you can't even see the stuff you live right next to and look at every day?
I think "major" in this context means "about the length of Europe or more". Which is limited to Nile, Congo, Amazon, La Plata, Mississipi, Yangtze, Volga, Ob and Yenisey.

Except Ob and Yenisey also flow north. But being in Asian part of Russia, I suppose most Americans never heard of them...

[freedy]

Occupation: Teacher
Country you will spend most time abroad: Bali

[Spindrift]

Occupation: Teacher
Country you will spend most time abroad: Bali

On behalf of JREF, welcome freedy.

On behalf of myself: WTF does this mean?

[Bluegill]

My freshman year of HS, the coach who taught my health class gave a presentation on alcohol consumption. In discussing alcohol blood levels, he didn’t know the difference between .25% and 25%. “Now when you reach .25%, these are the effects here on this chart… .25%, gentlemen! That’s one quarter of your blood that’s alchohol!” Pickled, indeed.

I wish I could remember everything he said each class, because he was a real idiot. He constantly used an overhead projector to project his handwritten notes, which was a bad idea, because he couldn’t spell. He also couldn’t pronounce most words that had more than two syllables.

In fourth grade, Sister Margaret Regina told us that if the earth wobbled more than an inch or two out of its orbit, it would explode. She also advised us that if we had glow-in-the-dark crucifixes hanging in our houses, we should take them down, because they were cancer risks.

[Damien Evans]

On behalf of JREF, welcome freedy.

On behalf of myself: WTF does this mean?

Bali isn't a country.

[sthomson]

An SAT English prep teacher: You should never, ever, ever start a sentence with the word 'Because'.

Smart-alek (Me): Because a dependent clause can precede an independent clause, I can start this sentence with 'Because'.

English teacher: ...Well yes, that's acceptable I suppose...

[Hazel]

That would be Greg Bear.

skb

Thank you. There are three who wrote about the planets and I never keep them straight. But, I don't think he should have moved Mars. Do you?

[quadraginta]

I can't tell for sure how authentic the story is, as I mentioned this thread someone told me a story of theirs:

Teacher: "It was something so amazing, it is beyond mere admiration. Like the seven wonders of the world people built at the time. Like the sphinx"
Sudent: "Umm... The sphinx isn't one of the seven wonders"
Teacher: "Fine, the great temple in jerusalem"
Student: "That's not one either"
Teacher: "The mayan pyramids?"
Student: "Nope"
Teacher: "Fine, the Easter Island statues. I know that's in there"
Student: "Sorry, no"
Teacher: "Okay, I give up. You win. Your prize is an assignment for tomorow to do a presentation on the subject"


I'd have to put that one in my "good teacher" column. Didn't put the student down, didn't get overly defensive, parlayed it into an educational experience for the rest of the class and several for the kid who was playing smarty-pants.

(In a nice way, I mean. :p)

[KingMerv00]

Not a quote but I was taught that only Chris Columbus thought the Earth was round at the time.

**** YOU Eratosthenes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes)!

[quadraginta]

I think "major" in this context means "about the length of Europe or more". Which is limited to Nile, Congo, Amazon, La Plata, Mississipi, Yangtze, Volga, Ob and Yenisey.

Except Ob and Yenisey also flow north. But being in Asian part of Russia, I suppose most Americans never heard of them...


If the context is that limited then it behooves whomever is making the statement to say so. Specifically. It only costs a few extra words. Otherwise it is just a relatively merit free assertion dependent on unrevealed semantic nit-picking.

And as you point out, still wrong.

(BTW, how long is Europe. :))

A geography teacher who taught their class that rivers (for the most part) flow downhill would be on much firmer ground, so to speak.

[coalesce]

Seventh grade, catholic school, 1978: in one lesson about the idea of finite and infinite, the teacher said that all the people ever born on Earth was infinite. I said, no, it's finite because the world has a beginning and an end, therefore, everything in between can be counted. She then tried to use the number of grains of sand in world as being infinite. I again pointed out the beginning-and-end constraint. Needless to say, I wasn't one of her favorites, but my classmates understood perfectly what I was driving at.

Michael

[Dr. Keith]

Man, this thread is embarassing me. I am going to be very careful about what I say to my kids. I wonder how many totally dimwitted things I've uttered over the last quarter century. :o


My wife was a middle school science teacher for 14 years. At some point she began teaching more life-science and was having to teach material she hadn't gone over much before. As she was preparing her final exam she mentioned how it was strange that the spongy bone providing the rigidity in the bone as opposed to the compact bone. I said that sounded wrong, but then I was never much of a biology person.

She checked the text book, she was right. I checked the internet, her book was wrong. She and her co-teacher dropped the question from grading and gave a short lecture about the not so infallible nature of books and teachers. Her kids thought it was hilarious.

[quadraginta]

My wife was a middle school science teacher for 14 years. At some point she began teaching more life-science and was having to teach material she hadn't gone over much before. As she was preparing her final exam she mentioned how it was strange that the spongy bone providing the rigidity in the bone as opposed to the compact bone. I said that sounded wrong, but then I was never much of a biology person.

She checked the text book, she was right. I checked the internet, her book was wrong. She and her co-teacher dropped the question from grading and gave a short lecture about the not so infallible nature of books and teachers. Her kids thought it was hilarious.


Now THAT is good teaching. The Mrs. is a pearl beyond price.

(One of the things I still have from the Sixties is my first "Question Authority" lapel pin.)

[Madalch]

(One of the things I still have from the Sixties is my first "Question Authority" label button.)

Q: I saw a button saying, "Question Authority". Should I really do this?
A: Yes! If the button tells you to question authority, then that's what you should certainly do!

[dasmiller]

Q: I saw a button saying, "Question Authority". Should I really do this?
A: Yes! If the button tells you to question authority, then that's what you should certainly do!

so, the more correct button should say "Question Authority. Obey Lapel Pins."

[quadraginta]

Q: I saw a button saying, "Question Authority". Should I really do this?
A: Yes! If the button tells you to question authority, then that's what you should certainly do!


Cute. A tautology constructed on what premise? That aphorisms on buttons constitute "authority"? Okay. :boggled:

The cool part is that in a deeper sense you are absolutely right, which even reinforces the pithiness of the expression.

This is lots of fun. :D

[Vortigern99]

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.

Hiroshima.

[Vortigern99]

Undergrad Art History Professor [giving context for post-Impressionist Art]: In 1913 Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" was played for the first time, to enormous controversy and public bafflement.

Student [me][seeking to explain to fellow students to what piece of music the prof. had referred]: Yet by 1940, it was mainstream enough to use in a Disney film.

Professor: What...?

Student [me]: Rite of Spring was used in Disney's Fantasia, in the famous "Dinosaur" vignette.

Professor: [blank stare]

Student [me]: Never mind.

Professor: [glower of disapproval against such bourgeois tastes that would permit the watching of a Disney film]

[OverlapingMagisteria]

We were learning about nutrition and were looking at the nutrition labels in my 10th grade health class. In the US, nutrition labels show how much of a nutrient there is, as well as what percentage of your "daily value" it is (In other words, how much of your daily requirement you are getting.)

The teacher insisted that eating two servings would double the amount of a nutrient you are getting, but not the percentage of your daily value because "its a percentage and those don't double." By this logic, you could eat all the bananas in the world and never get your required potassium for the day.

If I remember right, it seemed like she didn't quite get it herself. I didn't bother correcting her cause she was a nice teacher otherwise and didn't want to embarrass her.

[ZirconBlue]

My Home Ec* Teacher: "... and kosher salt is better for you because it has less sodium."

When I tried to point out that if you remove the sodium from salt, all you have left is chlorine, she literally told me to shut up.

Well, a teaspoon of kosher salt certainly does have less sodium than a teaspoon of table salt.


My freshman year of HS, the coach who taught my health class gave a presentation on alcohol consumption. In discussing alcohol blood levels, he didn’t know the difference between .25% and 25%. “Now when you reach .25%, these are the effects here on this chart… .25%, gentlemen! That’s one quarter of your blood that’s alchohol!” Pickled, indeed.

I think I've spotted the problem.

[Madalch]

"Yes, I'll teach the Spring session."

Stupidest thing I've ever said as a teacher.

[fossilhound]

"Yes, I'll teach the Spring session."

Stupidest thing I've ever said as a teacher.

"Sure... I'll do yearbook. It'll be fun" One of the stupid things I have said as a teacher. :o

[Nanny Ogg]

"Well, now you've ruined the whole book."

This was said to me in an 8th grade English class. We were reading, "The Yearling," and were assigned to read up to chapter 2. That night, I got really interested in in and read the whole thing.

During class discussion, I was able to more answer a question with terrific gusto, even pointing out the meaning of the some ominous foreshadowing. The teacher froze, then asked me how I could have known what I did. I told her I had read ahead.

"How far ahead did you read?" she asked coldly. Now the whole class was staring. I timidly admitted to reading the whole thing.

"Well, now you've ruined the whole book. Next time, don't read ahead."

I stopped raising my hand in class after that. :(

[Madalch]

"Well, now you've ruined the whole book."

This was said to me in an 8th grade English class. We were reading, "The Yearling," and were assigned to read up to chapter 2. That night, I got really interested in in and read the whole thing.

During class discussion, I was able to more answer a question with terrific gusto, even pointing out the meaning of the some ominous foreshadowing. The teacher froze, then asked me how I could have known what I did. I told her I had read ahead.

"How far ahead did you read?" she asked coldly. Now the whole class was staring. I timidly admitted to reading the whole thing.

"Well, now you've ruined the whole book. Next time, don't read ahead."

I stopped raising my hand in class after that. :(

Well, if the rest of the class was expected to read up to Chapter 2, and you start telling them what happens at the end of the book, I can see her (and the class) being peeved. Hadn't you ever heard of spoilers?

[Dr. Keith]

Now THAT is good teaching. The Mrs. is a pearl beyond price.

(One of the things I still have from the Sixties is my first "Question Authority" lapel pin.)

She was a great science teacher because she had no real depth of science knowledge. I know that sounds backwards, but it worked. She had some really smart kids who asked really deep questions and she would often say "I don't know, why don't you look into that and get back to us tomorrow."

By not having set unrealistic expectations of perfection she gave the kids free license to wonder out loud and apply the scientific method with abandon. She's really big on the scientific method. Make a hypothesis and test it.

Now she's a librarian and she is trying to adjust to more research and less testing. She's loving it so far. No tests to grade or correct.

[Dr. Keith]

"Sure... I'll do yearbook. It'll be fun" One of the stupid things I have said as a teacher. :o

[Jeremy Clarkson Voice]Math and Science Club, how hard can it be?[/Jeremy Clarkson Voice]

[Vortigern99]

I had a truly excellent Spanish teacher, Mrs. Malouf, who sincerely believed she could teach French as well as she taught Spanish. She couldn't, though she gave it her best effort and was certainly adequate in the job.

She instructed the class that the French word for monkey, singe, was pronounced "seen-ya", as though the word were spelled signe. It isn't.

I had a Dungeons and Dragons module, The Chateau d'Amberville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Amber_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29), which contained some French names and words, and a pronunciation guide. Since some kind of demented monkey was at the heart of the d'Amberville mystery, it had a listing for the word singe as pronounced "sanj".

I considered taking the D&D module to school and showing Mrs. Malouf the proof, but given her Fundamental Christian leanings (she had once averred that Moses wrote the Torah, an assertion not supported by biblical scholars), I declined to bring the module and showed her the AMSCO French-English Dictionary instead.

She took the correction well, and told the class how to properly pronounce the word. Hooray for the intellectual honesty of Mrs. Malouf!

[manxman]

My teacher said son you will never amount too much in this world so remember these 3 little words and you will never go hungry.

stick em up.

eta.

ps.
He was right, i got fed and watered 3 times a day for 4 years after the first time.

[Jeff Corey]

When I was a grad student, one day I went into my advisor's office and said, Dr. X, your class is waiting for you. He grabbed his old notes to head for class and stated, "Teaching is not central to my life."
I learned a lot from that.
Teachers teach for a host of reasons, as you probably could enumerate.
But if teaching is central to your life, you might become a better teacher.

[Wudang]

In primary school, a genius teacher told me the moon was a planet. Strangely enough, our moon was the only one in the solar system that qualified as such, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_planet
Asimov wrote a book on the Earth-moon system called the Double Planet and said he left copies around the house so people would ask why he chose the title
Because the earth is pear-shaped

[Wudang]

I think I have it. The misunderstanding is in interpreting the original statement. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think you are looking at the statement as hypotheses and theories creating the law. I am reading it as hypotheses and theories taking us to an understanding of the law. Students ask 'why' (I hope). We start making guess and forming hypotheses. With study, we toss the bad and develop the good into theories. Eventually, we come to the law. Yes, the law was always there and immutable. Now, having worked our way through our guesses, hypotheses and theories (everyone has a theory), we understand why we cannot move Mars out of the Solar System. There is that law of gravity blocking us.

No the law of gravity is independent of any theory. That law is an observed fact of behaviour and preceded any theory. And the law of gravity does not stop us moving Mars, it tells us how much force we will need to apply.

[Nanny Ogg]

Regarding the book, "The Yearling."

Actually, I hadn't told what happened in the rest of the book, I only mentioned what was going to happen in the next chapter. I was only 12 years old at the time, and loved reading. IMO, the teacher overreacted by saying I had ruined the whole book.

And back then, the word "spoiler" meant flashy fins on your car. ;)

[jadebox]

In high school, a substitute teacher called a black kid, "boy." When he took offence to that, she began lecturing the class on how the bible proves that blacks are inferior to whites.

A friend of mine and I had recently listened to a Martin Mull album and he started to sing Mull's "Jesus is Easy." I joined him singing "Jesus is easy, just get down on your knees ...."

The teacher started screaming at us, telling us to go to the principal's office immediately. The bell rang ending the class. We left, still singing, while she continued to scream at us.

We were never called to the principal's office and we never saw that substitute teacher in the school again.

-- Roger

[jadebox]

A couple more ...

A friend told me how an elementary school teacher taught him that gravity is caused by the rotation of the earth. He said he had a hard time unlearning that fact.

And ... I had a college teacher use one class session to explain to us that the earth is only 6000 years old. This was in a geology class!

-- Roger

[TragicMonkey]

My fifth grade teacher thought the word "swear" was itself "a swear word", and we got punished for saying it.

As part of some geography lesson, my seventh grade teacher asked us where we had all lived. Wins for the military brat, right? Wrong. When I said I'd lived in Argentia, Newfoundland, he insisted I meant Argentina. When the Canadian girl backed me up on the existence of Newfoundland, he thought we meant "New Finland" which was, according to him, part of Sweden. Saddest part was the presence of an extremely excellent world map on the class wall, one of those gigantic National Geographic ones. Argentia was on it, even. New Finland, unsurprisingly, was not.

[Lrrr]

You should have told him you lived in Dildo, NL.

[Madalch]

Male student: How many marks do I lose for handing this in late?
Teacher: I haven't decided yet.
Student: Be gentle with me.
Teacher: I bet you say that to all the guys...

(Luckily, everyone within earshot had a good sense of humour, and nobody was fired.)

[sthomson]

When I said I'd lived in Argentia, Newfoundland, he insisted I meant Argentina. When the Canadian girl backed me up on the existence of Newfoundland, he thought we meant "New Finland" which was, according to him, part of Sweden.

That reminds me of a cherished tale in my family. Our family name is the somewhat-unusual "Thomson" - usually in the US it is spelled Thompson. (I am continually surprised at the number of people who write in the p even as I am spelling it out to them without one).

On my brother's first day of grade school, the teacher insisted that my brother was spelling his name wrong. To the point that my parents were called in to "set him straight" for being insubordinate. What a way to teach a poor little kid that the teacher is always right, even when he or she is dead wrong.

[Almo]

Mrs. Kismol in 4th grade: "Leave the room." Or something like that. She was mad that I told her she had spelled bullet wrong. It was spelled on the board "bullitt" (or maybe it had an e, but it had two "t"s. It was the last straw when I said "Let's look in a dictionary" and she sent me out.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Not a quote but I was taught that only Chris Columbus thought the Earth was round at the time.

**** YOU Eratosthenes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes)!

That's a classic of bad information. It's a classic classroom myth. That's a classic of (about) 1st grade history class.

You and I were taught that.

Generations before us were taught that.

Our children will be taught that.

Our grandchildren will be taught that.

Their children will be taught that.

And their children will be taught that.

It will never, ever, ever go away.

It's undead. It's immortal.

Like the vampires of lore, it will never die and can never be killed.

It will go on and on and on and on.


The comedian Robert Wuhl once did an HBO special where he pretended to be a college professor for a day and got to teach an actual class at NYU.

That was one of the myths that he did a routine on:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6731102750245618218#

(The entire video is recommended. It's pretty funny.)

A book that discusses it :

http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0684818868

[fuelair]

In high school, a substitute teacher called a black kid, "boy." When he took offence to that, she began lecturing the class on how the bible proves that blacks are inferior to whites.

A friend of mine and I had recently listened to a Martin Mull album and he started to sing Mull's "Jesus is Easy." I joined him singing "Jesus is easy, just get down on your knees ...."

The teacher started screaming at us, telling us to go to the principal's office immediately. The bell rang ending the class. We left, still singing, while she continued to scream at us.

We were never called to the principal's office and we never saw that substitute teacher in the school again.

-- RogerHey Oveido, Orlando here!! Well done, by the way - stomp the racists!!:D:D

[BenBurch]

That is utterly delightful.

Well, he WAS an actor... ;)

[VulcanWay]

Considering that there are more Orientals in the world than whites, this may actually be true. Isn't Chinese word for "foreigner" same as "devil"?
Though there is such a slur, the standard word in Mandarin is "waiguoren," literally "a person from outside the country." And, of course, the word doesn't pertain to only non-Chinese - it's as broad as foreigner.

[Rara]

My daughter (during one of two brief periods in school) was told the old canard that glass flowed over long periods of time,she pointed out (age 10) that this was not so but an artifact of how old glass was made(yes she used that word).

The teacher had the grace to say he would check,he did,and told everyone she was right.

[Hazel]

My daughter (during one of two brief periods in school) was told the old canard that glass flowed over long periods of time,she pointed out (age 10) that this was not so but an artifact of how old glass was made(yes she used that word).

The teacher had the grace to say he would check,he did,and told everyone she was right.

Don't you appreciate teachers like that? I do. It takes real grace to say "I was wrong."

[ksbluesfan]

My daughter (during one of two brief periods in school) was told the old canard that glass flowed over long periods of time,she pointed out (age 10) that this was not so but an artifact of how old glass was made(yes she used that word).

The teacher had the grace to say he would check,he did,and told everyone she was right.

Your 10 year old is smarter than I am. I thought glass flowed too.

Thanks for putting the "education" in JREF!

[Hindmost]

"Yes, I'll teach the Spring session."

Stupidest thing I've ever said as a teacher.

For me it was...."sure, I will be the faculty advisor for the National Honor Society." The students were great to work with, but it was a bunch of work. (I taught high school)

glenn

Hmmmm, based on the number of responses here versus this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=184817), I am getting a vibe that people had more bad experiences than good...my experience has been the opposite.

[Dr. Keith]

Hmmmm, based on the number of responses here versus this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=184817), I am getting a vibe that people had more bad experiences than good...my experience has been the opposite.

Nah, a lot of what is posted here is pretty positive. See Rara's post above. I wish we had more teachers like that. And more kids like Rara's daughter.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

In middle school math class, the teacher explained scientific notation to us- but then told us that it was useless and we would never need it.

Her exact words were "This is more, like, math trivia. You will never have to use it for anything, unless you are, like, an astronomer. You might see this if you go into math in college." She called it "math trivia" on another occasion or two or three, too. My memory may be flawed but I think she also said "It's just a more complicated way to write down a number, it's never used".

She made it sound like it was a footnote in math. Like it was something only hobbyists and enthusiasts did. :confused: Like it was some silly piece of side knowledge that wasn't used for anything practical.

And not something that you had to know in early high school. Something used in so many branches of math. In chemistry. In other branches of science.

She was otherwise a pretty good math teacher. So it was really inexplicable how she could have said something so weird and so wrong.

[IMST]

Hmmmm, based on the number of responses here versus this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=184817), I am getting a vibe that people had more bad experiences than good...my experience has been the opposite.

I got a pretty solid education for an American public school. The smart things teachers said are less notable as a result.

[fuelair]

In middle school math class, the teacher explained scientific notation to us- but then told us that it was useless and we would never need it.

Her exact words were "This is more, like, math trivia. You will never have to use it for anything, unless you are, like, an astronomer. You might see this if you go into math in college." She called it "math trivia" on another occasion or two or three, too. My memory may be flawed but I think she also said "It's just a more complicated way to write down a number, it's never used".

She made it sound like it was a footnote in math. Like it was something only hobbyists and enthusiasts did. :confused: Like it was some silly piece of side knowledge that wasn't used for anything practical.

And not something that you had to know in early high school. Something used in so many branches of math. In chemistry. In other branches of science.

She was otherwise a pretty good math teacher. So it was really inexplicable how she could have said something so weird and so wrong.

Was she, possibly, a math major who had to teach for money? I ask because I am a number person but not a true mathematician. Scientific notation is numbers, just another way of using them. To many mathematitians (whom I have met or read about anyway) numbers and their manipulation is a trivial part of math and just for people who don't know how to manipulate mathematical concepts. (And, ergo, can manipulate formulae with ease, but can't balance their checkbooks.)

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

This was a middle aged woman who had been teaching middle school math for years- so she probably wasn't a math major.

Her assertion that scientific notation wasn't important to know and that it wasn't important to math bordered on the bizarre.

A well educated 16 year old knows that this isn't true.

[TubbaBlubba]

In middle school math class, the teacher explained scientific notation to us- but then told us that it was useless and we would never need it.

Her exact words were "This is more, like, math trivia. You will never have to use it for anything, unless you are, like, an astronomer. You might see this if you go into math in college." She called it "math trivia" on another occasion or two or three, too. My memory may be flawed but I think she also said "It's just a more complicated way to write down a number, it's never used".

She made it sound like it was a footnote in math. Like it was something only hobbyists and enthusiasts did. :confused: Like it was some silly piece of side knowledge that wasn't used for anything practical.

And not something that you had to know in early high school. Something used in so many branches of math. In chemistry. In other branches of science.

She was otherwise a pretty good math teacher. So it was really inexplicable how she could have said something so weird and so wrong.

Scientific notation... Oh, that. Uhm, yeah, that's totally not useful in like, anything in High School or such.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Unless you are being sarcastic, TubbaBlubba-

Even if it wasn't used much in your high school system, something I am willing to grant you, her assertion that it was an esoteric piece of "math trivia" was totally off the mark. It's common knowledge.

Another bizarre one-

My Intro to Logic and Critical Thinking adjunct professor in college was an intelligent guy. He knew a lot about science, politics, medicine etc. Some of the things he didn't know, however, were absolutely crazy. I was astonished that a man with a PHd could be so amazingly ignorant.

We had exercises like determining the truth value of statements like "Oslo is the capital of Norway vs. Stockholm is the capital of Sweden vs. Rome is the capital of Italy vs. Washington is the capital of America." That kind of thing.

There was one exercise that ran "Oslo is the capital of Sweden vs. Stockholm is the capital of Norway vs. Helsinki is the capital of Denmark"- and the logic teacher thought that this was correct.

He actually said "Oslo is the capital of Sweden, Stockholm is the capital of Norway and Helsinki is the capital of Denmark so the truth value of this statement is T, T, T which means it is all true" before he was drowned out by a chorus telling him it wasn't.

There were other logic problems like that and he would always think that Toronto was the capital of Canada, that New York was the capital of America, that Copenhagen was the capital of Finland, that Rio de Janeiro was the capital of Bolivia, etc.

When people corrected him, he'd chuckle and say "Yeah, I'm really bad at geography". In the same tone you'd use to say "Eh, I never really managed to learn how to play the violin." As if this wasn't basic, common knowledge that just about everyone in the Western world should know.

An 8-year-old child knows basic geography like that. I think my cousin knew all that when he was even younger. I knew all of that before I was old enough to read the Harry Potter books. Way before. And a grown man didn't. A professor!

That's stupid, even for an American.

ETA: His absolute biggest whopper was "New York City is in New Zealand vs. Paris is in France- well, New York City is in New Zealand and Paris is in France so both of these statements are true".

People interrupted him and told him that NYC wasn't in New Zealand. He responded "Oh, it isn't? Ok."

A kind soul generously suggested "Maybe you misread the statement? Maybe you thought it said 'New York is in New England'? New York isn't in New England- but people often think that it is. So maybe you misunderstood it?"

He chuckled and said "Or maybe I'm just really bad at geography!"

:Facepalm:

****************, we are in New York City right now! RIGHT NOW! YOU ARE IN NEW YORK CITY RIGHT NOW!

Are we in New Zealand!?!?!

No, we are not in New Zealand!

[IMST]

Unless you are being sarcastic, TubbaBlubba-

Even if it wasn't used much in your high school system, something I am willing to grant you, her assertion that it was an esoteric piece of "math trivia" was totally off the mark. It's common knowledge.

Another bizarre one-

My Intro to Logic and Critical Thinking adjunct professor in college was an intelligent guy. He knew a lot about science, politics, medicine etc. Some of the things he didn't know, however, were absolutely crazy.

We had exercises like determining the truth value of statements like "Oslo is the capital of Norway vs. Stockholm is the capital of Sweden vs. Rome is the capital of Italy."

Um...Can you just come up with "equal" for all of them and go get a beer?

[Madalch]

He chuckled and said "Or maybe I'm just really bad at geography!"

So why, oh WHY wouldn't he come up with an example that didn't involve geography??

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Good question.

It was cause the logic textbook used geography examples for these sorts of problems.

It was Introduction to Logic, 13th edition, by Irving M.Copi and Carl Cohen. Maybe you know it?

Copi and Cohen particularly used the capitals of Scandinavian countries, apparently figuring that everyone in class would know them.

They rightly estimated the education level of the average American college freshman.

Their professor?

Not so much.

[IMST]

EMM-now that you've added the rest I withdraw my question.

[Madalch]

It was Introduction to Logic, 13th edition, by Irving M.Copi and Carl Cohen. Maybe you know it?
No- my exposure to formal logic comes from a single chapter of "Mathematical Ideas" (10th or 11th edition). But I'm constantly trying to come up with examples that my students will relate to instead of the ones in the text (dividing American politicians into Republicans and Democrats doesn't really appeal to Canadian students)- why couldn't he come up with examples for which he himself knew the answer?

[AvalonXQ]

This one has been handed down from my parents' generation -- an amazing social studies teacher who gave the following question on an exam:
True or False: the QE2 is one of the three largest ocean liners in the world.
Answer: False. The QE2 is the largest ocean liner in the world.
Subsequent discussions with the teacher, including a parent-teacher conference, failed to shake her conviction that if X is largest, it is false to say that X is "one of the three largest".

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

No- my exposure to formal logic comes from a single chapter of "Mathematical Ideas" (10th or 11th edition). But I'm constantly trying to come up with examples that my students will relate to instead of the ones in the text (dividing American politicians into Republicans and Democrats doesn't really appeal to Canadian students)- why couldn't he come up with examples for which he himself knew the answer?

I know, right? Just make something up.

Something. Anything.

John Wayne was a film actor OR George Bush is from Texas.

Luke and Leia are brother and sister AND Anakin and Padme are husband and wife.

Salt isn't an element OR Salt is an element.

The earth is round OR the earth is flat.

IF the laws of physics are correct, THEN the WTC fell down.

Anything.

Or LOOK UP THE DARN ANSWERS!

For what it is worth, I got the impression that this fellow truly didn't know that he was incorrect. He thought that he had the right answers off the top of his head.

[superfreddy]

"I'm atheist"

My 4th grade teacher at a Catholic school in the seventies. He was fired soon after. I often wonder how he's doing...

[Dr. Keith]

"I'm atheist"

My 4th grade teacher at a Catholic school in the seventies. He was fired soon after. I often wonder how he's doing...

I'd venture that he is doing "better" in some very important ways.

[threejr]

Not something a teacher said, but cringeworthy nonetheless:

My daughter came home from school yesterday with this story. Her seventh grade history teacher had posted a list of classroom rules. Rule #3 said:

3. Three strikes and your out.

UGH!!!

[Hindmost]

Nah, a lot of what is posted here is pretty positive. See Rara's post above. I wish we had more teachers like that. And more kids like Rara's daughter.

I believe it belongs in the other thread.

glenn

[RSLancastr]

This is not the sort of "stupid thing" meant in the OP, but I thought I would share it here anyway.

When I was in the fourth grade (about ten years old), my teacher was a woman named Mrs. Wilcox (and yes, there was snickering about her name on the playground. She was a short, stubby woman with curly silver hair. She was a character. while not exactly loved by her students, she was reasonably well-liked. One afternoon, she was writing something for us on the blackboard when she made some mistake. When she noticed it she said, loudly, "Woops - pulled a boner!"

The class of course erupted in howls of laughter. She was utterly clueless about why we were laughing, which, of course, made us laugh all the more.

She asked several students to tell her what was so funny, but nobody would. Finally, she asked sweet, innocent Mary to come to the front of the class and explain the joke. Mary (who is probably posting about this on some other forum) walked to the front of the class and embarrassedly whispered an explanation into Mrs. Wilcox's ear before scurrying back to her seat.

Mrs. Wilcox blushed several shades of red herself b efore saying loudly to the still-guffawing class "No! It just means a mistake! That's all!!"

And yes, there were jokes about "Wilcox pulled a boner" for the rest of that school year.

[TubbaBlubba]

Unless you are being sarcastic, TubbaBlubba-

Even if it wasn't used much in your high school system, something I am willing to grant you, her assertion that it was an esoteric piece of "math trivia" was totally off the mark. It's common knowledge.

I am being sarcastic. What kind of insane person wants to write all those zeros every time you calculate the pH of an alkaline solution?

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Yeah, exactly. The woman had no idea what the hell she was talking about. I think she even said something like "Oh, it is just another way to write a number. A more complicated way."

:Snort:

Another one-

I vaguely remember being told by an elementary school teacher that "blood is actually blue". That old legend. Anyone remember that one?

When someone- it might have been me- asked how this could possibly be, she had some crazy explanation.

Like that it is only our eyes that perceive it as red because of the way it appears once it is shed. That hemoglobin appears red to human eyes because of the way the human eye perceives red.

Or that it is blue in the veins but the contact with oxygen makes it appear red because of the chemical properties of air.

Something like that.

[lopeyschools]

I just started a pre-confederation Canadian history course (Should be called fur trade 110). Last wednesday we had our first lecture on the native peoples of Canada. After describing the creation myths and the scientific theories for the origins of humans in NA, the prof went on to say they "both have their positives and negatives and one wasn't nessacarily better then the other."

Yes, that's right, creation myths are equal to science.

[Jeff Corey]

Yeah, exactly. The woman had no idea what the hell she was talking about. I think she even said something like "Oh, it is just another way to write a number. A more complicated way."

:Snort:

Another one-

I vaguely remember being told by an elementary school teacher that "blood is actually blue". That old legend. Anyone remember that one?

When someone- it might have been me- asked how this could possibly be, she had some crazy explanation.

Like that it is only our eyes that perceive it as red because of the way it appears once it is shed. That hemoglobin appears red to human eyes because of the way the human eye perceives red.

Or that it is blue in the veins but the contact with oxygen makes it appear red because of the chemical properties of air.

Something like that.

They are probably using an illustration like this:http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/01883/introtocircsys.htm,
So they insist that arterial blood is red and "after the oxygen is removed, it's blue."

[jsullivan]

I guess it's good that most students aren't listening to what their teachers say in the first place or we could be in even worse shape; evidenced by how far US students are already falling behind pupils in other nations!

[MarkCorrigan]

My girlfriend told me about a teacher she had for a really interesting sounding class about societal myths and norms. I forget the actual title of the course but it sounded fascinating and I thought if it was well taught then it would be a great thing to learn. Unfortunately, her professor stated outright that all cultures have their own myths and the Western one is science.

She dropped the class pretty much right away after that.

[Hazel]

My girlfriend told me about a teacher she had for a really interesting sounding class about societal myths and norms. I forget the actual title of the course but it sounded fascinating and I thought if it was well taught then it would be a great thing to learn. Unfortunately, her professor stated outright that all cultures have their own myths and the Western one is science.

She dropped the class pretty much right away after that.

You don't agree with the teacher? There was once a scientific fact that the sun rotated around the earth. There was once a scientific fact that the tomato was poison. I know doctors who swear that home remedies do not work. Their scientific bent will not let them believe it. Then, someone proves it true and a myth has become a scientific fact. It works both ways.

You may argue (and be correct) that those weren't scientific facts but the people who lived then thought they were. Science today can be myth tomorrow when a better scientific method comes along.

My opinion! :)

[Hazel]

The most stupid thing I've ever heard a teacher (or parent or neighbor) say to a student is "why can't you be like your sister/brother? Look how nicely she/he does the job." If anything will kill a student's enthusiasm for learning, or even living, that will.

[embie]

My sixth grade teacher told us that if someone in our house was injured or killed, it was OUR FAULT. Why? Because bad things happened because of demons, and demons get let into your house when you buy things like persian rugs, or decorative chinese vases, or Buddha statues... anything at all that might have been made by someone who wasn't a good, white, Australian Christian. Because those sneaky nonbelievers, see, they sneak their demons into their products to infect our homes and hurt the good Christians. Even if they don't do it on purpose, they're still putting demons in because they worship demons.

...yeah. Oh, and it's the children's fault, of course, because we didn't stop mummy and daddy from buying the EVIL EVIL artifacts. So when mummy gets cancer and daddy breaks his leg, well, it's all the evil demons that we allowed into our homes.

...aaah, the wonders of religious schooling. Even as a sixth grader I walked out thinking she was a nutcase. Can't say how many of my classmates felt the same, though.

Then there was the science teacher in highschool who had to apologise to the class for teaching us about Evolution (I'm fairly certain it's mandatory). Not human evolution, mind, just the general gist of it. He believed it himself, I'm sure (or at least, I hope), but had to apologise to keep the parents happy - not that it stopped one girl from throwing a tantrum in the middle of class because we were learning Devil Lies.

...all things considered, I'm somewhat surprised I got out of there with my sanity intact.

[Wudang]

There was once a scientific fact that the sun rotated around the earth. There was once a scientific fact that the tomato was poison.

Evidence?

[Folly]

Well yes, but if my grandma had gonads, we'd call her my granddad. :D

So how is granddad? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonad

[ZirconBlue]

I guess it's good that most students aren't listening to what their teachers say in the first place or we could be in even worse shape; evidenced by how far US students are already falling behind pupils in other nations!

Just how far are US students falling behind pupils in other nations?

[Startz]

Just how far are US students falling behind pupils in other nations?

On internationally comparable tests (the PISA 2003 tests) U.S. students are roughly in the middle of industrialized countries. That puts U.S. students about two years behind the leader.

[Ian Osborne]

So how is granddad? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonad

D'oh! That will teach me not to look for a more polite word than 'bollocks' in future.

[TubbaBlubba]

You may argue (and be correct) that those weren't scientific facts but the people who lived then thought they were. Science today can be myth tomorrow when a better scientific method comes along.

My opinion! :)

People didn't have the Baconian method back then. You can't call something a scientific fact if the modern single accepted method for determining what is scientific hasn't been thought up yet.

[MarkCorrigan]

People didn't have the Baconian method back then. You can't call something a scientific fact if the modern single accepted method for determining what is scientific hasn't been thought up yet.

Quite.

Science does evolve, but since the boom period of the Enlightenment it hasn't been as dramatic as you seem to think. Science is slow, and no theory is thrown out and replaced by a totally different one. That is movie science, not real science. Instead, if you wish to prevail in science today, you have to take into account all the previous evidence based ideas that have gone before. Newtonian Physics isn't correct, but it explains so much that it is still used in certain situations, and it is still a useful model because further research added to it, it didn't scrap it. The idea that science is somehow going through massive revolutions of thought that means that what we know today will be rendered laughable in the near future is, to be frank, a nonsense based on a lack of understanding. Every scientific idea in the possession of mankind today is based on mountains of evidence, and none of it will be invalidated tomorrow.

I'm sorry, but claiming that a concept that is based upon evidence, testing, retesting and checking by peer review is some kind of myth is an ignorant and potentially dangerous opinion. I think the teacher was an imbecile, and I think you are ignorant of how science works. I do not think you are stupid, merely misinformed and misguided.

ETA:

I know doctors who swear that home remedies do not work. Their scientific bent will not let them believe it. Then, someone proves it true and a myth has become a scientific fact. It works both ways. This is, frankly, a bit misleading. They will not accept any remedy that has no evidentiary base for it. Thank god for that, competent doctors. If something works, it will be tested and retested. If it doesn't work when tested, it doesn't work. It doesn't matter how many times you do X to cure Y and you no longer have Y, that is not a scientific test.

Correlation does not imply causation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_causation)
Placebo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo)


My opinion! :) That doesn't mean it cannot be scrutinised and, if wrong, torn apart with evidence and reasoning. Just because you put that something is your opinion does not make it right, unless you want to wade into the whole ludicrous area of "personal truth" and false equivocation.

[Rara]

just to point out...my child is no genius (well obviously I think she is) we had previously had a discussion on liquids flowing, after viewing the Pitch drop experiment...the glass issue had come up then

[Fnord]

My Home Ec* Teacher: "... and kosher salt is better for you because it has less sodium." When I tried to point out that if you remove the sodium from salt, all you have left is chlorine, she literally told me to shut up.
Well, a teaspoon of kosher salt certainly does have less sodium than a teaspoon of table salt...It depends on your definition of "Table Salt". If you actually mean "Iodized Salt", then you are incorrect, because...

a. Iodized salt includes silicon dioxide as a fee-flow agent, thus reducing the overall amount of sodium-chloride per standard volume.

b. Iodized salt includes potassium iodide to avert goiter, thus reducing the overall amount of sodium-chloride per standard volume.

c. Iodized salt includes dextrose to stabilize the potassium iodide, thus reducing the overall amount of sodium-chloride per standard volume.

d. Iodized salt includes calcium silicate as an anti-caking agent, thus reducing the overall amount of sodium-chloride per standard volume.

According to This Wikipedia Article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_salt#Table_salt):

Table salt is refined salt, which contains about 97% to 99% sodium chloride. It usually contains substances that make it free-flowing (anti-caking agents) such as sodium silicoaluminate or magnesium carbonate. Some people also add a desiccant, such as a few grains of uncooked rice, in salt shakers to absorb extra moisture and help break up clumps when anti-caking agents are not enough. Table salt has a particle density of 2.165 g/cm3, and a bulk density (dry, ASTM D 632 gradation) of about 1.154 g/cm3.

And according to This Other Wikipedia Article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher_salt):

Kosher salt has a much larger grain size than some common table salt. Like common table salt, kosher salt consists of the chemical compound sodium chloride. Unlike some common table salt, Kosher salt typically contains no additives (for example, iodide), although some brands will include anti-clumping agents in small amounts. Additive-free non-kosher salt is also readily available.Iodized salt actually contains 1% to 2% less sodium-chloride than Kosher salt.

:: Kosher salt contains more sodium than "Table" (Iodized") salt.

[Madalch]

:: Kosher salt contains more sodium than "Table" (Iodized") salt.

That would be true per mass, but the statement was in a "per teaspoon" context. With the larger size of a grain of kosher salt, it is possible that it packs into the spoon less efficiently, giving you less mass per teaspoon.

[ksbluesfan]

I had a class in college that covered mythology. On the last day of class before the final exam, the professor told us his personal spiritual beliefs. He believed that there was a thread that connected every form of consciousness in the universe, and that the more contact you had with another person, the thicker the thread became. I guess I shouldn't say this was stupid. It was merely his belief and was not on the final exam. I thought it was odd though.

[Hazel]

I had a class in college that covered mythology. On the last day of class before the final exam, the professor told us his personal spiritual beliefs. He believed that there was a thread that connected every form of consciousness in the universe, and that the more contact you had with another person, the thicker the thread became. I guess I shouldn't say this was stupid. It was merely his belief and was not on the final exam. I thought it was odd though.

Quoting John Muir: "When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world."

[ZirconBlue]

That would be true per mass, but the statement was in a "per teaspoon" context. With the larger size of a grain of kosher salt, it is possible that it packs into the spoon less efficiently, giving you less mass per teaspoon.

Exactly. If you want to substitute kosher salt in for regular table salt in a recipe, you have to use up to twice as much (depending on the brand), by volume. There is less salt per unit volume, so there must be less sodium per unit volume.

[Jeff Corey]

You don't agree with the teacher? There was once a scientific fact that the sun rotated around the earth. There was once a scientific fact that the tomato was poison. I know doctors who swear that home remedies do not work. Their scientific bent will not let them believe it. Then, someone proves it true and a myth has become a scientific fact. It works both ways.

You may argue (and be correct) that those weren't scientific facts but the people who lived then thought they were. Science today can be myth tomorrow when a better scientific method comes along...
I'll argue that and more. It was never a scientific fact that the sun rotated around the earth or that tomatoes were poison. The first was an opinion held mostly by people influenced by some warped religious doctrine. The second by ignorant peasants who had no concept of what science meant. Somewhat like a lot of people today. .
And some home remedies do work (icing down a minor burn) and are recommended by doctors.

[Hazel]

I'll argue that and more. It was never a scientific fact that the sun rotated around the earth or that tomatoes were poison. The first was an opinion held mostly by people influenced by some warped religious doctrine. The second by ignorant peasants who had no concept of what science meant. Somewhat like a lot of people today. .
And some home remedies do work (icing down a minor burn) and are recommended by doctors.

Yes, my points are weak. How about the fact that medical science has been saying for years that plaque on the nerve endings (or on the Brain itself?) is one cause of dementia. Now, just a week ago, there was a news article saying that the scientists are retracting that. They are beginning to think that plaque actually protects the brain from dementia.

Perhaps "myth" is the wrong word for what I am saying?

[Hazel]

Let me reword that. First a correction. The earth does not rotate around the sun. It revolves around the sun. End of that. My mistake. Now, granted that the belief of the sun revolving around the earth is a myth but it was a myth being claimed as science - if they had science in those dark days. Science must be proven and they proved it by simple observation. I still say the teacher was making a good point. At the same time, I think history has even better myths no doubt based on some small and then exaggerted, actual happening. I like history's myths better.

[Spindrift]

Yes, my points are weak. How about the fact that medical science has been saying for years that plaque on the nerve endings (or on the Brain itself?) is one cause of dementia. Now, just a week ago, there was a news article saying that the scientists are retracting that. They are beginning to think that plaque actually protects the brain from dementia.

Perhaps "myth" is the wrong word for what I am saying?
Perhaps? Myth is not anywhere near the word. Do you understand how science works?

Let me reword that. First a correction. The earth does not rotate around the sun. It revolves around the sun. End of that. My mistake. Now, granted that the belief of the sun revolving around the earth is a myth but it was a myth being claimed as science - if they had science in those dark days. Science must be proven and they proved it by simple observation. I still say the teacher was making a good point. At the same time, I think history has even better myths no doubt based on some small and then exaggerted, actual happening. I like history's myths better.
The sun revolving around the earth was not a 'myth', it was a misunderstanding, perhaps willful by some people. Myths are based on beliefs. Science is based on proof regardless of belief. What one believes or doesn't believe has no bearing on science. You may believe home remedies work, but that doesn't change the fact that many, if not most, don't work.

[quadraginta]

The idea that tomatoes were poisonous appears to have been a peculiarly British one, allegedly attributable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Britain) to John Gerard, an English herbalist. It was demonstrably not a universal misapprehension.

After being brought back to Europe from the Americas by Spanish explorers it was rapidly adopted by the rest of the world as a food. It can be surmised that having been brought back in the first place because those explorers found the tomato being eaten by the locals who were cultivating it that they suspected it was not poisonous.

:rolleyes:

Not quite sure how "science" can be held responsible for the Brits' slowness to share this epiphany.

[John Jones]

Yes, my points are weak. How about the fact that medical science has been saying for years that plaque on the nerve endings (or on the Brain itself?) is one cause of dementia. Now, just a week ago, there was a news article saying that the scientists are retracting that. They are beginning to think that plaque actually protects the brain from dementia.

Perhaps "myth" is the wrong word for what I am saying?

For one thing, who are you citing?

For another thing, science is just doing its job when it refines (and on rare occasions overturns) it's prevailing theories.

The alternative would be to ignore new evidence. IOW, religion.

[John Jones]

Let me reword that. First a correction. The earth does not rotate around the sun. It revolves around the sun. End of that. My mistake. Now, granted that the belief of the sun revolving around the earth is a myth but it was a myth being claimed as science - if they had science in those dark days.


Who claimed that the idea of the sun revolving around the earth was science?

Here are a few good references for you:

The Copernican Revolution by Thomas Kuhn
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl R. Popper.

[patchbunny]

Another one-

I vaguely remember being told by an elementary school teacher that "blood is actually blue". That old legend. Anyone remember that one?

When someone- it might have been me- asked how this could possibly be, she had some crazy explanation.

Like that it is only our eyes that perceive it as red because of the way it appears once it is shed. That hemoglobin appears red to human eyes because of the way the human eye perceives red.

Or that it is blue in the veins but the contact with oxygen makes it appear red because of the chemical properties of air.

Something like that.

I believed that for a very, very long time. I think it was The Straight Dope that finally straightened me out on that one.

[Fnord]

That would be true per mass, but the statement was in a "per teaspoon" context. With the larger size of a grain of kosher salt, it is possible that it packs into the spoon less efficiently, giving you less mass per teaspoon.

OH! OH! Another "Stupid Teacher Quote"! Thanx for reminding me!

"Mass and volume are not related. It's all about weight and density." -- A 7th grade substitute science teacher.

[Belgian thought]

The idea that tomatoes were poisonous appears to have been a peculiarly British one, allegedly attributable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Britain) to John Gerard, an English herbalist. It was demonstrably not a universal misapprehension.

Not quite how "science" can be held responsible for the Brits' slowness to share this epiphany.

Very true, but once fish fingers and chips were invented, we caught up via ketchup big time...

We even eat garlic now :jaw-dropp

[John Jones]

OH! OH! Another "Stupid Teacher Quote"! Thanx for reminding me!

"Mass and volume are not related. It's all about weight and density." -- A 7th grade substitute science teacher.

Wow. It's hard to even come to grips with those statements.


Who teaches this stuff to teachers?

[Comrade Raptor]

My fifth grade teacher thought the word "swear" was itself "a swear word", and we got punished for saying it.

As part of some geography lesson, my seventh grade teacher asked us where we had all lived. Wins for the military brat, right? Wrong. When I said I'd lived in Argentia, Newfoundland, he insisted I meant Argentina. When the Canadian girl backed me up on the existence of Newfoundland, he thought we meant "New Finland" which was, according to him, part of Sweden. Saddest part was the presence of an extremely excellent world map on the class wall, one of those gigantic National Geographic ones. Argentia was on it, even. New Finland, unsurprisingly, was not.


That's sad. But as a Newfoundlander, I find this level of ignorance astonishingly common. I don't know how people can miss the place, it's bigger than Ireland. It's this huge island out in the Atlantic.

Maybe it's the same phenomenon that makes people think New Zealand is North of Australia.

Anyway, hope the island was good to you when you were here.

[quadraginta]

Very true, but once fish fingers and chips were invented, we caught up via ketchup big time...

We even eat garlic now :jaw-dropp


... and thus progress and enlightenment slowly make their way into barbarian lands.

:p

[patchbunny]

Mrs. Kismol in 4th grade: "Leave the room." Or something like that. She was mad that I told her she had spelled bullet wrong. It was spelled on the board "bullitt" (or maybe it had an e, but it had two "t"s. It was the last straw when I said "Let's look in a dictionary" and she sent me out.

Sounds like your teacher was a Steve McQueen fan. :)

[Belgian thought]

Wow. It's hard to even come to grips with those statements.

Originally Posted by Fnord http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=6328786#post6328786)
OH! OH! Another "Stupid Teacher Quote"! Thanx for reminding me!

"Mass and volume are not related. It's all about weight and density." -- A 7th grade substitute science teacher.



Who teaches this stuff to teachers?

Hmmm, not so fast! - http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19429-laws-of-physics-may-change-across-the-universe.html :)

[Alice Shortcake]

A music teacher at my secondary school informed us that Benjamin Britten's family originally had a different surname, but they were immigrants and changed it to show their gratitude to their adopted country. He didn't explain why they got the spelling wrong.

The teacher in question was a Maltese immigrant, so perhaps there was a bit of projection going on there...

[ZirconBlue]

After being brought back to Europe from the Americas by Spanish explorers it was rapidly adopted by the rest of the world as a food.

Completely off-topic, but I find it very interesting how New World foods have had such a major impact on Old World cuisines. Like how tomatoes were integrated into Italian foods, for example.

[Spindrift]

Completely off-topic, but I find it very interesting how New World foods have had such a major impact on Old World cuisines. Like how tomatoes were integrated into Italian foods, for example.

From the New World came potatoes, chili peppers, corn and best of all, chocolate.

[Wudang]

Let me reword that. First a correction. The earth does not rotate around the sun. It revolves around the sun.

Nope - they revolve around their common centre of gravity.

End of that. My mistake. Now, granted that the belief of the sun revolving around the earth is a myth but it was a myth being claimed as science - if they had science in those dark days.

If you're not sure science existed how can you say it was a myth claimed by science?

Science must be proven and they proved it by simple observation.

Which is not science. "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means".
I still say the teacher was making a good point. At the same time, I think history has even better myths no doubt based on some small and then exaggerted, actual happening. I like history's myths better.

Your opinions and wild speculation are noted,

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Maybe it's the same phenomenon that makes people think New Zealand is North of Australia.



Oh, that's nothing. You think that's bad, I once had a professor who thought that New York was in New Zealand! :D

(See previous posts.)

Another stupid thing that conservative Catholic teachers said -

There was a history and economics teacher in high school who promoted a creationist book to us. He took it out, showed us the title, told us the name of the author and urged us to buy it. He delivered a little diatribe about how the theory of evolution was "more full of holes than a slice of Swiss cheese" and how "even in the evil, godless and hedonistic USA" there were still people who had the courage to promote religion.

At least he was tactful and professional enough to pull it out of his bag and do it when the bell had rung and the history lesson was over. At least.

[ZirconBlue]

From the New World came potatoes, chili peppers, corn and best of all, chocolate.


:drool: