We can all think back to our school days and remember when a fellow student (or sometimes the teacher) really blew it with a hilariously incorrect answer.
Come again? What was that? One more time?
The best is when they are completely convinced they’re right, and you have to shake your head and say, “No, dude. Not this time.”
These stories from folks on AskReddit should give you more than a few chuckles.
1. That’s not correct
“Computer teacher told us if you use “cut” on an image on a website that it will be removed from the website and will upset the website maker, so be sure to use “copy.” “
2. Uh uh
“If a bug was in an airplane it would not be able to fly forward because it could not fly faster than the plane was moving…”
3. NOPE
“English is my second language, and during english class, one of the students asked her what did “lion cub” mean. She says it means “lion cube.” No, it doesn’t make any more sense in my native language. “
4. Prove her wrong
“My grade 6 teacher told me that “fatigued” was in fact not a word when I used it in a short story and insisted that I looked in the dictionary. Found it in the dictionary in about 2 minutes and proved her wrong in front of the whole class. “
5. That’s a good answer
“Science teacher, during the sex ed portion of the year, said all penises are the same size “when it counts” (i.e. when erect). Classmate then asked why boobs can be different sizes, but the penis is the same for all men. Teacher then said she didn’t know and that would be a question she would ask St. Peter when arriving at the pearly gates.
I have a feeling the science teacher never saw more than one erect penis.”
6. BS
“That a Big Mac from McDonalds overwhelms your stomach with so much of everything that it doesn’t register you’ve eaten anything and that’s why you get hungry again so quickly after.”
7. Ridicule
“The teacher put materials from plants and materials from animals on a board. We could not convince her that wool was not a plant. She was openly ridiculing us too.
I am fairly sure she thought that wool was made from cotton (as cotton wool is) but she put a hank of actual wool on the board. I grew up on a farm, incidentally, I was not mistaken about any of this, she was just wrong.”
8. You’re wrong
“When I was in kindergarten, our homework assignment was to ask our parents what country they were from so the teacher could show us on the globe where it was. Younger me was so excited! I went home and asked my Mom where she was born and she told me her family was from Malaysia. All day I practiced and practiced. I couldn’t wait to share this info with my teacher!
When i went to school the next day, i told my teacher that my mom is from Malaysia. With a look of utter disappointment, my teacher informed me that Malaysia was not a country, and i needed to ask my mom again. I was CRUSHED that my Mom would lie to me like that. Or that she was wrong. Either way little me cried to her and told her that my teacher said Malaysia is not a country..
So Mama was not happy that i was told this and came with me to school the next day to give the teacher a piece of her mind. To this day I’ve never seen my mother get so red in the face while yelling at my teacher. After she was through, I quickly got an apology and a geography lesson on where Malaysia was!”
9. That’s…not the same
“While teaching Japanese history, my teacher was entirely convinced that the suicide of a Japanese Samurai was called Sudoku, instead of Seppuku.”
10. Cringe
“I grew up in England but did part of my high school in the US. One of the teachers there organized a thing where we were volunteered to read stories to elementary school kids.
After reading my story, I guess the teacher felt the need to make note of my accent to the class. She asked me to tell the kids where I was from. I said “I’m from England” and she did that thing teachers do where she repeats the info to the kids but she says “Did you hear that kids? She’s from England, that’s in London.” I tried a little bit of a correction “actually, I’m from England…” and she just repeats to the kids “Yes kids, England, that’s in London!”
I was too shy at that age to call her out on it but it still makes me cringe to this day.”
11. Wow
“My english teacher told the class that the statue of liberty in New York was destroyed on 9/11.”
12. Dumbfounded
“College Sociology course Professor put in one of her slides,
“There are no biological factors that can explain why one disease is more prevalent in one race than the other. The only cause of this with supporting evidence is Racism.”
The whole class was pretty dumbfounded.”
13. Not real science
“Not my class but I wanted to do an experiment for a science fair type thing on animal behavior in high school. I had one of my science teachers try to tell me that animal behavior isn’t real science and that I needed to pick something else. Even as a high school kid I knew this was bull. I was like “TIL that Skinner and Goodall aren’t real scientists.”
Oddly enough in college I had 2 advisors who were very interested in animal behavior and I ended up doing a pilot study for undergrad where I studied toy preference in captive tigers. Despite having passed my schools IACUC the state academy of science denied me a grant for “not having a realistic study” because where was I going to find tigers in our state?
I wonder if someone from that committee was in the audience for my presentation because a lot of questions focused on where I had access to captive tigers (a private sanctuary 20 minutes from my house that had almost 20 Bengal and Siberian tiger on their property, every one in my study was bred in TX and assigned numbers since some were from abuse cases). Now I work as a veterinary nurse and have special certifications for Fear Free and low stress handling practices which relies heavily on animal behavior, the “non science.” “
14. How are you a teacher?
“My third grade teacher tried to fail me because I did a report on Narwhals (the assignment was ‘unusual animals’). She claimed they didn’t exist, and that I fell for a ‘gag article’ in National Geographic. We eventually had to get the principal involved.
This was neither the first, nor the last time she tried to fail me for something that was obscure but factually correct. She and I did not get along, and to this day I still can’t figure out how she had a masters degree.”
15. Yikes
“We were learning Sex Ed, and were doing this thing where everyone in the class put a folded up piece of paper into a hat, some with questions on it. This way the kids could ask anonymously, and the teacher would answer. The teacher was asked, “how do gay people have sex?”
After a lot of stammering, she was like, “one gay man opens up his penis and the other man pushes his penis inside the hole.” You have to either have a profound ignorance of how penis’ work, or be into some really weird porn to believe this is true.”
