There are no dumb questions in the classroom, right?
Maybe misinformed or ignorant due to lack of education on a subject, but classrooms are places to get that education.
While I'm loathe to label someone as dumb, sometimes something ridiculous or ignorant might be said in class.
Reddit user TheCoolestFool7 asked:
"What's the dumbest thing you've heard someone say in the classroom?"
Wasn't That The Big Bang?
"Probably not the dumbest, but memorable."
"10th grade biology. Not sure why it came up, but I know for sure it was in biology."
"'Does anyone know who Galileo was?'."
"'Didn't he like, invent the stars?'."
~ Justsomecharlatan
No, But He Did Start The Atlantic Slave Trade
"I remember when kids would ask if Columbus invented America."
"Ah yes, great Columbus formed an entire land mass by himself."
~ MissBoobAppreciator
"Don't be silly, he didn't do that."
"He had his slaves do it."
~ ThunderF*ckMountain
"Columbus wasn't even the first European to discover America, let alone the first human."
~ SagenKoder
Should Have Checked Cliffs Notes
"This one girl in high school assumed Crime and Punishment was a murder mystery and straight up tried to bluff our English teacher, claiming she honestly read the book instead of admitting she had no idea what it was about."
~ wpmullen
Was The Map Mislabeled‽‽
"In 6th grade, my teacher asked the class 'What's the capital of Spain?'."
"I raised my hand and said Madrid, and he looked at the map and said 'Nope, it's Portugal'."
"I was f*cking flabbergasted, didn't know what to say.
"He starts talking again, but thankfully the class nerd interrupted him and said, 'No, it's actually Madrid. Portugal is the country next to Spain'."
~ Disastrous-Pie-1939
They're Not Wrong
"I once told a teacher that DNA spells AND backwards."
"She gave me a piece of candy."
~ Florida_Diver
969696
"I told a teacher that any sequence of repeating the numbers 6 and 9 looks the same and is the same number when you turn the calculator upside down."
"I thought it was cool."
"She looked at me like I grew a second head."
~ thrax_mador
Apparently Cursive Isn't The Only Thing Kids Aren't Learning
"Law school Professor: 'You have 1.5 hours and the exam will end at 3:30pm'."
"Law student: 'How do we know when it is over?'."
"Professor: 'There is a clock on the wall'."
"*points to analog clock*"
"Law student: 'It doesn’t tell me the time. It’s not digital'."
"This happened almost 10 years ago."
"I can understand kids today not knowing how to read an analog clock, but it’s still a skill that everyone should probably learn."
~ JaCrispy_Vulcano
When The Big Hand Is On The 3...
"This year my classroom had a clock installed—not sure why they didn’t have them before. But my 6th grade students still constantly asked me 'What time is it?'."
"Took an hour to give them a lesson on how to read analog clocks because none of them—out of my 44 students—knew how to read an analog clock."
"I guess that makes me old?"
~ CourtClarkMusic
Hoisted On His Own Petard
"I was in line to ask the teacher a question and the kid in front of me—thinking he was being hilarious—asked the teacher 'Mr. Cowley... are you gay?'."
"Teacher replied, 'Daniel I'm flattered that you would come out to me, but it wouldn't be appropriate for me to date a student'."
"To which Daniel instantly panicked."
~ domestic_omnom
Is Embarrassment Fatal?
"I accidentally called my 4th grade teacher 'mommy' once."
"No escaping that one."
~ Dont_Mess_With_Texas
"We had to call our female teachers 'Ma'am', which also sounds like mum/mam/mom here in the UK. I was shouting for her from across the classroom to come and help me—adolescent main character type crap.
"She looked up, pretended not to know who was shouting, and very loudly said, 'Who's calling me Mum?'."
"I instantly cringed and made myself look small so as not to draw more attention to it."
"I was 14/15 years old at the time, so it was very embarrassing. Good teaching lesson for me though. She was brilliant."
~ The_Queef_of_England
Only About 7,000 miles—12,000 km—Off
"'I like doing a Jamaican accent. It's the only Middle Eastern accent I can do' from a completely serious high school freshman."
"He's exhibit A whenever I argue my school needs a geography class."
"We don’t have a required one, over my loud and persistent protestations and over the protestations of every other history teacher. When that student was in high school, we didn't have one at all.
"The assumption is that the important parts are taught in history, so it should be fine."
~ i_have_seen_ur_death
Maybe Try Counting Fingers?
"'But how did you get 4 from 2 + 2?'."
In an Algebra class eons ago."
"Our teacher was going through a mathematical expression and a girl in the class was frustrated/ confused at the answer given."
"After several minutes of back and forth of the teacher trying to explain how he got there, she ended with the above question."
"My head hit my desk at that point. The class audibly laughed. I'll never forget that day."
~ SardonicSamurai
Dyscalculia?
"After I've doing coding exercises for hours at a time, dealing with complex trigonometric problems and dealing with bullsh*t like quaternions, my brain will get to the point where it struggles to add 9 + 2."
"For some reason, complex sh*t is easy, but simple stuff becomes impossible."
"There's gotta be a name for that phenomenon."
~ Ratstail91
"My entire physics class was like this."
"Partial differential equations? Easy. Vector calculus? No problem."
"3x5? Let me get a calculator, I don't trust myself to be right."
~ JohnGeary1
"Doing all the difficult things right and then adding 7 + 4 and getting 12 or even 13 somehow is just always so painful when you go back and realise."
~ HabitatGreen
Young Earth Theory
"In world history class in 10th grade we were learning about Mesopotamia and when the teacher was talking about how people traveled, a girl asked 'And they rode around on dinosaurs?'."
"People laughed thinking it was a joke, but she doubled down and insisted that ancient people rode around on dinosaurs."
"Teacher had to explain to her that dinosaurs had died off millions of years before human history began."
~ selddir_
"Some Christians have to believe people and dinosaurs coexisted to explain how the Earth is only 6,000 years old."
~ spencerandy16
Sol Survivor
"During astronomy classes in college, a student in the darkened room was made aware the Sun is a star."
"She immediately threw out logic and got pissed because the Sun is a sun, not a star."
~ doneski
"Teacher: 'Which is the closest star to Earth?'."
"*hands shoot up*"
"Student 1: 'Alpha Centauri!'."
"Student 2 (smugly): 'He's partly right. It's Alpha Centauri Proxima'."
"Teacher: 'Actually you'll find it's Sol, also known as the Sun'."
"Students: 'Arrrrrrggggghhhhh!'."
Hopefully all of these students learned a few things.
What's your classroom story?
@joehas/X