If you've ever felt sick and tired of having a classmate who distracts your class with their ridiculous questions, consider just how bad it must be for your teacher!
After Redditor FallenAngel_14 asked the online community, "Teachers of Reddit: They say there are no stupid questions, but what's the most stupid question a student has ever asked you?" educational professionals weighed in.
We are facepalming on their behalf after reading some of these.
"Wait..."
Wait, do you have to take books back to a library? From a tenth grader. Class dissolved into laughter. I thought she was joking, then saw her face and realised she was actually confused. No idea what she thought happened to the library books when you had read them.
"Mind you..."
Can I go sharpen my pencil?
The kid was using a mechanical pencil, and we were about to take a quiz. When I said no, he promptly asked to use the restroom. I let him go, but he came back 30 minutes later trying to sharpen his mechanical pencil with SCISSORS. Mind you, these weren't the little safety scissors we were using for the activity, they were specialized for cutting CARDBOARD and were kept in the teacher's lounge.
I can't even...
"One of my students..."
I teach elementary school. One of my students asked if honey comes from a persons eyebrows. Another teacher walked by and asked what I was teaching in my class.
"During silent reading..."
During silent reading one of my 8th graders raised his hand, and I said I would be right there.
He said "No I just have a quick question you don't have to come here." I started walking over there to him anyway, and he asks loudly "Is the president of America also the president in Ohio? Like do they have the same president as us?"
This was only one week after the kid got moved to my advanced class because he was not getting along with the kids in his class. I was proud of my other students though, some of the main weird faces, but everyone remain silent and didn't laugh at him.
"Was teaching..."
Was teaching some grade 9 (I think; I'm not American) boys about geometry and was telling them about how everything in video games is made out of triangles. They didn't believe me so I showed them a fully rendered character and then the mesh. They went silent for a bit until one asked me (completely seriously) if we were made out of triangles...
"I was teaching second graders..."
Not exactly stupid since these are from innocent little kids who just don't know any better, but they are too cute not to share.
I was teaching second graders about Van Gogh. I explained that he only sold one painting when he was alive, but he is now dead and his paintings sell for millions of dollars. Cutest second grader ever asked, "How does he get them down from there?" I was totally confused and asked, "Down from where?" Her reply? "Heaven."
Another time I was teaching a first grade class. They are really chatty so I asked them to stop talking and blurting things out and to raise their hand if they had a question or comment. Adorable little boy raised his hand and asked, "Is it ok if I talk in my head? It's really hard not to talk in my head." Of course you can kid; that's called thinking.
"I taught a class in rural Uganda..."
I taught a class in rural Uganda for 6 months and within the first week a 4th grader asked: "Do white people reproduce?" English isn't my first language and sometimes things in Uganda are used differently so I said I wasn't sure what he meant. He explained: "Can white people have babies?"... I was baffled and then we turned the class into an open question hour "Ask someone from Europe anything you want to" and there were a couple of gems in that.
"A girl in my sex-ed class..."
A girl in my sex-ed class asked if it was possible to get pregnant if you have sex with a tampon in.
"Once we were discussing..."
Once we were discussing the book Fahrenheit 451. (If you don't know the book, it's dystopian science fiction set in a future where books are illegal and there are "firemen" whose job it is to burn books).
One student asked me, "If the firemen burn people's books, won't the houses catch on fire?"
I responded, "That's a good question! The story actually explains that all the houses in the future are fireproof."
He asks, "Oh, I get it! So is that why books are illegal?"
I was confused and thought maybe I had misheard him. "Umm... wait, are you asking me if houses being fireproof is the reason for why books are illegal?"
He said, "Yes."
I was stunned. "Umm... no... that's not the reason... We'll get to the reason later on in the story." I just tried to move on after that.
His question has bothered me for years. What was going on in his brain? Why did he think that houses being fireproof had any connection whatsoever to banning books?
"I had a student ask me..."
I teach ESL in Japan.
I had a student ask me how I get home every day. I assumed he was asking about how I commute to work, so I told him that I took the train. He thought that I take the train back to America every night after work.
When I taught kindergarten, I had a student that thought that all white guys were named Jeff, because I was the only foreigner she knew.
@BrentTerhune/X and @VivekGRamaswamy/X