Parents Share The Stupidest Thing A Teacher Has Tried To Tell Their Child

Teachers can be some of the wisest, kindest, and most uplifting people in the lives of their students. However, they can also fail to hit the mark with their teaching abilities. It’s surprising how some managed to get a career in education at all. We all know those teachers—the ones who are not only grumpy and mean, but also seem ignorant, bizarre, and completely unprepared to teach a classroom! These stupid educators take the cake for the silly, dumb, and obscure things they’ve told their pupils.

Could you imagine sitting through a lecture about how Native Americans crossed an ocean of ice from Europe to America? Or being told that the color green is a primary color? It’s hard to imagine that such airheads could score jobs as educators, but it happens. Now, students and their parents are taking to the internet to share the silliest thing that a teacher has ever told them.

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Don’t forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!

#1 Hey, I Mean… You Can’t Fix Stupid

One of my kids was reading Grapes of Wrath for a high school English class. For those unfamiliar with the book, it’s about a poor American family that moves out west looking for a better life.

There’s also a little side story about a turtle having trouble crossing the road. The teacher was explaining how the turtle symbolizes the family, and that they had to shed their old life much like a turtle sheds its shell.

When informed that turtles don’t do that, she was confused because the turtles in Super Mario come out of their shells.

Zarokima

Reddit

#2 Actually, They’re Just For Decorative Purposes…

My kid’s teacher did not allow the class to read the Guinness Book of World Records.

They literally have the entire collection of those books at the school library but he refused to let any of the kids read them. He even threatened to punish them if he ever caught them doing so.

Yet, they also won’t remove the books from the library. It’s bizarre.

frickinwutcarl

The Literacy Center at Newbury

#3 Come On, Let The Kid Have Dreams

My son’s third-grade assignment: “Draw your dream house”. He got an F because his dream house was unrealistic. He also failed another assignment he did on dinosaurs because apparently, dinosaurs weren’t real since weren’t mentioned in the bible.

He got detention when he told his teacher that neither were air conditioners. Public school, the early ’90s, rural Texas.

Puzzleheaded_Diamond

Halozabawa

#4 So You’re A Doctor, Then, Too?

When he was 11 years old, my son’s teacher told him he was lying about being color blind and sent him to detention.

Apparently, he didn’t believe there was such a thing as color blindness. I made sure to complain about that teacher to the school board and they suspended him for a period of time. My son had since been transferred to another class.

RicoDredd

1zoom

#5 Get With The Program, Guys

A couple of years ago, my daughter went to pre-school and the teachers were fully aware that she was in speech therapy. On the first day of school, she got a bad mark for an oral presentation because she couldn’t verbally tell the class what she did over the summer.

That was the first in a long string of issues with her teachers that lead us to pull her out of that school before Halloween of that year.

Ersh777

Canstock

#6 Yes, And I’m Just Pretending To Hate You

A teacher told me that the book I was reading was too advanced for my age and that I must be pretending to read it. She confiscated my copy of The Golden Compass, which I had paid for with allowance money, and made me choose a new book from her personal collection. Her books were essentially glorified picture books.

Ekizpea

TS Talent

#7 I’m Pretty Sure She’s Fine, Thanks!

I once had a teacher tell me that my daughter would fail at the end of the year because she would never read out loud. She tried to tell me that’s how she knew she was just pretending to read.

My daughter was with me, so I asked her “Hey, Miniclucks, the book you are reading at school, what is it about”? She then gave me a very good description and an almost page-by-page rundown of the book.

“I think she’s reading it just fine”.

clucks86

Tutor Vators

#8 Wow, Someone Is Bitter

In fifth grade, my science teacher tried to tell me that heavier objects fall faster, then proceeded to drop a paper and a pencil to prove it.

I told him that air resistance was the reason the paper fell slower. Then, to disprove his point, I dropped a pencil and a paper clip. He watched them hit the ground at the same time but accused me of throwing the paper clip down.

He is still teaching.

Unknown

Bild

#9 Cannibalism Is Alive And Well, Kiddos

My son’s third-grade teacher told the class that birds did not eat other birds. This was after she showed the class the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special where Woodstock sits down to eat turkey.

When my son disputed her claim, she got upset with him and sent him to detention. Needless to say, I made a few visits to the principal’s office to defend my son against his teacher’s stupidity.

wolfdaddy74701

Alamy

#10 Here’s A Good Old Fashioned Lesson On Trauma

When he was about five, my son’s teacher decided she’d try to cure everyone in the class of their worst fears. At the time, he was afraid of the dark, so the teacher sat him in the middle of the classroom with a blanket over his head to convince him there was nothing to be scared about.

She wasn’t at the school the next year. Many parents also threatened to sue.

OverThereByTheDoor

Yeutre

#11 So, This Isn’t An English Class?

My little sister’s math teacher recently docked her a point on an assignment because she wrote: “their data suggests,” and the teacher wanted it to say “his or her” instead of “their”. In the teacher’s defense, she was foreign and not entirely fluent in English and genuinely wasn’t aware that using “they” to refer to an individual whose gender isn’t specified is not well accepted in English. But still, why dock points for grammar in math homework?

hyper-osmotic

Dallas Observer

#12 Ah, Nothing Like Proving A Teacher Wrong…

A “science” teacher scolded my sixth-grade son for saying if you dropped an egg out of a moving car it would land down the road due to the forward movement (Newton). She insisted it would fall directly below the place it was released.

So we did an experiment to prove he was right. She said he cheated and threw the egg forward. The important lesson my son learned: teachers don’t know much. Trust observation and reason, not authority.

alanmagid

Media Bakery

#13 Hey, Could You Stop Policing My Son?

The teacher said that my son couldn’t have long hair because it was “too distracting”. Then, after the doctor advised us to get him shoes that were a size bigger because of severe foot pain,  she informed us that he had to get new shoes that fit him right or he would not be allowed on the playground. Through gritted teeth, I explained that his pediatrician said he needed to wear bigger shoes, and filed a complaint. He was only four or five at the time, but she was so hard on him.

jackster_

123RF

#14 So You Think He’s A Liar And That He’s Stupid?

His French teacher called the house told me he cheated on his most recent French test. He was accused of looking at someone else’s paper, but everyone in the class was given different versions of the test.

I asked her why she thought this, and she said, “Because he couldn’t have possibly gotten over 70%, and he got a 95%”. This was a couple of years ago and I’m still angry.

Chilisbarista

Home Security

#15 Ah, You’ve Got To Love Public School

A teacher told my daughter that she will get pregnant every time she is intimate with someone.

My daughter came home and told me she knew that couldn’t be right because her aunt tried for a long time to get pregnant and ultimately had to pursue IVF. I complained about that teacher to the principal and she was given a nice, long talk about it.

glitterfiend775

Ra-Scheid

#16 Grammar Fumble

I’ll never forget this for the rest of my life: twenty years ago in eighth grade, my Language Arts teacher gave us the most convoluted, bizarre explanation about the difference between “height” and “heighth”.

It was something dumb like how “height” is a term to describe how tall a person is, whereas “heighth” was used in geometric measurements.

“When you need to find the length, width, and heighth of something”.

It made absolutely no sense. I was always pretty quiet, but I mustered up all the cajones I could and told her “heighth” was not a real word, just an incorrect way of pronouncing “height”.

and I got sent outside. I can’t stand teachers who refuse to believe they can be wrong. How did she even land that job?

strwbryshrtck521

Pexels

#17 Excuse Me, But My Kid Freaking ROCKS

A teacher told my kid that she didn’t deserve the Italian Achievement Award because she didn’t put in enough effort.

Yet, she had a 97% average in the class, and the next highest student had 85%. My kid spent five months as an exchange student in Italy. She worked after school in an adult Italian Language Centre.

She was a barista at an Italian coffee shop. She was planning to study international relations at university. But the number two kid still got the Italian Achievement Award because apparently, he put in more effort.

harchickgirl1

My Recipes

#18 But It’s The Most Basic Rule Of Geometry!

“Identify the rectangles,” the teacher instructed.

My son proceeded to mark a square as a rectangle.

The teacher marked it wrong and wrote, “A square is not a rectangle”.

Zenock43

Steinberg Behavior Solutions

#19 Or Maybe… He Just Hates Your Class

At an after-school fundraiser, my son’s teacher cornered me and my son and told us how he was unable to understand math.

This was in a crowded hallway surrounded by people, so it was neither the right time nor place. I told her that she was wrong so she turned to my son and demanded, “What is eight times seven”?

He tilted his head to one side, gave a sly little smile and replied, “Fifty-six”!

VeeBeeEll

Oh Dela

#20 So You Want Me To Not Be Successful? Got It

When I was in fourth grade, I remember writing a story in class that was significantly longer than everyone else’s. Mine was maybe about five pages while everyone else’s was about two. My teacher literally told me, “Stop showing off to other students, it makes them feel bad”. I was scared to tell my parents I’d gotten in trouble, and it became a recurring thing, stunting my discovery that writing is what I loved… But it all turned out okay, I’m in film school now.

broskymchoesky

Media Bakery

#21 That’s Sort Of A Health Code Violation

I had a question in fifth grade in science class:

is soup served at 80 degrees or 140? I knew soup was supposed to be hot, and definitely hotter than body temperature, so I said 140. The teacher called me out in front of everyone and said she wanted soup served at 80 degrees and that 140 would burn.

The only thing was, serving soup at 80 degrees is pretty much a huge violation of health code. It must be held and served to the table at 140 or higher to prevent bacteria growth.

DongleNocker

T-5

#22 I Guess Green Just Doesn’t Exist, Then

I once witnessed this in a kindergarten class:

a five-year-old girl was painting and asked the teacher how she could make green from the colors she had available. The teacher, after thinking about it for a few seconds, said: “You can’t make green, sweetie, it’s a primary color”.

Moments like that make it hard to trust the educational system.

Unknown

AOL

#23 Okay, Those Facts Seem A Little Obscure…

My daughter was on a field trip and I chaperoned. The lady was talking about Native Americans and I was about ready to pull my hair out listening to her.

“During the ice age, like the movie, all the oceans froze. The Indians walked across the frozen ocean from Europe and migrated West. Indians use teepees in hot weather and wigwams in cold weather. Indians didn’t know how to plant crops and only knew how to hunt animals and gather plants to eat.

Indians hunted elephants in Florida. Indians made arrow tips from limestone because it’s so strong”.

I know I’m missing quite a few. It was like nearly everything she said was false. Looking back, I really wish I had stood up and said something, but my anxiety held me back.

The craziest part is all the other parents and teachers kind of nodded along while I was looking around at everyone wondering if anyone else was actually listening to the stuff the lady was spewing.

CrazyBakerLady

Game Spotting Networks

#24 That’s Not Exactly How That Works, Miss

In fifth grade, my teacher told the class that the percentage of fat in food listed on the labels determined how much fat was in your blood. She was saying how some foods would make your blood 9% fat and others would only make it 6%.

I told her that it didn’t work like that and she just said, “No, you’re wrong”. Then, after class, she stopped me from leaving and told me I was right. She just had to “simplify it” for the other kids but was giving out totally false information.

JohnCenasLeftElbow

iStock

#25 Are You Going To Find The Cure?

My teacher told my 16-year-old not to worry about drinking too many sodas.

His argument was, “By the time you get diabetes, we’ll have a cure”. The teacher said this to the entire class. I’m not sure who let that man become a teacher, but it worries me as a parent to know that my kids (and other people’s kids) are being exposed to lies like that.

redditusername374

Fodors

#26 Around The Time Your Braincells Did…

A teacher at my primary school was dead serious in the staff room when she asked the other teachers: “When did unicorns go extinct again”?

Jovis001

iStock

#27 Actually, Ma’am, We Were Talking About You

“You’re not allowed to speak Arabic with your dad in front of the other children because they will think you’re talking about them”.

Firstly, my son doesn’t speak Arabic, he speaks Urdu. Secondly, she didn’t say anything to the parents who spoke German or Lithuanian or Chinese with their children. This was pure discrimination and you can bet I reported the incident.

Unknown

Alencar Odontologia

#28 Well, The Teacher Sure Zeroed Her Out

“Anything divided by zero is zero”. When my daughter pointed out that dividing by zero is impossible, the teacher gave her a zero for her homework. I brought up the issue to the principal and I was expecting the teacher to get some sort of punishment, but she was just warned to be more careful with her marking.

I made sure to double-check any assignments that were given to my daughter by that teacher moving forward.

blockoblox

Detki

#29 No Worries, Man, I’ve Got It From Here

When I was a senior in high school, I got tipsy on a trip to a band competition.

The next week for my punishment, my parents had to come to school with me. My dad usually has three or four books on his nightstand at one time. He reads A LOT. When it was my dad’s turn to sit with me, we were in American History.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what the topic was for the day, but my dad listened for about two minutes, stopped the teacher, and proceeded to teach the class what really happened in history.

My teacher was angry, and that lead to an hour-long debate. My mom thought the punishment was just meant for them (she was super embarrassed), but my dad LOVED it. All the kids in my class basically got that hour off for the whole week while my dad was there.

They all told me to get into more trouble so they didn’t have to work or learn anything new.

kylop

Expert School

#30 Maybe You Should Transfer To A Different Job!

The teacher told my daughter she was just stupid and that she should transfer to a different school… She has dyslexia.

Helen-the-welsh-one

Enfer Magazine

#31 Charity Isn’t For Jerks, Dude

Just yesterday, my daughter’s teacher told her (and the whole class) that they would get in trouble if she didn’t bring in two cans of food for the food drive. I, of course, gave her the two cans but she decided not to turn them in, even after the talk we had with her about how giving food is a good thing but being forced and bullied into doing it is not okay.

She said, “I will see what trouble I get into”.

Rossomejen

El Confidencial

#32 Well, We Know She Doesn’t Teach Geography

My mom was a special needs worker, and she had this super old teacher she was working with who was tenured and thus untouchable. She started teaching in the ’50s when Hawaii and Alaska were not even States yet.

She taught the class (in like 2002) that there were only 48 states. My mom was like no, there are 50 now. She then told off my mother in front of a class of middle schoolers that Hawaii and Alaska were only territories and not real states.

She made sure we didn’t have that teacher when we came through.

sMarieLoves

iStock

#33 This Seems A Tad Bit Dramatic

When I was in kindergarten, my teacher called my parents to come to the school to break the news that I “will never be an artist”.

My parents were confused as to why they needed to be there to hear that since it wasn’t important. I never even liked art, I just enjoyed doodling all the time in class whenever I was bored (and trust me, I was bored all the time).

Wajina_Sloth

Eduworld

#34 Hey, Technically, He Isn’t Wrong

We had a substitute teacher who gave out this little questionnaire activity. One of the questions was, “Does the United Kingdom have a 4th of July”? I answered yes. He laughed at me and got the entire class to laugh at me too.

When I clarified that the question was “a 4th of July” and not “Independence Day,” he just ignored me and continued to make fun of me.

MrAlexSan

Vox

#35 Stay In Your Lane, Sweetheart

I was a child in the deep South where things are still a little… medieval at times.

I was 15 and had suddenly been hit with the puberty bazooka: I went from flat chested to well over a D-cup in the span of summer break. My grandmother attended my parent-teacher conference and I think maybe the teacher thought since they were similar in age, they’d share the same sentiments.

The woman, a mean geography teacher that should have retired in the ’80s, suggested that my grandmother should “bind” my breasts to keep them from “growing into a larger distraction for other students”. My grandmother gave that woman the coldest up and down glare and simply said:

“As my granddaughter displays adequate knowledge of geography and you’ve mentioned no concerns for her performance, I’ll assume we’re done here. However, a bit of personal advice, honey… Stick to geography, anatomy just isn’t in your wheelhouse”.

NerdgasmGirl

Corey Mondello

#36 Hey, I Can’t Help That I’m A Genius

When I was a kid, I was a mental math wizard. I think it was by sixth grade that I was doing upper-level algebra in my head. The math I was learning at school was just that.

I didn’t need to learn it. I could just do it. I just knew how. I didn’t even work problems out in my head, I just knew the answer. On one of my math tests, I was given a 0.

Why? I didn’t show any of my work and it took five minutes to complete.

I was handed the test, I wrote down the answers, and turned it in. The teacher accused me of cheating and stealing answers prior to the test.

I told her I just did it in my head and she said, “That is not physically possible”. She sent me to the principle’s office. Even he didn’t believe me. Once my parents got involved, they pushed the teacher to create a personal test just for me.

That way, I couldn’t possibly cheat. Again, I spent five minutes writing down answers and handed her the sheet. She was baffled.

__celli

Mer Associates

#37 No, Bud, Ants Definitely Aren’t Animals

I was the child. My sixth-grade teacher had us research and compile 10 poems with a running theme.

I chose animals. One of my poems had to do with ants, while one was about dogs, and the other about lions, etc. When the project was returned, I noticed that I lost five points for some reason.

When I asked why, my teacher said, “Your theme was animals. Since ants are not animals, I took off those points”. My little 11-year-old brain imploded. I had to bring in a signed note from the biology teacher stating that ants were indeed animals to get those points back.

watershadow1991

Shutterstock

#38 Hey, Points For Creativity, Right?

When I was in kindergarten, my mom was called in because there was something wrong with me. Turns out, that the problem was that when I was asked to draw my family I drew everybody as ducks.

They were all there—mom, dad, siblings—but they were ducks. The teacher insisted this was very serious and my mother asked why. They said they didn’t know, but it wasn’t normal. My mom was very annoyed.

Herutastic

Jogia

#39 I Think The Kid Knows His Own Name…

My brother’s kindergarten teacher tried to convince him that his name was Alexander when it’s just Alex. There was another student in his class named Alexander who preferred to be called Alex, so the teacher tried to change my brother’s name to make it easier for the class to distinguish the two.

The teacher actually drove my brother to tears when he tried to explain what his real name was. My parents were furious. They marched straight into her classroom the next morning, completely uninvited and gave her heck in front of her class.

They even threatened to pursue legal action on her for intentionally causing emotional distress to their child. From that moment on, she never hesitated to call my brother just Alex.

Gremlin95x

Bullying Class Action

#40 Every Doctor Ever Would Sorely Disagree

A middle school teacher was telling the class how a lack of exposure to germs in developed countries has weakened our immune systems and led to various autoimmune diseases.

Then she said that in third world countries in Africa they had stronger immune systems and that they didn’t have diseases. I’m not sure where she sourced her information from.

swagmaster467

Aldia Argentina

#41 Yep, She Really Is That Stupid

We were getting a tour of the school’s community garden.

The teacher is rambling on about the different veggies and stuff they grew. We are walking by these giant sunflowers.

Teacher: “Oh, these are sunflowers… for making popcorn”.

Me: “…You mean you add them to popcorn”?

Teacher: “No… Sunflower seeds make popcorn”!

Me: “I’m 100% sure corn kernels are used for making popcorn…”

She sighed and moved on, continuing to think I was a hulking 6’5″ Neanderthal. We got to the herb section and she pointed at the thyme and rosemary.

Teacher: “This is thyme and rosemary, we use these to make chocolate”.

Me: “What? You add those to chocolate, that has to give it a funky taste; I’m surprised the kids like it”.

Teacher: “No! We don’t ADD it to chocolate.

CHOCOLATE IS MADE FROM THEM”!

I gave up questioning her at this point and finished the tour silently contemplating how this woman can zip up her pants in the morning, let alone get a degree and teaching certificate.

deadmurphy

Hip Latina

#42 Sometimes, Actions Speak Louder Than Words…

She decided to get us to write down things we couldn’t do. What she should have done was ask for an academic goal or something similar.  I think one kid said he couldn’t jump in a volcano or something like that. Well, one kid had an allergy and submitted it as a thing he couldn’t do. I guess the teacher thought maybe it was a personal preference rather than a medical issue and tricked him into eating something with it in it.

I think it was strawberries or something like that. Needless to say, she didn’t come back the next day and we had a sub for half a year.

Crejhov

Medscape

#43 Sorry, Buddy, But You’re Too Good At Testing

When we took a standardized test at the beginning of the school year, I scored a perfect score.

At the end of the year, we took the same test and I scored a perfect score once again. But I wasn’t allowed to go to the ice cream party because my score “didn’t improve” from the first time to second. How does that even make any sense?

NoDoughThough

Paige Barrows

#44 Wait… You Teach Science, Right?

My seventh-grade science teacher condescendingly told me there was no such thing as dry ice.

johnnybravo1014

T-Online

#45 Someone Didn’t Win The Spelling Bee

Me: “How do you spell ‘barely’”?

Teach: “That’s not a real word, you can’t use it”.

Me: “Yes it is”.

Teach: “No it isn’t”.

The other students seemed just as confused as me.

WaggyTails

Power Akademy

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