Math fraud | TheaterFire

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rhino_shit_gif@reddit

Strong ragebait for all the gifted children who never were challenged enough because their parents didn’t have enough money and grew up to be burnt out adults

But the story is inaccurate- the teacher wouldn’t have given a fuck, or the parents. Realistically, no one gives a shit as long as you aren’t doing bad. If you’re ahead, they don’t care. That’s your problem.

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InhumaneBreakfast@reddit

Nah, teachers getting corrected and often humiliated in front of second graders is 100% high on their list of "fuck today" moments.

MOST teachers react like OP's. There is almost no way a seven year old catching you in a fuck up publicly doesn't irk you a bit. Kids also aren't very polite.

It's also the teacher's job to maintain authority in the classroom, if kids think another kid is smarter than the teacher, even for a second, their trust can be lost really fast. I'm not a teacher but given how much of a smart ass I was to almost every teacher, no doubt teachers are trained to act like how OP's did.

It's also just bad manners to correct a public speaker like that, might as well let them know early.

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throughcracker@reddit

That's crap. If you are shown up by a subordinate, the correct way to handle it is just to go "thank you" and quickly move on. It's getting defensive and pissy that undermines your authority, not being wrong.

Source: am teacher.

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InhumaneBreakfast@reddit

I think this depends if you're a second grade teacher versus middle school and up. I don't think little kids have the same type of reasoning

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Davy257@reddit

This exact thing happened to me, in 1st grade I’d go to the 2nd grade for math, and then just read while my class did math. Teacher said something like “you can’t subtract a bigger number from a smaller number” and I said you can and you just get a negative number. Got told that I would confuse the class and to not talk about it.

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AlabamaHotcakes@reddit

I mean there was a lot of power tripping teachers when I was growing up that started shit for the dumbest of reasons and could never be wrong.

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rhino_shit_gif@reddit

That’s true as well, I remember my mum telling me about coming in for parent teacher conferences in 4th grade and Ms. ____ having a ‘profile’ on every kid on her desk. Teaching is a strange and difficult profession in some ways. There seem to be variable types. There’s the few ones who do it for love of the game and really care about the kids, but for the far majority they either have major issues or are very checked out.

A consequence of years of underfunding and lack of any meaningful overhaul, or even overture of serious reexamination of the current system by experts. That being said, I have no idea what the fuck would be done instead. We are pretty fucked for kicking that can down the road, as well as many others.

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Sengfroid@reddit

I hear you, and I don't disagree with you specifically, just thinking about the argument we all make; "Only a few teachers do it for the right reasons." Like, why do we constantly say this shit? No one expects Bill from accounting to show up and be gunho about getting those numbers into the books and balance sheets to be his passion. If it is, he's considered a bit weird.

Or like, godforbid your post op nurse tell you she's just "really into sewing bodies together." Like not ok. Tiffany shows up, clocks in here 8 analyzing marketing figures, and goes home and we all think that's ok, so why do we expect teachers to be magical and committed to relatively thanks profession by default, that has weird hours, poor pay, limited chance of advancement, and you whole day is spent literally dealing with children. It's such a weird expectation that they not be checked out like a Subway® Sandwich Artist. Like beyond lip service, nothing on our society demonstrates we value them or offer with privileged position. Fuck, cops shoot innocent people and they keep their job, but public school teachers touch a kid to break up a fight and they get fired and sued. Like why do we expect them to not be phoning it in while almost other job either gets a pass or gets paid?

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_cdk@reddit

we're taught to love, respect, and idealise teachers, to see their sacrifices as noble, for the same reason the military gets glorified: to convince people to keep doing hard, underpaid work without questioning why.

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Sengfroid@reddit

As I said, we pay them lip service but that's about all we pay them. Everywhere it's substantial, there is a huge difference between the military and teachers, starting especially with budgets. The defense budget is never near facing the same level of cuts education frequently is, nor are there regular cries that we ought to privatize the military and give each stat vouchers to higher private mercenaries instead of having to rely on public armies.
From there I also mentioned the difference in a privileged role, but to elaborate, while the pay is low for the military as well, veteran status ( in addition to various civilian discounts) conveys certain rights and benefits not afforded to the general public, including GI Bill benefits, housing allowances or on base housing, post service home loans, benefits for your children or beneficiaries, discounted goods on base, VA healthcare, and more, in addition to up to two federal holidays celebrating you. And not necessarily a benefit but definitely of note is that military members are governed by an entirely separate legal system. This makes it extremely different from teachers, job duties aside. Now don't get me wrong, we still absolutely screw over vets in so many ways, but it's not at all a comparable "they work hard for our admiration and nothing else" scenario. (Note, this entirely in reference to US dynamics and I won't confidently speak to other national situations)

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_cdk@reddit

bro is defending military work, proving my comment true

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vibeLifer@reddit

I feel you, but at the same time I kinda understand what people mean by this: since the job is so thankless, only the ones with vocation should pursue it. You don't need vocation to sum rows of numbers or serve customers in a food chain - but in a job where you work with young people, and have a huge influence on them, it's kind of necessary.

But this also brings me to my main point: since teaching is so important, maybe we should realign our priorities and ensure that teachers get paid handsomely? We're all from around the world, yet I think most of us would agree that education system is outdated. Maybe gathering people who are themselves well educated, and passionate in the subject, to kindle the interest in their students would actually benefit the society in the long run.

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Sengfroid@reddit

Yeah I think you're kinda hitting on the same realization I was having. If we keep saying it's so important teachers be this way, do we do anything to suggest we value it, or do we just pay lip service to the idea? And it's really the latter. We're doing the social/career equivalent of sending "thoughts and prayers!" and nothing else. So that means, despite what we say, our actions as a society tell us we don't really mean that matters at all, so we really oughta stop judging them as individuals who "failed us" and see that neither us nor they were ever really set up for success.

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Thetruemasterofgames@reddit

We have that expectation not only because they deal with kids who we see as the most vulnerable just as u/WhoRoger said below but also because there is a significant pay difference in teaching and the other professions you listed.

A nurse or accountant not liking their job we understand because the money is there "yeah you got into this for the pay" but teaching you dont see that unless you are like private school.or something so the question then becomes "why are you in this low income enviroment rather than anything else if you hate it?" Thats why we have that different perception i do however believe we act too hard on teachers as you said some the stuff some lose their job on is ridiculous.

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Sengfroid@reddit

" why are you in this low income enviroment rather than anything else if you hate it?" Thats why we have that different perception

Yeah I think that's my point. That's a pretty unfair difference of perception and it sets many of us up to feel we were cheated by individuals personally, when the reality is it was a system that was cheating us both.

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WhoRoger@reddit

I would think it's generally understood that professions where you work with people, especially the vulnerable kind of people, require you to have some empathy. It's not so hard to see the difference between teachers, nurses, caregivers, doctors... And accountants.

Numbers on a screen don't have feelings. People do. And especially kids.

If you make a mistake with a number on a screen, you can just fix it. If you make a mistake with raising or teaching a kid, you can scar them for life.

Since all adults used to be kids, and we expect kids to be the next generation of adults, I would expect it would be society's highest priority to not fuck them up. But obviously that's not how society works, especially not these days.

Obviously, the main reason why teaching is such a shitty profession, is because the whole school system is completely broken. We do understand that people are not meant to sit on a chair every day, for hours at a time, right? We know it's not healthy, right? And yet, we expect that of kids who are high on energy? We know people learn the best with on-hand experience, and yet we want kids to learn by just listening, like programming a robot? We pretend like we are trying to teach kids, but really we are only teaching them to pass a test?

No wonder this profession attracts mostly people who don't give a shit and power-tripping psychopaths.

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Hotdogfromparadise@reddit

Yes, we teach to a test because we're a metric obsessed society with no appreciation for methodology (a high school diploma is basically toilet paper).

Yes, we expect kids to sit down and attempt to develop auditory learning skills, because its an essential skill to function in society (it also goes hand in hand with being able to fucking read). Not being able to perform this basic compressive task hampers the "learn by doing" style.

One of the biggest disservices in education is not instilling " if you don't learn this now, you'll be worse off because the world won't cater to your limitations".

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WhoRoger@reddit

Yes, we teach to a test because we're a metric obsessed society

That's true to a point, but aside of having to fulfill some specific work metrics, or having to earn a certain amount of money to afford what you need, life really isn't all that very metric-oriented, and there's very few tests unless your work specifically requires them. And those tests then need to prove how well you can function, not how well you can cheat a test.

it also goes hand in hand with being able to fucking read

It's funny how people always use needing to learn to read as a reason for this broken system, even tho:

kids don't learn to read by listening, but by actually reading, initially with someone sitting with them and showing them
there's a huge range between "being able to fucking read" and "memorising pages of trivia just to spit it out for a test", so one doesn't necessarily follow the other, and it still doesn't excuse this system when more important, actual life skills could be developed instead
illiteracy rates are going actually up in many areas of the developed world, so whatever the system is trying to do, it doesn't work anyway

One of the biggest disservices in education is not instilling " if you don't learn this now, you'll be worse off because the world won't cater to your limitations".

I don't know if I'm missing something because that's pretty much exactly what "education" does? "Have good grades or you won't get into a good school later and you'll end up a janitor/homeless/in prison", that's like the only motivation most adults are able to instill in their kids lol. Still has nothing to do with actual knowledge, just with passing tests. Again.

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Ozuge@reddit

"Have good grades or you won't get into a good school later and you'll end up a janitor/homeless/in prison",

If I understood the other poster correctly, the problem isn't that what I quoted isn't instilled into kids, but that is the problem. The difference between 'You need to learn multiplication to get a job" vs. "You need multiplication to do basic functions as a human." is the disconnect here.

Maybe a different example "You need to get into sports to get good grades in sports class in school" vs. "You need to get into sports because you'll want a healthy body". The benefits of learning go beyond the immediate result of getting grades or getting into a better school.

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WhoRoger@reddit

Maybe, but then the issue isn't the lack of instilling, but that the system is synthetic and only good for testing and memorisation, divorced from real life problems. You can teach a kid to memorise the multiplication table until they can repeat it in their sleep, and then watch them struggle when you ask them how many cans of cat food you need for three cats.

Or any other subject... Every modern human should be very familiar with WWII, and yet look how many nazi parties there are all around Europe. Or how many people do you know who've actually learned to speak a language well just from school?

Humans are pretty smart, but no amount of "you'll need this later in life" will help the brain actually form the memories and connections, if all you keep asking it to do is to repeat, and if you make the kid disgusted by the whole process.

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Hotdogfromparadise@reddit

That's true to a point, but aside of having to fulfill some specific work metrics, or having to earn a certain amount of money to afford what you need, life really isn't all that very metric-oriented, and there's very few tests unless your work specifically requires them. And those tests then need to prove how well you can function, not how well you can cheat a test.

This is so mind bogglingly incorrect.

Want to become a licensed electrician, mechanic, plumber? All of these have exams in addition to hands on apprenticeships and classroom instruction. There's also a recertification process at least every 5 years as well.

Want to go to college? Guess what? More tests! Good luck getting a degree at any level if you cant "cheat a test".

kids don't learn to read by listening, but by actually reading, initially with someone sitting with them and showing them

So kids learn to read through osmosis and not through hearing someone sound out words, syllables and developing phonics skills? IE getting programmed like a robot?

there's a huge range between "being able to fucking read" and "memorising pages of trivia just to spit it out for a test", so one doesn't necessarily follow the other, and it still doesn't excuse this system when more important, actual life skills could be developed instead

Life skills like reading, being able to do basic math in your head without a calculator and time management? These life skills are being taught in schools already have a baseline skillset required to function in society? Tests. Want a GED that qualifies you for a basic job? That's a test.

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rhino_shit_gif@reddit

Totally agree with you. I was reflecting on this entire thread, and like all the other conversations I’ve had about the education system over the years, it seems to wind up with the fact that it is a job, plain and simple. They’re people.

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Sengfroid@reddit

Yeah, like I said my argument isn't with you. But as one of those burnt out adults, I'm just having an epiphany of "why are we blaming this on mediocre teachers. Most of us are mediocre at our jobs". It feels a bit paradigm-shifting that we were actually pretty lucky, having the good teachers that we had, rather than that the not- All-stars failed us. For whatever that's worth, but to sleep deprived me it feels empowering and agency-restoring.

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WhoRoger@reddit

Being a teacher isn't an occupation, it's a diagnosis.

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HeavyPara-Beetle@reddit

I named Plasma as a state of matter in a 4th grade exam, and the teacher marked it wrong. The next week, my dad walked into her class mid-lesson and gave her a piece of his mind. I never got bothered ever again.

I love my dad.

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Professional_Two563@reddit

I had an English teacher trying to grill me at 4th grade for writing an essay that was apparently someone my age shouldn't be able to write on their own. I did write that on my own, I took hours rewriting that thing until midnight, and looking back that essay was even going around in circles on a talking point until I just forced a concluding paragraph.

Fortunately for me that teacher just relented and just gave me full marks. But that incident kind of dampened my enthusiasm for going above bare minimum effort on schoolworks that is going to depend on the teacher's verdict.

Although unlikely, there is bound to be a piece of shit teacher that would act similar to what that probably fake 4chan story.

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Bakugo_Dies@reddit

Can confirm. Hats off to the few of them who realized they were wrong and apologized.

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funkymagee@reddit

I got sent to detention once for knowing what an implosion was, before the teacher "taught" is what it was.

Some people just love to power trip

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Xgoodnewsevery1@reddit

Oh man my absolute favorite was a 4th grade science teacher "water doesn't move"

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ItsHighSpoon@reddit

I'm from Poland, when I was in first to three grade, I used to have longer hair like down to my neck and my teacher didn't like that, she considered my hair "untidy" and she told me in front of the whole class she'll bring her daughters hair ties and force me to wear pig tails. In the end it never happened, but fuck that bitch for trying to embarrass a 7 year old.

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floralbutttrumpet@reddit

My sibling had a teacher who insisted China never had an Empress and when they proved that teacher wrong, they would never get called upon again and get successive 0s in "oral participation".

I had to repeat a grade because I had a teacher who used their Napoleon complex to sort the grading they gave by height of the students, and I had them in two subjects at the same time. I'm 1.82m. Two fail grades = automatic redo.

Not even to mention the teacher years earlier who bullied me so hard for two entire years I developed c-PTSD from it.

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TheDougio@reddit

I can relate there was one teacher in middle school who put me in detention for a bit because I didn't have any paper for writing, like BRUH

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Thetruemasterofgames@reddit

I got in trouble for using negatives a few times first time was count backwards from 100 by x and in this day x was 3 so instead of stopping at 1 I stopped at -2 cause every other day we stopped at zero till that point. Anouther was similar to this if I remember correctly how the school wanted us to do it was like "you flip the numbers around and so (to use the og posts example) 20-25 is now 25-20=5" or one year they did "0 with a remaining of 5" both of which were weird to me.

Teachers claimed whenever I used negatives I was insulting them or being purposely problematic got paddlins for that. One in particular I remember because he said I was trying to claim i was smarter than him which was an odd accusation I never figured out why they said that.

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TomatoSpecialist6879@reddit

"It didn't happen to me so it's false"

Where the fuck do egoistic monkeys like you come from

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-Baldr@reddit

TEACHERRR!! I KNOW!! ✋

EGOISTIC MONKEYS COME FROM THE DUMBFUCK STORE 🤓

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Zillafan2010@reddit

You’re not supposed to know that yet…

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Omagga@reddit

Close

But they actually said, "It didn't happen so it's false"

Hope this helps

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rhino_shit_gif@reddit

Lol

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divinity995@reddit

Gifted tripping aside. I still vividly remember and seethe over 20 years later when my teacher made me and few other kids slow read because some kids didnt know how to like read normally

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thermitethrowaway@reddit

My primary school teacher paired me with one of the slowest readers in the class in the hope, somehow, that I'd speed him up.The real upshot was I'd be bored for 10 minutes while he finished the fucking pages.

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Sbotkin@reddit

somehow, that I'd speed him up

I'd really like to hear the teacher's reasoning. They thought you are a fucking telepath or what?

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Ozuge@reddit

Do you need to be a telepath for your skills to rub off on people you work with? The goal was likely that the fast reader would help the slow reader by giving a good example if nothing else.

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Sbotkin@reddit

That's not a skill you can simply transfer by example, that's a training skill. You can't make a person be able to lift 100kg by just placing a powelifter next to them.

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thermitethrowaway@reddit

No idea, even as a 9 year old it made no sense to me. Having said that I was pretty much the fastest reader in my class, so the adult, cynical, me suspects he just didn't want to be bothered giving me extension work once I'd completed the task.

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throughcracker@reddit

My fourth grade teacher got very angry with me for doing long division instead of division by stacking. I also constantly got in trouble with her for laughing at things that were funny. Dammit, Mrs. Fox!

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Sbotkin@reddit

Pretty much the same happened to me except for the grounding and writing up (that's just stupid). But yeah, elementary school teachers can be very special. Also, by the same teacher, I was told that the Moon is a planet.

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shiny_xnaut@reddit

I was told that the Moon is a planet.

To play devil's advocate, the moon is really weirdly big compared to the Earth, compared to other planets and their moons. We're biased against it because it's always been the Moon to us, but aliens would likely classify Earth and the Moon as a binary planet system

Anyway what I'm trying to say is that your teacher was probably an alien

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skilliard7@reddit

I can anecdotally confirm this happens. In highschool, I think it was pre-calc, I found a more efficient way to solve a problem, was told I can't do it that way because it wasn't taught that way yet, and to instead redo it and show my work the way they taught it

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NotHandledWithCare@reddit

No, I’ve had teachers power trip over something as small as this before.

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Shamrokc@reddit

I mean, I was a snot as a kid but I don’t think I actually liked any teachers until I started college.

That being said, my high school was in the news multiple times due to narcotics abuse and faculty shuffling to avoid investigations. People who act like teachers aren’t on some weird bullshit clearly either bury their heads in sand or don’t interact with public schooling.

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sancredo@reddit

I'm still pissed I got points deducted in biology class when calculating the genomic prevalence of a specific allele through three generations under a specific pressure, because I did not use the predefined formula they teached us and instead calculated everything step by step. "How can I know you didn't just copy the result from someone else?" Follow the math bitch, everything's there!!!

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Powwer_Orb13@reddit

I remember inventing my own formula to solve a given problem type in math. I don't remember what the formula was and it likely wouldn't have worked on certain edge cases. But it worked on all the example we were given on tests and exercises. But because the formula was an all-in-one step on my calculator and thus didn't show any work, let alone the work that we were being taught, I would often get marked down for it. Actually that's me throughout all of math classes. I would do the math on my head or only jot down numbers to remember them without writing down my process, and have the correct output, with no process shown. Or I would brute force more basic algebra type questions when those were being introduced.

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Shamrokc@reddit

My best friend can attest to my asshole-ness 20 years ago, I had an algebra teacher who would fail me on my homework/tests for using pen instead of pencil.

“If you make mistakes, you need to be able to erase them”. I had a test come back with all correct answers, all work shown, 0/100 for using pen. So I started using red pen so she couldn’t correct my work. I was gonna fail anyways, might as well be annoying about it.

As an adult I don’t really give a shit about stupid instructions and just do what I’m told (as long as it’s in writing). Teenager me took things a lot more personally and didn’t have bills to worry about.

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rokomotto@reddit

Idk man. I once got sent to the school office with my mum present because I was writing my o's incorrectly (anti-clockwise instead of clockwise).

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patrickstarismyhero@reddit

They didn't want you to confuse the other kids though. The other kids need the simplified slowed down version very slowly little bits at a time or they get too confused. Having a student throwing out these extremely advanced and disturbing concepts like negative numbers overwhelms and distracts the rest of the class

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ToMyOtherFavoriteWW@reddit

I had an English teacher in 9th grade who insisted the KKK had division in the civil war (formed in 1867) and that Harriet Beacher Stowe was a slave (she confused Harriet Tubman), and I corrected her both times, and she went fucking nuts. I was written up for insubordination each time and the teacher was allowed to kick me out of class for 1 week each time (I had to appeal to the vice principal as this teacher wanted full suspension from school). She held a "pop quiz" each day I was suspended from her class that consisted of being in the class and that's it, and it tanked my grade from an A to a D-.

This was 25 years ago. I moved on and am successful, have a graduate degree and a fantastic career, but I will not lie, I will never forgive her for this.

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Markyloko@reddit

you are very lucky to not have experienced a bad teacher

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rhino_shit_gif@reddit

Trust me I have

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eshwar007@reddit

This literally pretty much happened to me. Just emphasizing, I was no gifted kid, I just happen to have an older sibling so I picked up some math ahead of time by listening to / watching him. I was doing division ahead of schedule (actually it was gonna be same year but later lesson), and I accidentally shared with one of my mates the same. Word spread in class that I was some math genius (I was like 8 years~ old cant remember, kids are stupid), and my math teacher isolated me, made me explain why I knew that, where I was from (I was new to the school, new to the city) which school I went to before, asked me if I feel like I know everything. She had me come to the blackboard to try and solve some complicated long division bullshit, shamed me for not being able to do that, told me “see u cant do this, stop acting like you know everything”, AND swatted my palms with a ruler until they were red lmao.

I went home thinking my parents would do something about this but I think they just said something equivalent to “deal with it”. Turns out I am still dealing with it after like 20 years.

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Ghostiestboi@reddit

You didn't need to call me out like that

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flockyboi@reddit

You say that yet I did have teachers and parents just like this. To say it's inaccurate because 'most' wouldn't care is to erase the fact that it can and does happen to a lot of kids and wrecks their enjoyment of school and learning. This kinda shit is part of why I ended up hating all math classes despite being seen as 'gifted' or advanced at them

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shepard_pie@reddit

I mean, I've personally experienced something similar.

Most of the time, you're right, you get a non-caring response, or a "neat!" at best, but occasionally you will find a shitty teacher who cannot let it go. I used "A Modest Proposal" for an Eighth grade essay once and the teacher was adamant that it was too complex for me to have understood and used and therefore I was guilty of cheating somehow. It was a thing, and I had to rewrite the essay using "more appropriate" sources. Thankfully my parents were on my side, but I am still pissed about it 20 years later lol.

In hindsight, my high school LA teachers were much better about this, one of them even let me write an essay on "Brave New World" as the final journal entry of John the Savage, giving me a 97 and noting that it was always a pleasure to read my work.

Crazy how much of my interactions with teachers have stuck with me, now that I think about it.

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Endulos@reddit

The amount of times in grades 1 and 2 I had random fucking teachers snap at me and accuse me of lying was just baffling. I was an advanced reader as a kid, and I absolutely LOVED reading. I devoured books.

I was reading on a fourth grade level back then, but for some bizarre fucking reason, teachers refused to accept it. Teachers would randomly come up to me, thrust a book I'd never seen before into my hands and demand I read a page, and when I nailed it, they just got pissed and would spout shit like, "You're lying, you can't read", "Kids don't like to read", "Someone read you that book".

I have no idea why assholes in that school were so adamant that I lied about that shit.

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InhumaneBreakfast@reddit

I remember graduating from little tree house books to the cool science textbook type ones, my favorite was the rainforest one.

I was HYPED when my teacher said she would read it aloud in class, but when my teacher began listing the order of the layers of the rainforest, she got them mixed up. I told her and she said I was wrong and then the very next page, it proved me right. I stood up and yelled and pointed "I TOLD YOU SO." Off to time out.

I distinctly remember getting in a lot of trouble and being confused why, and my teacher was visibly pissed. I also remember her saying "I told you so" in a high mocking voice trying to get me to understand why it's wrong to say that to people, and that's it's hurtful/bratty/whatever. But 7 year old me still didn't quite understand until I got home and talked to my parents about it.

The teacher was generally very kind and skilled, and i have nothing bad to say about my 2 years with her. Teachers are human, too.

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InhumaneBreakfast@reddit

I LITERALLY had to read A Modest Proposal in 8th grade Advanced English and we had a major segment on satire for it. I wonder what year this was? Mine was 2008

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rhino_shit_gif@reddit

I think teachers, in the best of times, can be great mentors and advisors in your life. Society has removed a lot of the guidance of older men in other men’s lives (assuming you’re a man), and you see your teachers often more than your family members nowadays. Unfortunately, those teachers are incredibly rare. Many are regular people who got the degree as the safe option (I may have to worry about that myself in some time). The fact that happened to you is really unfortunate. You ran into someone who reacted badly and probably from a place of insecurity. It sounds like you found other people who appreciated your work more in high school, much like me. Unfortunately, people working with younger kids can be like that.

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bigbang4@reddit

I have had this exact conversation about negative numbers in elementary school. Your talking out of your ass. So many teachers who teach elementary school have the opinion of OP's teacher. Idk why teachers have this boner of dont say it if we didnt learn it. It will confuse others.

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NSawsome@reddit

Nah same thing happened to me I just didn’t feel about it so I didn’t get written up

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TehSmitty04@reddit

I actually had an experience like Anon tho. Teacher genuinely wrote me up for being too smart in, like, 2nd grade. Mind you, that teacher was a bitch and nobody liked her, not even her colleagues, but the point stands

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BiscottiCivil8596@reddit

the story is inaccurate

if you're ahead, they don't care

I dunno, bud, the same fucking shit happened to me in seventh grade. We'd just learned square roots and were doing a worksheet test. One of the questions was √-1. I answered i. Got marked down with a red pen note "When we see unanswerable questions like this, we answer with 'NaN: Not a Number'." and an infuriating little smiley face. I take the paper to her and say "No, this isn't wrong, the square root of negative one is i, by definition.", she says "You haven't learned that yet, so whether it's right or not, it's wrong."

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wsdpii@reddit

This happened to my little brother because of me. He wanted help with his math homework in second grade, they had a ton of questions like 3+_=7 and other basic ass shit (i was on my summer break from college as a physics student). I get the point, but I decided to give my little bro some advanced knowledge. I taught him how to solve those problems algebraically by solving for the blank. He understood it immediately.

But his teacher was really mad about it, and called my parents to ask who taught him that. I didn't get what the problem was. He got the right answer every time, and he did it the mathematically correct way.

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Guglielmowhisper@reddit

I've had vindictive teachers who would get aggressive because you showed them up. Never underestimate a powertrip.

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MeatTheGreatest@reddit

"If you're ahead, they don't care"

That is so true, but some will care too much. You're a fucking kid.

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Hanza-Malz@reddit

Story sounds very accurate. Had the exact same scenario happen to me, just without the punishment and the raging.

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BloodSuckingToga@reddit

you say this like it's true

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roehnin@reddit

the teacher wouldn’t have given a fuck

I did have a parent-teacher meeting in primary telling me to stop raising additional details as it confused the other students who still needed to learn the basics.

This example seems extreme, but some do care.

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SiggurdArda@reddit

The funniest thing I ever encountered: when green text is actually represents true and real life scenario that happens with a lot of people, and comment calling it out to be a ragebait is exactly this - ragebait. Well played, buddy, well played!

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MajorLeeScrewed@reddit

It’s not inaccurate so much as “a complete fabrication”.

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Sonofpasta@reddit

I was shouted at for quietly going ahead, which resulted in me not wanting to do my homeworks from that point, this was in early years of school tho I'm sure that didn't affect me at all (:

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drunkinmidget@reddit

Fuck dude, you first nail the ragebait ID then hit me with an even harder, more accurate ragebait.

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ChadMutants@reddit

fake story indeed, at seven there is no way you dont know negatives

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mogley1992@reddit

That's exactly it, classicly neurodivergent before teachers understood as much as they do now (which still ain't much) so i did very well in some classes and really badly in others.

Nobody gave a fuck about me doing well at anything, they just took things like me not being able to tell time and tie my shoe laces, paired with my bad handwriting and wanted to hold me back for it.

I ended up moving country where schools are a year behind so i had to repeat year 6 anyway, then went to an english school there where ages were the same as the uk, and sat proficiency tests and skipped year 7.

Then I'd get shit for "you should know this by now" and those fuckers were talking about holding me back before i dropped out.

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EfficientRaisin1024@reddit

Nice ragebait I’ll keep it in mind

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Barqing@reddit

I had a substitute science teacher tell me with absolute certainty that oxygen is not flammable. “We breathe that, it can’t be flammable”. Just because someone got qualified to become a teacher does not mean they’re smart

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Waity5@reddit

It isn't flammable, as flammability is the ability to burn in oxygen, and oxygen can't burn in oxygen

If flammable meant "able to create a flame under some circumstances", then yes oxygen is flammable, but so is concrete (and basically every chemical) because it burns with dioxygen difluoride

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Rogue2555@reddit

Yes except I can almost guarantee you that was not the thought process of that guy's teacher when they said oxygen is not flammable.

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MrBingly@reddit

The thought process was, "oxygen itself can't be lit on fire, so it's not flammable." Which is correct. The teacher is right. If oxygen were flammable then the air would be set on fire.

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Rogue2555@reddit

According to the first commenter, the teacher did not explain any of that, and his only justification for the claim was "Ayo we breathe that!!" Just because he reached the correct conclusion doesn't change that his thought process was flawed.

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evermuzik@reddit

if oxygen isnt flammable then water is, for sure, not wet

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BingBongFyourWife@reddit

So oxygen feeds fires, but itself isn’t flammable?

Like I know that fire requires something to burn, a spark, and oxygen to feed that

The whole air doesn’t catch on fire when you have a campfire so yeah I guess it isn’t but how does it feed a fire then

How does this work I’ve never thought about this 😟

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DoktorTim@reddit

The chemical reaction of combustion takes a carbohydrate (A CxHy molecule, like methane (CH4)) AND oxygen to produce heat, water and carbon dioxyde. Without oxygen, you don't have combustion. More oxygen ensures that everything is well-balanced, so burns better (Too much CH and not enough O, incomplete combustion)

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Rogueshadow_32@reddit

Burning or more specifically combustion is an oxidising reaction where fuels are heated to react with an oxidant to produce an exothermic reaction. Heating without an oxidant present will result in pyrolysis in which the compounds of the fuel will break down into other things without “burning”, for example charcoal production and the Maillard reaction. Pyrolysis needs to have heat constantly applied from an outside source whereas once started with a viable fuel combustion will continue by itself as the reaction itself can provide the heat needed.

a common example of combustion is hydrocarbons (wood, oil, natural gas etc) + oxygen create H2O, CO2 and other various wastes. In this reaction the oxygen isn’t burned but it’s still very much consumed by the reaction, and in enclosed spaces can be fully consumed, killing the reaction

Confusingly it doesn’t actually require specifically oxygen despite the name of the reaction, it just needs something that can cause the fuel to lose electrons (oxidise), an example of this is burning hydrogen in a chlorine environment results in combustion rather than pyrolysis despite a lack of oxygen.

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BingBongFyourWife@reddit

Hell yeah

Thank you dude

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VicisSubsisto@reddit

Can you cite any dictionary which defines flammable as such? None of the ones I referred to say "the ability to burn in oxygen", just some variation of "tendency to burn/combust/create flame".

If you're working in chemical hazard labeling there's reason to distinguish oxidizers from flammable substances, but even then, "We breathe that, it can't be flammable" is still flawed logic.

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AaronsAaAardvarks@reddit

Dictionaries get far too much credit for containing the actual meaning of words. Their real use is when you hear a word and have no clue what it means. They're not really for understanding context or deeper meaning beyond a brief superficial introduction to a word.

If you've ever heard a word used in a sentence and understood what the speaker meant, then a dictionary has nothing to offer.

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VicisSubsisto@reddit

If you've ever heard a word used in a sentence and understood what the speaker meant, then a dictionary has nothing to offer.

This could apply to any reference material. When you and someone else can't agree what something means, some sort of official source is useful to settle the argument.

The word "flammable" in a sentence, 9 times out of 10, means something like "If you add fire to it, you get more fire" or "If you add it to a mixture, that mixture becomes more likely to catch fire"; oxygen fits both definitions.

Also: water is wet.

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AaronsAaAardvarks@reddit

https://www.labxchange.org/library/items/lb:LabXchange:b03fbe36:html:1

https://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/injury_prevention/children/toolkits/fire/docs/home_oxygen_fire_safety.pdf

https://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/chemical/8967

The word "flammable" in a sentence, 9 times out of 10, means something like "If you add fire to it, you get more fire" or "If you add it to a mixture, that mixture becomes more likely to catch fire"; oxygen fits both definitions.

I completely agree. But we’re talking about the context of a science class. A dictionary is useful here when you’re debating with a friend whether or not flammable means “capable of asexual reproduction”. But when you’re getting into the weeds of a technical definition, a standard dictionary just doesn’t cut it.

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VicisSubsisto@reddit

True. And you brought sources!

Your other comment here hits it on the head. It seems we can both agree that the teacher is not doing his or her job.

I'd argue that even in a science class, or rather, especially in a science class, "Oxygen isn't flammable, because we can breathe it" is less correct than "Oxygen is flammable". It does not explain the relationship between fuel and oxidizer. But I think we're in agreement in a general sense.

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Waity5@reddit

Yeah it's certainly flawed logic by the teacher. You could replace the nitrogen in the air with propane and breathe it fine (though it would explode quite easily)

Dictionaries give a breif meaning, so it's not surprising they don't say "burn in oxygen" because that's a somewhat niche situation. Though, the first line of the Combustibility and flammability wikipedia article does say "A combustible material is a material that can burn (i.e., sustain a flame) in air under certain conditions"

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VicisSubsisto@reddit

The Wikipedia article also doesn't reference oxygen except when explaining changes in mass during combustion.

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AaronsAaAardvarks@reddit

It isn't flammable, as flammability is the ability to burn in oxygen, and oxygen can't burn in oxygen

This sounds like it's technically correct, but to just say "no, oxygen is not flammable" in a science class is the sign of a truly terrible teacher. Because it requires redefining flammable away from the way it's most commonly used to a more scientifically correct, but less intutitive one.

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jridge98@reddit

It's an oxidizer.

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Sbotkin@reddit

Idk what "science teacher" is, but they are definitely not qualified to be a physics or chemistry teacher.

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Bill_Murrie@reddit

You should have listened to them

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ReturnRadio@reddit

Except he was right, oxygen isn't typically flammable

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forgettfulthinker@reddit

Can you stop editing greentexts

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AustralianSilly@reddit (OP)

I didn’t edit anything

I friend of mine sent this to me on discord, I downloaded it and posted it here

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forgettfulthinker@reddit

Your friend is editing the greentexts, the one you sent yesterday or the day before is also an edit

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AustralianSilly@reddit (OP)

Can you send me the original?

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forgettfulthinker@reddit

I dont have them on me but both of them can be found in this subreddit

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AustralianSilly@reddit (OP)

I’ll do some digging, give me a second

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TheItsCornKid@reddit

And?

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PartyClock@reddit

"No child left behind" turns out was designed to leave a lot of children behind

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Radomila@reddit

Unironically same. I liked to do all my math excersises in advance and got told that it’s wrong and should wait until teacher gives permission to learn things.

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HamBlamBlam@reddit

When you pay teachers less than janitors, you don’t get quality. It’s an important job, it would be nice if it attracted talented people.

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Isphus@reddit

And how exactly are you going to pay them more?

Its illegal to scale by adding more students to each class, even if you compensate with extra tools.

Its illegal to let teachers teach outside of class (or rather, it won't count as a "real" class).

Meanwhile in South Korea in 2020 they got teachers making more than star athletes. How? They just deregulated. Imagine you could attend math class in one school, chemistry at another, biology at another, etc. That's what the students started doing. Combine that with online classes, and the good teachers started getting some serious money.

The government and unions work REEEEEALLY hard to make sure bad teachers get paid more, and good teachers get paid less.

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throughcracker@reddit

Taxes, you lunatic.

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Isphus@reddit

Ah yes. "Just tax the peasants more" has never gone wrong, ever.

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throughcracker@reddit

This isn't the medieval era. We can afford it.

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Isphus@reddit

Suuure you can. Never mind the Laffer Curve. Or the specialization effect, where the more things the government does the worse it does them. Or that if you make it mandatory to be done one way it will never improve.

Or we can just deregulate.

Here in Brazil we have unofficial schools called "cursinho" that exist solely to help you pass the college entry exam. Due to being unofficial, they are completely deregulated and care only about results.

Those are the best schools by far. Also the ones where the teachers get paid the most.

I went to one where we had 200-400 students per class. How? Teacher had a microphone. And they keep a secondary teacher on standby 24/7 to answer questions.

They also didn't care about degrees. We had an engineer teaching physics. A physician teaching biology. A sociologist teaching history. All were great teachers, but the ministry of education would never let someone without a math degree teach math.

The best engineering college in the country has 1/3 of its students come from this one unofficial school.

Best part? Tuition was like 25% higher than the average cost of a public school student in my state. Other cursinhos have comparable results with lower costs of course.

God forbid we do what works instead of what some politician came up with a hundred years ago.

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Ozuge@reddit

No one sane is going to look at Korea and think it's a system to be copied. The reason tutors and teachers get paid in Korea is because they fetishize getting into the big universities as the be-all-end-all of a childs life, going to school for over 12 hours a day plus weekends, bruh.

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CaloricDumbellIntake@reddit

Teachers are like that everywhere in the world, better pay unfortunately doesn’t fix this

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snollygoster1@reddit

Near me teachers aren’t paid well but no position outside of administration at the school is either. Janitors, cafeteria staff, and IT are not paid a living wage.

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Radomila@reddit

That is not true where I live.

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Mmaximuskeksimus@reddit

Yes but the issue is the current teachers are so bad they deserve to live in squalor and work for peanuts

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HamBlamBlam@reddit

This is a very Republican sentence.

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WhoRoger@reddit

Teachers are one thing, but if the whole system curicullum is made just to pass tests and teach kids to shut up and listen, even theoretically good teachers can't do much.

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mcj1ggl3@reddit

More like if you put anyone in a position of authority they will find a way to control and capitalize as much as they can because it’s the only thing they CAN control

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NCD_Lardum_AS@reddit

You pay better you attract better people.

Then you don't have to hire the shitty applicants because you have enough good ones.

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BigBootyBuff@reddit

Yeah where I live teachers are paid well and I still suffered from power tripping assholes who want to make learning torture just because they can. No matter what occupation, if it has even a miniscule amount of power someone can hold over others, there's gonna be some people drawn to it for just that reason.

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bitt3n@reddit

How this happened:

1) politicians seeking re-election don't want to raise taxes

2) teachers unions play the long game

As a result, politicians give the unions big pensions (because that become's the next guy's problem) and make teachers essentially unfireable. In return, unions agree to lousy pay.

This attracts the kind of people who (a) can't get more money elsewhere and (b) consider being unfireable a tantalizing perk.

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Knighty_Gentleman@reddit

This is so acurate and well sumarized to the point of being hurtful to read.

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DontBuyMeGoldGiveBTC@reddit

I, on the other hand, was noticed to be bored at math class so they took me to the hallway and the school director started showing me more advanced material. Like summing more digits and stuff. Didn't last a lot cuz we had to move out. Didn't have much success with math teachers later on and didn't learn much math past 12 years old so I don't know anything of the high-school math stuff.

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Rogue2555@reddit

Yeah I got berated for that too. It was a teacher I really liked so I felt super betrayed. I kinda understand it a little bit now though, what she told me at the time was she doesnt want me solving stuff before she explains it so I dont build bad habits or get used to solving in an incorrect way or whatever. But its not like those questions had any complicated steps or needed me to show my work in a specific manner. I think she just made a big deal out of it because she didn't want to set the precedent that thats fine.

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Sillvverbulletts69@reddit

I totally believe this story because a very similar thing happened to me

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AHxCode@reddit

Have you thought of the rational thing to visit the teacher in her old age and belittle her?

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vmar98@reddit

Reminds me of that one time I failed an English test, not because the answers were wrong, but because my answers weren't the exact translations written down in the chapter we were on. I'm still salty about that one

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brotov@reddit

I remember once in Grade 9 we were doing the bullshit (2x)(3x) factorials bullshit. I couldn’t for the LIFE of me understand why the teacher was teaching us to “guess” the answer.

Went home and dad taught me the quadratic formula so I wouldn’t have to guess. We had a test the next day.

Got 0/10, even though all my answers were correct. The reasoning was that we hadn’t learned that yet and I wasn’t allowed to use it for the test.

Lost all faith in the education system that day.

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RacinRandy83x@reddit

I got in trouble in 3 grade because I argued with the teacher when she said ‘let’s say there are 5 book shelves in this room’ and I told her there were 3

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WantonKerfuffle@reddit

Teacher: How many phases of matter are there?

Me: 5!

Teacher: *breathes in*

Me: solid, liquid, gas, plasma, Bose-Einstein condensate!

Teacher: ok, let's focus on the first three for now.

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Maouitippitytappin@reddit

Wait, that’s not 5!, that’s only 5

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WantonKerfuffle@reddit

Neeeeeeeerd

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throughcracker@reddit

See, that's a good way to handle the gifted kid. Acknowledge them for being correct, but redirect them and the class's attention to the subject matter.

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brtdee@reddit

Nerd

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BingBongFyourWife@reddit

🤣🤣🤣

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jeffislearning@reddit

imagine how the asian kid feels times 10

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throwawayskinlessbro@reddit

I’ll never stop feeling mad about the argument my teacher in high school had with me. She was describing “infinite” and instead of numbers, or even space for all we know, she used… the ocean.

And then tried to push back several times like she was correct because “ocean big”.

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access547@reddit

Whilst this may be fake and gay I had a similar experience where the teacher was showing us why we use certain written methods to find answers instead of doing it in our heads. She said "you can't do 6x19 in your head, so we write it down!" She probably should have chosen a better example because I was immediately like "yes you can it's 114" and she told me to stop being ridiculous and said i couldn't possibly do that in my head and sent me outside. Power tripping teachers are beefing with 10 year olds all the time.

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twofacetoo@reddit

I swear, either they start insecure and that's why they want to teach children, so they can be confident and in control, or they teach children and become confident over time, but either way the result is the same: absolute flabbergasted shock when a child knows more than they ought to, or knows something the teacher hasn't taught them yet. They react as if the child is cheating on them with another teacher or something, 'how did you possibly learn that? I didn't teach it to you!'

These types of people are always the same, achingly insecure and desperate for control, throwing their weight around at kids because they think the kids won't ever fight back or call them out on anything.

I remember back in high school when I was about 12 years old, we were using a graphics program to create images for a class project, I accidentally did something while monkeying around with the image settings, I hit the undo key but I thought it looked cool, and after a while I wanted to do it again, but didn't know how to do it again. I asked my teacher how to do it, he said 'oh you can't do that with this program'. I replied that you can, I'd done it not long ago (and not even in a spiteful 'CAN TOO!' way, just a very calm 'no, you can, I did it earlier'), and his response was to, in an instant, change to shouting in my face that I was wrong and how dare I call him a liar like that, while the entire class turned to look at me being yelled at over this thing.

...all because I figured out an option the teacher didn't and he refused to let a student know more about the program than he did, when he knew barely anything about it.

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Ssesamee@reddit

“Human Calculators” wouldn’t exist if that teacher was even remotely correct. And literally anything “high-level” frequently uses mental math.

That actually genuinely bothers me just reading that, she needs her hubris to be put in line before she tries giving actual life lessons to children.

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access547@reddit

I think that one moment set my education back significantly, it made me so bitter towards teachers and maths in general. It's a shame because I love maths as an adult now, but I really struggled with it in school. It's funny how formative small moments like that are for kids

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ShadowleCatto@reddit

I relate to this so much, mental math was always one of my strongest skills when I was little and it was a constant battle with teachers who thought I was cheating on all of my assignments

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Efficient-Sea-1983@reddit

This is basically what happened with a lot of "gifted" children. Anyone who wasn't genuinely retarded was called gifted and most of these kids couldn't tell the difference.

You can be the most handsome person in a burn ward, yet it still doesn't make your looks worth anything in the real world.

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ItsMichaelRay@reddit

In grade 11, we were learning the quadratic formula. Some questions led to having to calculate the square root of a negative number, to which the teacher told us to just put an X or NA or whatever.

I used the fact the square root of negative 1 was i to actually complete the equation.

He marked it correct. He was one of my favourite teachers.

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Turbulent-Willow2156@reddit

Integers? ?

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Saughtvol@reddit

“Why do their bones look more like enlarged dog bones than like reptiles and their skulls are really dense” questioning dinosaurs got me a week in the principals office.

Boy that in school suspension really did me favors to not grow up confronting and questioning authority figures /s

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BowBeforeBroccoli@reddit

seems fake but this shit happened to me

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BoiTarantado@reddit

Growing up my step father liked gifting me "maths for dummies" Books or similarly related. I often returned to the "word problems for dummies" Book. It had funny bits in it.

Meaning i was always ahead no matter what was being taught.

Now picture the utter look of disgust a 45 year old man can make discovering that i didnt need to slowly solve an equation or word problem or fail maths class because i could, quite literally, just SEE the answer by simply reading the problem.

Was sent to detention for "cheating." Was almost expelles because i spoke against the teacher in class. Was punished at home, ESPECIALLY by my dumb fuck step father for the same reasons despite me saying that i actually read through the books he gave me.

The trauma still lives in me today and im otherwise unable to solve maths properly anymore.

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evermuzik@reddit

anon discovers misandry

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yeezusKeroro@reddit

Teacher is right how can you have less than zero? Negative numbers are a psyop

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Automatic_Humor_8167@reddit

oh no i wasnt recognized for my 2nd grade math skills in 1st grade

guess ill be a whiny bitch forever

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HawasYT@reddit

When boiled down like that any trauma can sound ridiculous

"Wah, I was closed in a locker for an hour, now I can't breathe whenever I'm in an elevator"

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FalseTautology@reddit

I mean, not any trauma.

Waah I was held in a viet cong hell hole torture prison for three years until I murdered my way out and crawled on bloody knees for two weeks before passing out due to dehydration and was found by allies waaaah

Doesn't quite work.

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lefeuet_UA@reddit

Lol at you immediately pulling the Vietcong torture chambers to prove your point, guess something milder would shatter your argument?

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FalseTautology@reddit

The point was that severe incidents of trauma can't be comically reduced and simplified so... Yes, something milder would fail to make that point. Cool analysis.

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HawasYT@reddit

You forgot to add the part where because of this trauma you have a meltdown when you don't have a waterbottle with you, get triggered by wet red paint and can't watch Jackie Chan films. Now that would be silly, no?

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FalseTautology@reddit

I don't think so. After certain intense traumas I think that any unfortunate neurological ticks are tragic, not silly. You'd be lucky if your only triggers were those.

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pot_of_water@reddit

This isn't not being recognized, it's a teacher going out of their way to teach legitimate misinformation. Mistakes like this from teachers have been studied extensively and can permanently alter a student's academic trajectory. Maybe this specific story is fake but this kind of stuff does happen and it's difficult to overstate how much of an impact it can have.

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BingBongFyourWife@reddit

🤣🤣🤣

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vibeLifer@reddit

You lack the empathy to comprehend what this post is actually about.

[-]

Huuballawick@reddit

Still mad about that one time I got every answer wrong on my spelling test because I capitalized every letter.

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Jumper2002@reddit

Bruh wtf Im mad too now

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barista-chan@reddit

Going on 20 years and I still won’t forgive my 5th grade teacher for docking points on a graph I made because the y-axis increased by increments of 250 instead of 500 or 1000 like everyone else (she said it made it too difficult for others to understand). Not my fault everyone else sucks!

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kunell@reddit

What was the teacher going to say for the answer then? Why ask this question??

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Musashi1596@reddit

>op uses 'math' but also centigrade

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Unfair_Development52@reddit

One time the teacher asked the class very angrily who peed on the floor, and I knowing full well I didnt do it, yelled out, "I didnt do it!" And she got mad at me and i cried

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xilanthro@reddit

It's been 60 years & I still feel the rage. Keep it inside until you pass the background check, brother...

[-]

FailureToReason@reddit

anon obsesses for the billionth time on a fictionalised memory of a trivial incident in his childhood

It's been nearly two decades, anons, what you were in highschool is irrelevant now and nobody else gives enough of s shit to remember.

[-]

Aguaiswater@reddit

The banking concept of education, “depositing”, is set up to assume a teacher knows all and a student knows nothing about a subject. The teacher bestows knowledge, or deposits, into the student instead of working with what they already know to build a students confidence in a subject. It kills curiosity, and in this instance, it gives OP a valid reason to dislike school. It’s all by design to keep people from thinking outside of the information prescribed to them and some people boomerang the opposite way by latching onto unproven ideas just because they inherently disagree with established information, or reality.

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lagrandesgracia@reddit

I studied in a small school. All through primary and middle school we did a spelling bee competition for each class year. Each classroom would have a small team comprised of the best of the bunch. I'd never paid attention to it because I never really bothered learning english (don't live in an english-speaking country). In the last year of middle school I started playing more narrative videogames and watching YouTube a lot (it'd just come out), so my english had a great leap forward.

FF to the classroom "play off". Im breezing throught it. The word is "squeeze". I fucking spell it correctly and the piece of shit teacher says im incorrect. She says I said "c" instead of "z". I pleaded with her yet to no avail. I'm still salty about it. I could have won that spelling bee easily.

[-]

bregulor@reddit

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beppedealwithit@reddit

Feel u dude.. in 2006 I got accused of cheating an home assigned essay about what aspects one can globally expand to describe any given country (parameters like economic, demographic, social aspects, education level, geographic characteristics, history, culture etc). Given my age (roughly 13) I did a damn good job, I remember every relevant piece of knowledge flowing oj the paper like it was nothing. I ended up delivering a 5-6 pages essay of which I was extremely proud of. 2 days later the entire class received notes, some good some bad, I didn't. The professor, an old lady, very old school, called me out in front of everyone about allegedly cheating by using some professional's work I found online or whatever. I remember I froze thinking she was joking, but no, she even wrote me a disciplinary note for her baseless accusations (in my school with 3 of those you were kicked out). After this brief scene unfolded in front of me I got up and started arguing to defend the legitimacy of my essay and that for an entire week I didn't even have internet working at home because Vodafone had issues lately (I live in the countryside and my only connection to internet was a usb pendrive wit h a sim card with 5gb of traffic per month!!!). I refused categorically to admit any wrongdoing even when she proposed to cancel the note if I had to admit I cheated, then I went home and when my mom asked how was the essay I had to explain all the mess, I wasn't asking to be protected by her or my father, she's not the type and I'm not that soft, but even so she was visibly shocked and asked to talk privately with the professor. The day after she went to school, she's very well mannered and never shout, she stated clearly she's not the kind who defend her son from teachers and totally respect their authority BUT, she went to give testimony of 1- internet not be accessible at all during an entire week, let alone the day I wrote the essay 2- SHE SAW ME WRITING IT! The teacher took a day to think about it and came calling me from a different class we were having to talk to me, she apologised and proceeded to give me a 9/10 for the work (for grammar error if I recall correctly), her attitude towards me and everyone who was putting real effort innto her assignment changed. I enjoyed her challenging us intellectually and recognised when true respect was felt towards me and other students. That's it, thanks for reading it:)

[-]

TehSmitty04@reddit

I had the exact same experience!! Glad to know it wasn't just me

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ClovisLowell@reddit

This is probably the most fake greentext I've read yet lmao

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Hunteractive@reddit

I did maths a level in the UK and I was good at it and they said I should do the Further Maths course so I tried it

first question was what is the square root of 9? easy! 3 or -3!

now what's the square root of -3?

you can't square root negative numbers??

teacher: this is where we introduce imaginary numbers!

...

I walked out immediately and back into the regarded maths class

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SolidusAbe@reddit

meanwhile 6yo me changed all the - symbols in the workbook to + because subtraction was too hard for me and i didnt think the teacher would notice if i did addition instead

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konohasaiyajin@reddit

200 IQ play, teach hook him up with give half credit for that one.

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abandonedDelirium@reddit

reminds me of my reception (uk equivalent of kindergarten) teacher getting mad at my parents because i already knew how to read before i started school

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smithridley@reddit

The real lesson was to obey stupid rules from authority figures

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whydoyouevenreadthis@reddit

That's just a stupid question. What is the class supposed to glean from learning that the answer is, for the purposes of this class, zero? Why not just make it "20 - 20"? It's obvious even to a 7-year-old that if 20 - 20 = 0, 20 subtracted by any number ≥ 20 is at most 0. It's like telling the kids to solve an equation with non-real solutions and when someone finds these solutions, saying "No, you can't take the square root of a negative number" or something. Just change the problem so that all solutions are real.

Maths questions should be asked so that they're appropriate to the current level in the first place instead of dumbing down harder questions and commiting maths fraud. Imagine if you went through all of high school thinking you can't divide by zero, and in the first semester of uni you're told that actually, you can.

I agree with Anon and I would also be mad at this dumb ass teacher.

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amrakkarma@reddit

Not sure about at what age, but it might be good to teach that 20-25 is undefined if we are considering only the positive integer. And it's also super simple to prove! Any non-negative integer added to 25 can only make it bigger. If a kid is gifted probably can understand the abstraction.

I think a good teacher could found a way to explain in a simple way the number systems can be defined and extended by the set of operations you can do with them (the positive integer are not closed under subtraction) so simply 20-25 is the (yet undefined) number that added to 25 gets as a result 20, and that it's perfectly natural to look for set of numbers that are closed under the defined operations, but it can always happen that some operations will end up outside of the number system.

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whydoyouevenreadthis@reddit

Except the correct answer isn't "undefined" (which would probably be confusing for an average 7-year-old, anyway, and you're mistakenly assuming Anon is gifted for knowing what a negative number is), but "0", or at least that's what the teacher told him to write down.

Making it more complicated than it is and restricting the problem to non-negative integers (without the class even having a notion of what a negative number or a non-integer would be) is better than just saying the anwer is 0, because it's at least not wrong, but it's not ideal, either. Either teach the kids what a negative number is as soon as such a question comes up, or just change it to 20 - 20 if the answer really is supposed to be 0.

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Doomie_bloomers@reddit

Yeah, Anon was a little shite, who didn't understand domains and left his during the calculation. Oops.

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JimJohnman@reddit

This same shit happened to me all the time. In first grade they had our whole class just count as high as they could, everyone else got to like 15 meanwhile I had to be stopped at 480.

I was obsessed with astronomy and yet when we did a project on space all they did was give us circles to colour in as planets. No learning, just art. And not one other kid got my "uranus" jokes.

Bullshit institution. Glad I pissed on their floor. I got that school in so much trouble with how regularly I'd escape that they had to pay to install a better fence and security system.

Assholes.

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beruon@reddit

Had a similar story. I went to school being able to read because I loved reading. In first grade I was reading a hungarian classic, "Under the Crescent Moon". Its a classic and a mandatory read in later years. In reading class, the teacher took it away since I was reading that instead of spelling out letters from the book since... I knew how to read. This happened a few times, so they called my mum in. Next scene: My mum flipping out to the teacher of why my book was taken away. Teacher doesn't believe that I can really read and I'm just slacking off. Mum makes me read a page from the book. I do it with perfect pronounciation etc. Teacher says its still an issue and I'm distrupting class (by reading in silence???) Mum gets tired of explaining it to the dumbass, looks at me sternly and says "we will discuss it at home". We get out of school, she tskes me for icecream and tells me to ignore the stupid teacher. I ended up switching schools a year later lmao. Thanks mun, you are the real one.

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Distinct-Nerve2556@reddit

My primary school did this , and in secondary school the hit us with "you'll learn this next year" and the next year say we should have learnt it last year

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littlediddlemanz@reddit

The parents are like 10 times worse lmao. True idiots

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Theguywithoutanyname@reddit

This literally happened to me. Was told to just "write zero". Bizzare. The education system is a joke.

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Biolume_Eater@reddit

The pain of autism, i remember my grade 1 teacher always calling me a “smart alek” and punishing me

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How2chair@reddit

Say what you will about to kill a mockingbird but they actually made a point of this in the book.

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HistoricalInternal@reddit

The American schooling system, everyone.

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bitt3n@reddit

sounds like anon had a positive experience (if against his will)

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SmoothPimp85@reddit

A few years later, Anon learned that math is about adding and subtracting letters (WTF), after which he experienced enlightenment and joined the rest of the children in the class, mercifully spared by the state education system the opportunity to compete with Chinese and Indian teenagers for STEM graduation in top universities.

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TheNifflerKing@reddit

I did this too! Didn't end like that did but there was some lesser confusion for a minute.

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Jusaboiii@reddit

My English teacher laughed and didn't accept "overgrowth" as an actual word in High School, still seething over it.

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Vo112d@reddit

no teacher would ever say "just write 0 so you dont confuse anyone"

why would they even write it down if the teacher 1 minute earlier said its next years topic

in todays psyop anon larps as a smart kid and wonders what couldve been if he didnt eat all those crayons

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