Hey Pandas, What Is The Strangest Thing A Teacher Told Or Taught You?

I had a teacher tell my 6th grade class that the Bubonic plague was because God was mad at the people in Europe for not being Christian

My teacher told me that gravity can sometimes glitch and start working upside down where the magnetic fields are saggy. I mean I litterally believed it at that time LOL.

My elementary school gym teacher liked giving us weird advice at weird times. She once randomly stopped class to tell us that if you saw someone who had caught on fire, you should rip off all your clothes, throw them at the person, and run for your life because "you don't want to catch fire, too."

Then we went back to playing kickball.

A nun at my all girls high school once told our senior class right before prom that you should put a phone book between you and a boy if you have to sit on his lap. (For those too young to remember, we used to have a huge book with everyone's addresses and phone numbers.) I lived in Philadelphia so our phone books were massive!!

If you want good marks (or positive attention) on an essay, just put in the word 'global' a few times. It may sound oddly specific but in the greater picture it taught me that your audience will react quite strongly to certain buzz words. This can help you to manipulate them into acknowledging/appreciating your work.

We were learning about bridges in 9th grade science in New York. I mentioned the floating bridges over Lake Washington (Seattle). My teacher argued with me that i was making it up, because it was impossible...

I'm not sure if this applies, but when I was in fourth grade, a boy in my class hit me. My teacher told me to hit him back. So, I did but apparently not to her satisfaction, so then she told me to hit him harder. So I did, and then of course the other kid hit me again and we ended up getting in a fight. I believe that you should of course defend yourself, but when I was older I realized how inappropriate that was.

My teacher told me that you couldn't fly a helicopter over mount Everest. You can and it has been done.

My biology teacher told that me and Mt peers attitude was the reason that America wasn't in first place scientifically wise.

We were talking about how humans don't come from monkeys... like WHAT?!?!!

Teacher here. This one is on me.... I have no idea how I was roped into explaining this to my 8th graders this year, but I had to explain both lube and insemination (DNA, what happens to a baby who accidentally is a product by a sperm donor and their unwitting relative).... I blame their curious minds.

For your information, I live in a very liberal country and I have no problem explaining things as long as it is relevant to any subject. Still, I cringe a bit while thinking about these situations.

Something I was taught, but it was never said outright.

"Know your teacher." A lot of people call me crazy for this, but when I was in school in the 80's and 90's, it could really make or break your grades, not to mention how you were treated. Teachers personal preferences and biases were definitely a thing, so if you went outside the box on something, even with approval, they didn't grade you well.

Ask too many questions? Not good. Challenge the teacher openly in class? Not good. Pick topics, books, countries, etc. off of a list given to you to do reports or presentations on that no one ever picks? Not good. Ask a teacher to take some time to explain to you why you got the grade you did on a project, essay, etc. Not good. I could go on and on.

Classic example, a couple years after I graduated high school, one of my online friends was in AP Physics (12th grade, he was 17) and he lost his term paper (his disk corrupted) and he was freaking out. He told me about this in an IM (instant message) on AOL. The paper would be worth 50% of that semesters grade (a semester here is 9 weeks).

This was the evening before the paper was due. I asked him to tell me everything he knew about his teacher. How he graded, his likes/dislikes, etc. from what my friend could tell. I told him I could Frankenstein one of my old AP English term papers on the Titanic (which I got a D on) for him. He was so stressed out, he agreed, so I went to work.

I gave myself an all night crash course on AP Physics using the internet, for what it was worth at the time, plus calling anyone I knew that had knowledge. I stayed up all night, finally got the paper finished, and emailed it to him so he could print it out in the lab and turn it in.

His grade on the paper? B+.

Seriously, SO much of school is politics it's not even funny. "Know your teacher!" should always be a motto.

This doesn't really fit, bc it was my dad when he was a child and it was not something they were taught, it was just experiences. So sorry if I'm breaking the rules too much. Anyway. My dad's 9th grade (I think) science teacher was amazing according to him. They did a lot of really cool sounding experiments, but the closet was just completely full of highly reactive chemicals. Apparently they had to have people in hazmat suits come in a couple of times to make sure everything was ok. I think he was also told by this teacher that as long as what he's doing is fun, then it might not matter in the moment what the consequences are. I guess that's true.

My science teacher in 6th grade told me and my group of friends (while working on a project) that his son ran away. Idk why he told us. He was weird and he claimed he left his old job at L3 Harris because it was boring and he liked kids better. I guess it can happen but he was just weird sometimes. And he only shared personal info with us girls, oh and he would bop us with a ruler on the head when we walked in the classroom.

Idk why but my Grade 11 English teacher told the class everything you need to make a bomb could be found in the classroom. Even the baddest, cockiest guys in the class asked why he would say that.

7th grade English teacher

" you cant not use double negatives"

I still remember 12 year me just sitting there being like ummmmm..............wait..

College Biology. How to make wine using a bottle of water, yeast, and a bottle of fruit juice. Kinda tame compared to some others on here.

I've never forgotten this and it's been 20 years.
In the 11th grade of high school, my English teacher nearly cost me my streak of acing every English class since I was a child. She was a bit eccentric but her teaching style left much to be desired, she never explained her assignments properly and a lot of us saw our marks go down, I had the top mark but it was lower than previous years and I really struggled to get it. Anyways, one day, I don't remember what originally started this lecture, but teacher was in such a mood. Then her lecture took a turn, I was already tuning her out because I could tell I wasn't going to learn anything that day and was already planning to talk to higher up administrators to retake the course but with a different teacher (assuming they could find one), she had gone from ranting about something in the English language to life in general to sex. That one was a long one and then she said something that has stayed with me for years because I couldn't believe a teacher said this: "girls, I'm sorry to say but men are going to use you. Men get to have so much sex and all they care about is getting themselves off, you girls will probably never have an orgasm." That actually stunned the class. Some snickered. Woman apparently had a bad date.