Professor: “The people in Looking Backwards wouldn’t say things like, ‘Only good people drive Cadillacs.'”
Student: “If you’ve ever been stuck behind an Escalade, you know that’s not true anyway.”
(Our class is studying the ocean. We start off the unit by brainstorming all things we associate with the ocean while the teacher writes them on the board.)
Student #1: “Whales!”
Teacher: “Good, good, keep going.”
Student #2: “Kayaks!”
Teacher: “Excellent! What a great word!”
(She writes “kayak” on the board as K-Y-A-C-K.)
Me: “Miss [teacher’s name], isn’t “kayak” spelled K-A-Y-A-K?”
Teacher: “No, that’s not right.”
Me: “I’m pretty sure it is.”
Teacher: *gives me a dirty look* “Look it up in the dictionary while we continue.”
(I find ‘kayak’ in the dictionary, take it up to her, and point out the correct spelling. The teacher avoids looking at me as she responds.)
Teacher: “Hmph. Well that’s a funny way to spell it.”
(She erases ‘kyack’ and replaces it with ‘kayak’ and continues asking for more words. She never did apologize to me for telling me I was wrong!)
(I’m sitting in science class. The teacher mentions that he read something in the news about parents getting their pants in a bunch. It’s over their kids accessing p*rn sites by ‘accidentally’ stumbling upon it by looking up an innocent word like ‘lollypop.’)
Teacher: “I don’t know what the big fuss is about. My wife and I actually tried all last night to find something and all that came up were paid sites. I mean, unless these parents are giving their kids their credit cards, there’s no way the kids could have had access to this stuff.”
Me: *chuckles* “You’ve been searching under the wrong key words.”
(The entire class, including my teacher, turns and stares at me bug-eyed.)
Me: *head desk*
(A student is reading a book about a girl trying to decide what she wants to be when she grows up. We finish and begin talking about the story.)
Me: “Which of these jobs would you like to have when you grow up?”
Student: “Dinosaur.”
Me: “Um, which of the jobs in the book would you want to have?”
Student: “DINOSAUR!”
Me: “Um…?”
(After some guidance, he later changed his answer to ‘astronaut’.)
(I am a high school science teacher.)
Student: “Sperm stands for something, right?”
Me: “No, dude. You make sperm!”
Student: “But it could still stand for something!”
Me: “Oh yeah? Like what?”
Student: “Uh… Somebody… Please… Enter… Respectively… Moo?”
