The same teacher marked me and a few other students down for completing a subtraction assignment using negative numbers. She explained we were supposed to be confused and write that we couldn't do it.

Edit: I forgot one! My third grade teacher marked me down for not knowing how much a hen weighed. It wasn't a joke. Apparently there was a rule of thumb for estimating chicken weight. Any kids who weren't raised on a farm missed the question.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 points 3 hours ago

She explained we were supposed to be confused and write that we couldn't do it.

That is astonishing.

The most incredible case of teacher malpractice I've ever heard of, came from my son. He was in college, taking a film class, which is my son's expertise. He's a deep film guy, for real. He could literally teach it, so he doesn't tolerate nonsense from bad film teachers.

So this teacher showed a clip of The Color Purple, and proceeded to criticize all of Stephen Spielberg's artistic choices, painting him as a hack. Spielberg isn't my son's favorite director, but he respects his talent. He doesn't believe that Spielberg is a hack.

But a stupid conclusion wasn't the problem. The problem was that the clip the teacher used to illustrate Spielberg's poor directing, was taken from the terrible remake of it, which wasn't directed by Spielberg. The teacher criticized Spielberg, using a movie Spielberg hadn't directed. And it turned out that the teacher hadn't known there were two versions of The Color Purple, nor that there was a musical, either.

This was in a COLLEGE film class. My son was disgusted, and I thought it was unforgivable, and told him to report the incident, but he didn't. He just pledged to never waste another course on that professor.

[–] calmblue75@lemmy.ml 15 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

we were supposed to be confused and write that we couldn't do it.

Is this a US specific thing? In our schools, they taught us stuff, then took a test to see how much of it got inside our head. I can't imagine a test having a question about a topic which is not taught yet. It feels like straight up bullying by the system. We send kids to school to learn things, not to get bullied for not knowing things they haven't even been taught yet.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 12 hours ago

I was raised in an exceedingly rural area of an already rural state. My school district was rated amongst the worst in the nation, so my experience was more indicative of the worst 1980s US had to offer. It was bad then, but not usually that bad.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 13 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I remember in 7th grade social studies (on the edge of the SF bay area in the 90s for crab godssake) we had to do a little assignment where we made up pros and cons of slavery.

the pros i made up were absolute bullshit "uh maybe the technology was better in the states than africa so even with slavery quality of life improved? that doesn't sound right but maybe i don't know" racist fucking ass shit turd bull fuck assignment.

sorry i'm like 10 years behind on my swears i got some catching up to do

[–] osanna@lemmy.vg 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (2 children)

I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, but pros to slavery?? jfc.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 2 points 4 hours ago

I think what kids were supposed to write was about all the shareholder value that was beautifully created by extorting everything from everyone they could reach

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

yeah like can you help me think up some swears i'm really tired comrade

[–] GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 hours ago

Jizztrap. Fuck-wit, -stick, -stain. Frozen tampon popsicle Barbara Streisand!