My earth science teacher denied plasmas are a thing when I mentioned it
This was 8th grade
I Immediately lost all respect for her and if present day me were around for it I'd have taken her idiocy to the union rep to recommend she prove she actually has the education she claims to have had.
There is a point in everyone's education where they realize that their teachers are actually just adults, who are just old children, that went to school a couple years longer than you.
Mad respect to teachers though. I specifically remember my computer science teacher to be the coolest and most knowledgeable guy ever.
My history teacher taught us conspiracy theories and Vietnam War movie quotes. On jfk we spent two whole lessons on umbrella man, lessons on box cart hobos, missing frames of the z film, back and to the left...
Decent state school in the UK in the 90s. Kinda reassuring the world was just a crazy back then
Ha I wish, after the shooting police arrested several hobos from the train yard behind the grassy knoll, years later people said they were the same people that burgled Watergate and probably Cia agents. I think the best evidence for that is that they look a bit like them kinda, obvious proof the Cia killed Kennedy.
Middle school teachers in Texas only require a generalist certification, a Bachelor's Degree, and completion of a teacher training program to teach core subjects. That cert (which also exists for elementary school teachers) requires only a basic understanding of each core subject area. There are certifications specific to each core subject (I have Math 4th-8th, also Math 8th-12th, along with a Master's in math), but there is no guarantee you're going to get a teacher certified in their field. As such, you get teachers who don't understand their subjects at a very deep level or how what they teach connects vertically to their student's prior education in that subject and what they'll learn in future grades.
It is a big reason why students to come to my high school classes hating math, I think, because it was confusing to them being taught by teachers who only had a moderate understanding themselves and probably taught them lots of memorization tricks and mnemonic devices instead of helping them understand their origins and why they work.
That's exactly why i hated maths when i was in school, i did not understand it. The teachers just tell us to memorise the formulas but i did not understand what is the concept of those formulas in the first place. Now as an adult i admire maths, it's the only language that works anywhere in the universe, math is beautiful! I really wanted to understand it but i just don't have the time and energy. Someday, if i have children, I'll get them interested in maths at an early age. I want them to see what i couldn't, the beautiful world of mathematics.
My daughter had a science assignment from her second grade teacher to record and draw the moon every night for two weeks. I emailed the teacher and asked if it was sufficient to use a moon phase tracking website. She responded saying that, as the assignment states, the children needed to observe the moon directly. When I responded back asking if she really intended the children to stay up late enough, or get up super early due to the shifting times of moonrise and moonset she lost it, telling me the moon should always be visible before the kids bedtime. Ignoring weather, what lunacy...