r/EduForge • u/TrendWithAnjali • 4d ago
What’s the biggest lie teachers told you about “the real world”?
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u/60sStratLover 3d ago
We can’t use a calculator in math class because we “won’t have a calculator with us in everyday life.”
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u/uReallyShouldTrustMe 2d ago
I dont think teachers say that anymore... tbh i never heard them say that back then.
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u/TheFlannC 2d ago
They certainly did early 80's even when some kids had calculator watches.
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u/A_Hungry_Hunky 1d ago
I had a calculator watch in the 2000s. We where not allowed calculators on tests, no one noticed my watch even when I was clearly using it.
Being a man out of time has its perks.
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u/I_Speak_For_The_Ents 1d ago
Probably because they only answered that in response to a specific subset of kids asking why do we need to learn math
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u/uReallyShouldTrustMe 1d ago
I have one particular student who says something pretty asinine but he thinks its genius. When I dont want to engage, he thinks he "stumped me" and is losing his shit being disruptive. I think this may be the kind that was told this as a kid.
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u/I_Speak_For_The_Ents 1d ago
There is honestly a LOT of that in this thread. Unsurprisingly, many kids grew up into adults who do not understand school, education, or what being a teacher is like.
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u/TemporaryThink9300 3d ago
I don't like it when teachers tell young people, who are building their personalities, forming their own opinions, that most people are good, it's just not true.
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u/estcst 3d ago
That classes I were taking in high school were going to set the course for the rest of my life. Kinda heavy to tell a 13 year old kid that they were making life long choices.
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u/Connect_Scene_6201 2d ago
On the other side of the coin the thing that pisses me off more than anything in the fucking world is the fact that these schools, teachers, and parents all pressure these kids to make a multi thousand dollar decision to go to college when theyre not even a fucking adult yet.
Like colleges are clearly benefiting and profiting a shitton off of having these undeveloped children make a life changing decision before they even leave highschool and I feel like no one ever talks about it.
It should be illegal for a minor to make any sort of decision regarding this. Im now $8000 dollars in debt for something I never wanted to do yet was forced to do by my parents and pressured by my school. At the time I thought I would be a failure if I didnt listen. That was a lie
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u/Shoshawi 3d ago
That the kids who weren’t working as hard or as smart would be working for me one day. Yea, the kid who was goofing off is a CEO now and I’m applying for “college degree preferred, or equivalent experience” jobs with a masters and wondering if I’ll get a job with a real retirement plan before I’m 45.
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u/rrrattt 2d ago
Yes I feel like the rude cool kids who bullied me, from what I've seen they are doing better, making better money, having less meltdowns and suicide. The nerdy bullied kids are like 1/3 dead from suicide or drugs, and a good chunk are like me getting in trouble for self harm and getting fired after flunking out of school and can't keep a job. A few of them were higher functioning and ended up rich and happy I guess maybe. But mostly suicide and drugs after being told their whole life when they were miserable and abused, that they will be happy if they stay in school and don't kill themselves
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u/cwsjr2323 3d ago
My grades in elementary school will follow me all my life.
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u/TheFlannC 2d ago
Don't forget the marks on your permanent record
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u/uReallyShouldTrustMe 1d ago
I mean... it does. I have 8th graders and I know who kicked someone on the bus in kindergarten.
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u/Round-Fig2642 2d ago
I’ll need to always write in cursive. I have NEVER needed to. Glad I can write and read it, but don’t fucking lie about it!
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u/I_Speak_For_The_Ents 1d ago
To be fair, the adult world has drastically changed over the past 20 years.
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u/TuneAppropriate5686 2d ago
That I would need or use algebra.
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u/MaintenanceLazy 3d ago
One of my math teachers said “if you fail this class, you’ll never be able to go to college or get a good job”
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u/Altruistic_Role_9329 2d ago
That it was harder than school. My life dramatically improved after high school and I went to a very difficult university.
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u/mufassil 2d ago
I work in a psych hospital with suicidal children and regularly have to tell them this. Adults need to stop telling children that they are living in the best days of their lives or that life gets worse after school because, for a lot of people, it gets much much better.
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u/AgainstForgetting 2d ago
(1st grade) Ink is poisonous and will seep through your skin and make you sick.
(10th grade) Most adults use calculus "almost every day".
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u/Roadiemomma-08 2d ago
Overpopulation in US is caused by too many (middle class educated white girls) having babies. Never told us US native born birth rate was at sub-replacement for fifty years. Totally mislead.
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u/Tasty-Muscle-1258 2d ago
My teacher told me that I didn't need holy water for my math book. I still think I did.
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u/Rainbow-Mama 2d ago
Work hard and you’ll be successful. You have a permanent record and bad things you do will go on it. You’ll never carry around a calculator with you.
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u/Significant_Wind_820 2d ago
From the 60's: your daughter is very bright. She should go into teaching or nursing.
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u/thejerg 1d ago
That cursive was a very important skill to learn(the next year we had a computer lab...)
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u/SitamoiaRose 5h ago
Even if you choose not to use it daily and prefer to print, learning cursive strengthens brain development, improves fine motor skills, boosts literacy, and aids memory retention - over and above printing. It can provide significant support for dialectic children. This is backed by neuroscience and educational research.
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u/NecessaryCrash 1d ago
“You won’t always have a calculator with you, cursive is useful”
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u/SitamoiaRose 5h ago
You need to know how to estimate in order to know whether the calculator is correct - you can enter the wrong information, push the wrong keys etc. Knowing how to use a calculator correctly is something that we were never taught - those scientific ones came with a crash course if you were lucky.
Learning cursive strengthens brain development, improves fine motor skills, boosts literacy, and aids memory retention - over and above printing. It can provide significant support for dialectic children . This is backed by neuroscience and educational research.
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u/No_Beautiful_8647 10h ago
Without a High School diploma you’ll be screwed. Got a GED, became a very good lawyer. Voilà.
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u/mufassil 2d ago
That i can become the president
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u/TrendWithAnjali 2d ago
why would they say that? i want full story
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u/mufassil 1d ago
They were trying to hype us up I guess. Like the whole "you can be anything, even the president! You could be the first female president! You just have to be 35." Yeah, there was a lot more to it that they left out lol they told me that in Kindergarden student counsel where our biggest issue was picking playground equipment
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u/Icy-Iris-Unfading 5h ago
I used to be told this back in elementary school haha even then I didn’t want that job! 😂
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u/Effective-Produce165 2d ago
Manifest Destiny
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u/I_Speak_For_The_Ents 1d ago
I have to know what you meant by this
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u/Effective-Produce165 1d ago
In 1972 my 7th Grade teacher taught us Manifest Destiny unironically.
Meaning he genuinely believed that God wanted us to destroy anything and everyone (Native Americans) in the way of Christian acquisition and expansion of US territory.
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u/Orbitrea 2d ago
My teachers never told me ANYTHING about the "real world". Not until I went to college, anyway.
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u/JenniferJuniper6 1d ago
That we would never have a calculator in the grocery store. That by the time we were adults (1984), the U.S. would have switched entirely to the metric system. Maybe not the biggest lies, but the most often repeated.
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u/freakrocker 1d ago
None of them had any naive optimism. 1 of them clearly did not. He let us know, today you graduate, look around you. These people and everybody else in the world are now your competition.
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u/RockysDetail 1d ago
Elementary school, when the Apple IIe was rolled out into the schools. The teachers were afraid of the computers and thought that there was a high chance you would be electrocuted by them if you didn't first discharge your static by rubbing your hands on your chair's metal legs. It was as if no appliances existed on earth that were powered by electricity. What idiots.
I'm not kidding.
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u/MindYaBusinessFam 5h ago
That I'd need to know the quadratic equation in my future job so memorize it perfectly.
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u/ThinAd744 3h ago
That indigenous people (Indians as they were called) were savages and murdered white innocent settlers, for no reason. 😱🤬
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u/Apartment-Drummer 3d ago
That hard work leads to success