Things you were right about when you were a kid

[username sucks]

Snip

Sorry if I came off as disliking teachers- it's actually quite the opposite. I know that most teachers are underpaid, put in many extra hours of unpaid work, pay for supplies, and deal with bad students and teachers.

I was referring to specific teachers who were wrong on a very consistent basis, and they wouldn't even tolerate a quick correction, even if nothing else was going on in class at the time. My elementary and middle school were full of teachers that had never even gone past high school themselves, all because the superintendent at the time liked to give jobs to all his friends. He has since been replaced and all the unqualified teachers have been fired.

I admit that I was a bad student at the time, but I really hated those teachers, for good reason. I was going through several different family issues at the time. Parents divorcing, close relatives dying, all while I was only 9 and these teachers were made aware of it. That didn't stop them from yelling at me and giving me more discipline if I started crying in the middle of a lecture.

Pointing out their mistakes was the only thing I could do to get back at them, however small of an effect it had. I was right most of the time. I may not have done much homework, but I always aced the tests, and I spent most of my free time reading or watching educational stuff on tv (what Discovery and History channels used to have). I would not speak up unless I was sure I was right, but I still had many opportunities.

So again, I apologize if I offended you. I suppose if I put a little more context in my first post that this wouldn't have been an issue. I do appreciate the good teachers out there.

 

[Kotaro]

As long as I can remember I've always thought being required to say the Pledge of Allegiance every day before school was kinda weird. This has not changed, in fact I find it weirder and weirder as I get older. I'm not anti-American, or even unpatriotic, but requiring kids to utter a pledge that they don't fully understand to a government who's politics is years beyond their comprehension, in an almost prayer like fashion, just feels creepy. The fact that it contains a direct reference to a particular monotheistic deity doesn't help either.

I felt the same way, and in fact adamantly refused to stand and say it. My teachers were always okay with that until one homeroom teacher I had in high school, who actually threatened me with detention if I didn't stand and say the Pledge.
Of course I pointed out that he legally can't force a student to say it, and he immediately backed down (either he knew I was right or he was afraid that I might have turned out to be right and get him in trouble). But he resented me for the rest of the school year. One of the few bad experiences I ever had with my teachers.

Oh, one other thing I remember also happened in high school. Even to this day, I am never completely satisfied with anything that I write, and constantly revise. Every time I read back over something, I end up making changes to it, ranging from minor (the wording of a statement) to major (adding or removing sentences). To this very post, I have already made several edits while typing it out. Anyway, this is why I always used pencils, so I could erase things that I wanted to rewrite. One English teacher in high school insisted that every paper we hand in be in pen, and anything that wasn't would get an automatic zero. I brought this up to her, warning her that if I wrote in pen, I'd end up with things crossed out, text on-top of other text, carrots and arrows everywhere, basically an illegible paper. She didn't listen, so of course the first essay that I handed in was illegible. She took one look at it, realized that I wasn't lying, and said "Fine, you can type it on a computer." After that though, she turned out to be a really good teacher.

 

[RatRace123]

"You will use cursive every time you write from now on."

BULLSHIT!

I stopped using it as soon as I hit 7th grade and never looked backed. Now the only cursive I use is a terrible chicken scratch version of my signature.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Cursive is useless. Possibly the very definition thereof. Same with penmanship in general. My handwriting is ugly and it's still better than most people's.

"Everyone has to learn this" and "grownups know best" are wrong. I knew by the age of nine that kids were passing to the next grade without knowing, well, anything. Plenty of adults can't find the US on a globe, don't know how many cups are in a quart, who is Vice President, etc. I see people every day who can't handle simple things like ordering a sandwich, looking both ways before crossing a street, running antivirus, or replacing a shower head. There are millions of adults out there who are totally fucking helpless.

Many "classics" of literature do not deserve the term.

You cannot "have/do anything you put your mind to." Positive thinking is valuable, but too much positive thinking is sheer idiocy. Often it doesn't matter how much you want something, you simply cannot have it.

"You'll want kids someday." Haha, WRONG. I am the oldest in a large extended family, which means I grew up with smaller kids underfoot pretty much all the time. I have hated kids since I've been old enough to hate. Seeing my generation having kids of their own has not changed my mind.

"You'll appreciate this more when you're older." My parents used to say this when they made me wash my younger siblings' pissy bedsheets. There wasn't anything good about it then and there isn't anything good about it now. Just made me hate kids that much more.

"The right thing to do is always follow the rules." Kids who messed up got detention. Kids who skipped detention got....another detention. Suspension was just a vacation. There were no real consequences. I'm convinced I could have done pretty much whatever I wanted and been just fine, probably even better.

RPGs are not "sick, sick, sick-o." They are no worse morally or psychologically than Parcheesi.

"Someday women will be attracted to you." I was - and still am - socially inept, obnoxiously intelligent, terrible at athletics -- all the things that repel females. I still remember being the only kid in sixth grade science class who could give the speed of light in a vacuum when the teacher asked. I read books for enjoyment. I knew which quarks come out of a smashed proton. That kind of thing doesn't make you attractive, it makes you a pariah. Knowing I was a pariah, I viewed any interaction or attempt at communication made by others as some kind of joke at my expense. So often was I correct about this that it is now my default state of mind. There has never been even the slightest indication that I could ever experience companionship or affection. I leave women alone and they return the favor. To this day, my folks still deny the obvious with trite platitudes like, "You never know, life has a way of surprising you!" Yeah. It *would* be a surprise.

 

[Vault101]

When I was a kid, I hated math, specifically memorization, like the multiplication tables, and I told my mom I didn't need to know them, and should just use a calculator. She replies, "you're not going to just carry a calculator everywhere you go."

oh my god fucking times tables...

its not so much having a calculator as far as I was concerned but the fact that I actually understood the concept, (6x6 means six groups of six) but I was alays getting stressed over the fact I couldn't fucking remember the times tables (it took me untill I was 19 to remember all the months of the year in order), they were more concered with having up blurt them out on command like a bunch of trained monkeys rather than making sure we knew what we were actually saying, and remembering your times tables is pretty irrelevant to the higher maths anyways

"You will use cursive every time you write from now on."

BULLSHIT!

I stopped using it as soon as I hit 7th grade and never looked backed. Now the only cursive I use is a terrible chicken scratch version of my signature.

cursive would probably be useful for me...as when I write I do it in a notepad...

 

[RedDeadFred]

My piano teacher never believed me when I said I could identify any key on the piano with no reference, just by the sound. I still can; most worthless superpower.

As a music major, I would kill to have perfect pitch.

OT: Honestly, I can't remember anything like this. Um....

When I was a kid, I always thought hammerhead sharks were very scary (had a series of recurring nightmares involving hammerhead shark burglars), and looking back on that, I agree. They're still scary.

I don't know if that counts.

 

[Zhukov]

There is no Santa.

I remember getting into some nasty playground arguments about that one.

My parents never specifically told me not to believe in Santa, but they never actively encouraged me to do so either. So when I got to school and encountered kids who believed with all of their little six-year-old hearts I was kind of shocked. To me the idea seemed stupid. Hence the arguments.

Well, look who was right! So screw you Steven and Laura! Where's your jolly, hairy god now, eh?

 

[Vault101]

Also, in my early school years, I remember that the teachers insisted I do essays by writing a first draft, then rewriting the second draft, then writing a final draft. Now, computers were pretty new at the time, so the teachers weren't considering them, but as an impressionable young kid, I was.

"That's stupid," I said. Why rewrite everything when when you can just go over what you typed on the computer and edit as needed? I tried explaining this to my teacher, but she insisted I do things the old fashioned way. By the time I was in high school, everyone was expected to have a computer, and I suspect little kids aren't being taught to write essays longhand anymore either.

I don't think re-writing is such a bad idea...it can be more of a purifying process than editing on the fly, though this might because I started writing my storys on paper..then taking them to the computer, when I have the basic Idea down I can work more on improving and polishing as I might see or think of things I didn't before

 

[FPLOON]

"Someday women will be attracted to you."

I never understood why any adult would tell me that... They would have been better telling me "Someday, some of your friends would be of a different gender" or something similar to that, since it sounds more truthful...

I still don't know if it's worse that they would say that "certain people will be attracted to you" when you're younger... or when you're already an "adult" yourself... *sighs*

 

[Yopaz]

When I was a kid, I hated math, specifically memorization, like the multiplication tables, and I told my mom I didn't need to know them, and should just use a calculator. She replies, "you're not going to just carry a calculator everywhere you go."

Having some idea of the multiplication table is actually quite useful when doing several rapid calculations. However the memorization practice of the multiplication table is silly. There are several tricks to learning multiplication that can be applied to just about any number, high or low. The explanation about not having a calculator at all time is stupid, in higher maths you either won't need a calculator because it's more about the thought process and a calculator can't help you or you might as well use one because the thought process is what you're being tested on and your ability to say what 8 time 6 is uninteresting.

To clean that up a bit. It's important to gain the basic skills, but at some point using a calculator has to be included as part of those basic skills.

Also, in my early school years, I remember that the teachers insisted I do essays by writing a first draft, then rewriting the second draft, then writing a final draft. Now, computers were pretty new at the time, so the teachers weren't considering them, but as an impressionable young kid, I was.

"That's stupid," I said. Why rewrite everything when when you can just go over what you typed on the computer and edit as needed? I tried explaining this to my teacher, but she insisted I do things the old fashioned way. By the time I was in high school, everyone was expected to have a computer, and I suspect little kids aren't being taught to write essays longhand anymore either.

I remember hating this so much. I could never finish one draft before we got papers to do a second draft and when I got to the point where we were writing the final draft I had just barely managed to copy down (pretty much exactly what I wrote the first time) down to a second set of papers before I would write EXACTLY that + a half assed ending because I was stretched for time.

Snip

Sorry if I came off as disliking teachers- it's actually quite the opposite. I know that most teachers are underpaid, put in many extra hours of unpaid work, pay for supplies, and deal with bad students and teachers.

I was referring to specific teachers who were wrong on a very consistent basis, and they wouldn't even tolerate a quick correction, even if nothing else was going on in class at the time. My elementary and middle school were full of teachers that had never even gone past high school themselves, all because the superintendent at the time liked to give jobs to all his friends. He has since been replaced and all the unqualified teachers have been fired.

I admit that I was a bad student at the time, but I really hated those teachers, for good reason. I was going through several different family issues at the time. Parents divorcing, close relatives dying, all while I was only 9 and these teachers were made aware of it. That didn't stop them from yelling at me and giving me more discipline if I started crying in the middle of a lecture.

Pointing out their mistakes was the only thing I could do to get back at them, however small of an effect it had. I was right most of the time. I may not have done much homework, but I always aced the tests, and I spent most of my free time reading or watching educational stuff on tv (what Discovery and History channels used to have). I would not speak up unless I was sure I was right, but I still had many opportunities.

So again, I apologize if I offended you. I suppose if I put a little more context in my first post that this wouldn't have been an issue. I do appreciate the good teachers out there.

It's a shame how bad many elementary school teachers are, because that's where good teachers are most valuable. I won't go into details of why I hate mine since it doesn't fit into the topic, but I sympathize with you having had bad experience there myself.

OT: When I was in kindergarten the adults there belonged to a localized bible belt (small area squeezed in between the godless majority) and we were constantly being told about gods and Jesuses and stuff like that. It just never made sense to me and I couldn't understand how the world came to be until 5th grade when the idea of evolution was presented (that was the on year we had an awesome teacher too) and things just started making sense.

High school Norwegian where the teachers told me I would need to know about the different authors and classic books in order to hold a sophisticated adult conversation. I told them I would rather stay away from people who thought that discussing Knut Hamsun for fun. I still do and I often have sophisticated adult conversations with people about topics I like and topics that actually carry importance. Education, law, politics, religion, biology, cancer studies, metabolic disorders, alternative medicine (often this topic includes marketing and scams), chemistry, pollution, environment, conservation, war etc. These are all subjects I discuss fairly often and not once have I ever needed to analyse a poem, know the characteristics of a specific genre or an era in literature or discuss any classic literature (outside of the discussion about their place in education and with people who think they suck). Now I read books because I want to. When I finish a book I either go "Damn, that was a good book" or "I didn't really like that book" (variations may apply) and if someone I know has read it I will discuss it, if not I will move on and maybe recommend it to someone.

 

[seris]

The vast majority of kids don't just pick it up instantly. Teachers design homework to be interesting and more importantly, to patch up any holes in understanding they may have, TEACH them to learn how to research independently (something you WILL need as an adult, let's say, if you want to know about a political event and not be some extremist thicko on either end parroting O'Reilly or Stewart) and make sure they have a chance to REPEAT that knowledge to help it go down easier and stay memorable? We don't do this at school. This is how our weekends or holidays are spent.

Sorry if i sound like im hating on teachers, but to me homework is not interesting at all, especially math related homework. I disagree with homework being about teaching students to research independantly mainly because the student should be able to complete the work they were given without having to look up how to do it, and if they are unable to, then they should ask the teacher for help. I hardly do any homework in my classes because i find them uninteresting. The only classes i put effort into are the ones i like, such as my programming classes which im getting straight A's in.

Back on topic, as a kid i always wanted to make games and be a programmer, and i am actually making a game for my final in my programming class

 

[Chemical Alia]

My piano teacher never believed me when I said I could identify any key on the piano with no reference, just by the sound. I still can; most worthless superpower.

As a music major, I would kill to have perfect pitch.

OT: Honestly, I can't remember anything like this. Um....

When I was a kid, I always thought hammerhead sharks were very scary (had a series of recurring nightmares involving hammerhead shark burglars), and looking back on that, I agree. They're still scary.

I don't know if that counts.

I can't say with complete certainly, but I strongly suspect that perfect pitch/colored sounds are why I have never enjoyed the recreational listening of music in pretty much any point in my life. Growing up, I actually had to hide it, because when people found out I knew 0% anything about bands or musicians, they thought I was a legit weird. I'm not so bad now as I was before, but I can't concentrate on any task or work with music playing, because my brain gets distracted and focuses on all of the notes I'm hearing instead.

Also, I don't think I can ever play a transposed instrument or sing in a transposed key. I'm not in school or involved in any music programs anymore, so it doesn't really affect my life, but for that one semester I was a music major maybe?

And yeah, hammerhead sharks are bad news. As well as Street Sharks.