14 Baffled Teachers Share Hilariously Stupid Questions Their Students Have Asked Them

Flickr / Ryan Tyler Smith
Flickr / Ryan Tyler Smith

Found On R/AskReddit

1. Had a student ask why did this triangle have 4 sides. Had to explain that it was a rectangle.

— shadow_rekt

2. High school English teacher here.

"What do you mean I can't copy and paste my essay from the internet?"

— msrachel

3. Student asked how to spell DNA… Not the full word Deoxyribonucleic acid, no.. The abbreviation DNA.
He wasn't trolling or anything, he's just never passed a test.

— Ganzi3

4. High school Earth Science – "Where do clouds go at night?"

— TheScienceDude11

5. The first Prime Ministers of Canada is John A. Macdonald. In high school a girl in my history class asked me if he was the same person who created McDonalds.

— zombie52

6. It's never really the question itself, I typically feel like if a kid is asking a "dumb" question that's more on me for not explaining something well enough.
That said this type of interaction always gets me going.
"Any questions?" -Me
"When is the test?"- Kid 1
"sigh Well as you can see on the schedule and as I have mentioned every day, the test is on Thursday."-Me
"Ok"-Kid 1
"Any more questions?"-Me
"Yeah, when are we having a test on this?"-Kid 2
Swear this shit happens weekly.

— Skurph

7. Actual teacher here.
15 year old : "Is Russia part of China?"
17 year old : "Do the trains run when it's raining?"
14 year old : "Is a second the same as one second?"
16 year old : "What are odd & even numbers?"

— possumman

8.Wasn't JKF an astronaut?

— fumer0

9. When I was in high school, during a sex-ed session that was actually really informative and comprehensive, one of the topics was how oral sex can give you STDs, something quite a few of the students didn't seem to understand.
But my favorite question was from one of the girls to my left: "But what if you drink bleach?"

— Rosebunse

10. Was teaching a 101 lvl college freshman survey course.
Told the students i was born in Alaska and a girl from the midwest asked me if it was hard to learn english so I could teach college.

— PoopNoodle

11. Oh my god, I worked as a teacher aide for a year (to supervise this little shit of a student) and a girl in the class, 9 or 10, asked me "Bears aren't real, right?" She thought bears were in the realm of unicorns because they're in fairy tales like Little Red Riding-hood. I pretty much couldn't make her believe me, I even looked up a bear in a book and showed her. She thought it was an elaborate prank.

— warholsnotdead

12. Had a 10th grader say "Rosetta Stone? Isn't that the black lady on the back of the bus?"

— Doug2590

13. "…and that, students, is the definition of climax in a story."
*Suzzie raises hand*
"Mr. T, it's just like that Usher song! Is this what it's about!?"
"…"
*mature student speaks up*
"I think that's a different type of climax."

— tacojohn44

14. "Why is nothing coming up when I google 'real pictures of angels'? All I'm getting is drawings!" I didn't even know what to say that wouldn't be insensitive so I just said, "How about you find… a nice drawing, okay?"

— knottedOdyssey

There is no such a thing as a dumb question. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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