Have you ever outsmarted your teacher?

[LavosPrime]

Aside from countless spelling and grammar corrections across the years, I was apparently the first person to mention to my (well-seasoned) precalculus teacher last year (10th grade) that the Cartesian plane was developed by Descartes. He thought the Cartesians were famous for their maps or something. Most of my teachers have been knowledgeable about their chosen subjects, but I've been correcting teachers about facts beyond their expertise for about eight years now.

 

[Staticous]

I did one very memorable time. In my junior year of high school we had to write an essay of what class we would want to add to the curriculum. I wanted to add a class dealing with word spinning. Not quite the same as a speech class but specifically making things sound good no matter what the subject or audience. I wrote the entire essay just fine and when I got to my conclusion I reiterated my self by saying "Many teenagers, as well as myself would consider this bullshitting. But seeing as how this is inappropriate for a school setting it is better to be known as word spinning, which is what this class would teach."

It was actually a board that graded them not my teacher, she actually sided with me on this one. But anyway, they crossed out the word bullshitting and put their comment on the side as to why they crossed it out. The said, and I quote, "this is inappropriate for a school setting."

Luckily enough they didn't dock me any points for it but i thought it was very ironic. and aggravating.

 

[Da Chi]

I was sleeping in Ninth grade math class. The teacher woke me up and tried to stump me with a math question written on a board. I walked up, solved it, and went back to bed.

 

[dex-dex]

unfortunately i have not stumped teachers that i recall but i have proved in classes that i know too much historical things.
in a college grade class, no one could answer when the first and second world wars started and ended. it also sort made me upset that no one could even answer it correctly. I know it is an esthetics course but come on!

 

[Triscut900]

in fourth grade we where learning about power point
i ended up showing her how to do most of it and she taught it to the class
the kicker

Spoiler

i had never used power point before

 

[Mr. Google]

I have before i wish i remembered what. It was such a huge mistake that people were literally laughing at the teacher too.

 

[MikailCaboose]

I've had a teacher try to tell the class that the color-shading on the physical maps in the classroom actually represented areas of vegetation. Needless to say, he was quite embarrassed when I flat out told him that it was in actuality altitude.

 

[Kryzantine]

Doesn't happen too often in my school. Most of the time it happens, it's usually something completely unrelated to the course or a math teacher in the morning before he's had his coffee botching up a calculation in math team.

However, the one point that a lot of the teachers in my school share is calling telepathy osmosis. And half of them use that exact mixup.

 

[Irradiated Tiger]

It was 4th grade. Spelling test. They gave a definition and you spell the word from a number of words you studied. I wanted to see how much I could get away with so on the word fragment I said "Could you use it in a sentence please?" I think the teacher was half asleep because she gave out the word in the sentence. We all burst out laughing for a good minute or so until we got back to the test.

 

[esperandote]

Many times, I once told a highschool teacher that the algorithm he was teaching us wouldn't work the way he thought under certain circumstances, after some debate we went to the computer lab and actually coded the algorithm and it turned out I was right.

On sixth grade I corrected my teacher because she was telling us the formula to calculate a circle's area.

In universisty on my english class a girl asked the teacher how can she call someone that's always triping and having little accidents like that and I said "clumsy" to wich the teacher responded that she didn't know the word.

 

[TheKagestar]

One time in Secondary school (Equivalent to American High School) I corrected a teacher who though the highest average temperature on a planet was Mercurys average temperature. When it's in fact Venus. I'm such a nerd... >_>

 

[hopeneverdies]

My Freshman Science teacher. Twice.

First time was knowing what the Chemical Symbol for elements stood for, in this case Iron. Iron is Fe and he didn't know why. Well Fe is for ferrous, which means magnetic, which is what iron happens to be. For some reason, the entire class made fun of me.

The other time was about how significant figures are found. Sig figs are the preciseness of digits when dealing with decimals. He tried to teach it as the amount of digits behind the decimal point, which is wrong because you could have 10.0 and .001 and they would both have the same number of significant figures. He tried to tell me I was wrong, but I was using info from AP Chemistry that I learned from academic team. Now tell me, who would you trust more? The word of a freshman science teacher, or the word of a teacher that taught college level science? I didn't get laughed at thankfully.

 

[ScRaT_the_destroyer]

However, the one point that a lot of the teachers in my school share is calling telepathy osmosis. And half of them use that exact mixup.

some of my teachers in my old school do that... only use it for funny as opposed to srs business

 

[Kryzantine]

However, the one point that a lot of the teachers in my school share is calling telepathy osmosis. And half of them use that exact mixup.

some of my teachers in my old school do that... only use it for funny as opposed to srs business

Looking at your quote only made me realize how fucked up my original post was.

Self grammar Nazi FTL.

 

[Mass B]

I practically helped teach my seventh grade and freshman year Early Western Civ classes.

 

[volcanblade]

My Freshman Science teacher. Twice.

First time was knowing what the Chemical Symbol for elements stood for, in this case Iron. Iron is Fe and he didn't know why. Well Fe is for ferrous, which means magnetic, which is what iron happens to be. For some reason, the entire class made fun of me.

The other time was about how significant figures are found. Sig figs are the preciseness of digits when dealing with decimals. He tried to teach it as the amount of digits behind the decimal point, which is wrong because you could have 10.0 and .001 and they would both have the same number of significant figures. He tried to tell me I was wrong, but I was using info from AP Chemistry that I learned from academic team. Now tell me, who would you trust more? The word of a freshman science teacher, or the word of a teacher that taught college level science? I didn't get laughed at thankfully.

Actually Fe stands for ferrum which means iron in latin and occasionally sword. Ferrous is, like ferric a type of iron compound. But I could be wrong.

OT: I've done it plenty of times but the best was getting my teacher to give back points to my friend because the question said "Do you think..." so I argued that he wanted an opinion not facts

 

[ScRaT_the_destroyer]

Actually Fe stands for ferrum which means iron in latin and occasionally sword. Ferrous is, like ferric a type of iron compound. But I could be wrong.

OT: I've done it plenty of times but the best was getting my teacher to give back points to my friend because the question said "Do you think..." so I argued that he wanted an opinion not facts

its all pointless as all these words have the same root do they not? so... both of you are right...

 

[RandomWords]

not often, but it isn't all that hard to do.

 

[Caligulove]

In high school I would occasionally forget homework and go to the bathroom to get it before it was gonna be turned in that day. Though I guess that might be exploiting their trust of a good student rather than outsmarting them- or hell, they probably knew what I was doing and didn't care.

There were some kids in my classes (especially in College) that would try to dispute things that the teacher would say to the class, even things like basic facts or things from the textbook- which was annoying since you knew they were just stubborn, or something their parents taught them was brought into question or contradicted.

 

[Cat Cloud]

I asked my Social Studies teacher what sort of government Thailand has just to see what she would say (the class focused on Asia, particularly east asia). She floundered for a few moments then said that was a good question to look up online.

Really? They have a constitutional monarchy (and a parlimentary democracy). And yes, I am a nerd.

Well, we were focusing on Indochina, it really shouldn't be too much to ask for at least the teacher to know something about Thailand's government. This was also during the time when there was some conflict (fighting/government controversities) going on in the nation's capitol. Which she never mentioned in class.

Anouther social studies teacher couldn't find Turkmenistan on a map, which I guess is more reasonable...