History Teachers Break Down The Most Interesting Responses They've Ever Gotten To A Lecture
Teachers work so hard to prepare students with knowledge for the real world. Of course, there are many different kinds of teachers and their chosen subjects bring unique challenges.
History teachers, for example, are tasked with helping young people become engaged and thoughtful citizens. That means knowing about past events--as seen from ALL perspectives--and applying that to life in the present day.
What a rewarding project, right?
For many history teachers, for every fulfilling teaching achievement there is a horrifying glimpse at student ignorance. Many times, that offers only more opportunity to set the record straight.
But for some students, as on Reddit thread illustrates, that ignorance has dug its heels in pretty deeply.
7deadlycinderella asked, "People who teach history, what's the most interesting or concerning response you've ever got to one of your lessons?"
The Very Best Source
"So I teach 4th grade, and it's a history lesson focused on sources, like what makes a good source and what makes a bad source(its a lot more nuanced but still), I give my students the task of finding out how old the school is."
"My idea, when I planned the lesson, was that they would go out along the school and find a couple a bricks with the year on it or a plaque. Some of the students did that, and got mixed results, another found a website with the exact age and picture of when it was founded, took them awhile to do."
"The last group just went up to the principal and got every answer straight from him."
"It was awesome, I loved that they had the balls to do that. I made sure to give credit where it was due. The principal thought it was a laugh as well."
Yeesh
"'They're only Jews.' To put it politely, I seized the opportunity to make that a teachable moment."
"It was on my demo lesson for an interview. I got the job 😛"
"But, But My Family Said..."
"My high school history teacher met Revolutionary War hero Samuel Prescott's descendant. When Mr. Kirk said Prescott was half black, the kid shouted, 'You're a damn liar!' Mr. Kirk told him that no, it's historical fact."
"The kid spoke to his family and it had apparently become a family secret by the time he was attending my high school. Considering this was in the South, the family had good reason to be secretive."
"His family told him Mr. Kirk was right but that he should still be careful who he tells about it. I wonder what he's doing now."
-- ugagradlady
In One Ear
"I teach criminology but always do a few mini lesions on various historical topics (history of prisons and jails, law enforcement, mass incarceration, etc).
"One lesson was on economic inequality between races, which requires a quick history lesson about segregation (among other topics). I provided numerous sources, and keep in mind that segregation is a measurable phenomenon."
"Yet on the exam, when I asked them if segregation still occurs, approximately 30% of the class said something like, 'No, because there's a family of (insert race here) descent that lives on my street.' Keep in mind we do talk about the difference between anecdotes and data, and as I've said I shared with them the data on segregation."
"I was very concerned that they truly believed their own individual experience was at all relevant to answering that question."
-- zarza_mora
A Unified Conclusion
"Teaching about the start of the Civil War. Asked the question, 'Why didn't Lincoln just let the South go?' "
"At first, the consensus was, 'He should have.'"
Slanderous Sources
"I'm not a history teacher but my teacher told us a story once. He had assigned a paper on Martin Luther King Jr. One of his students found the website that the KKK made to try to make MLK look bad. It had stuff like he had many affairs and a drug problem. The dude wrote his entire paper using that one source."
"The site has been since been taken down."
-- Kerberos--
Makes You Wonder
"I was surprised to learn 'people these days' didn't know the movie Titanic was based on an actual event." -- ColdEngineBadBrakes
"I think about this all the time. Will the things we experience today be remembered in 100 years? Sometimes I think about what would happen if someone from the late 19th or early 20th century ended up in the present somehow. Would they think we're all completely ignorant?" -- Dark197
Tough for Some to Swallow
"Started a unit on the Middle East for freshmen World Studies with a lesson on the most basic basics of Islam in Cornfields, IL. Some of the students and their parents would not hear it that Islam is an Abrahamic religion and thus worship the same god as Christians." -- Pox22
"I sometimes joke that everybody acknowledges that Christians and Muslims worship the same god, except for some Christians and Muslims." -- Genshed
Rewritten Narratives
"Hitler killed himself because he had really bad social anxiety/depression and the idea of having to stand in a court and talk to people made him so anxious he killed himself."
"A student said this during a presentation and I had zero idea how to respond, honestly I still don't."
Not What We Were Going For There
"9th grade World History class. I did a whole unit on the European wars of religion. The common theme was that religious intolerance led to wars, massacres, persecutions, etc. And all this ended during the Enlightenment when people figured out that freedom of religion worked just fine."
"On the unit test, one moron wrote that the US would be better off if everyone was forced to be the same religion, because then there wouldn't be any religious violence. No, dummy, that's not the takeaway here!"
"In my English class..."
In my English class in high school, we were talking about what sci-fi is and some kid genuinely asked if Mein Kampf was considered sci-fi.
"I was a student teacher..."
I was a student teacher this year, teaching US to 13 year olds. I had two kids, one white and one Black, say they wish they could own slaves. They were not joking.
"It wasn't me..."
It wasn't me, but I personally found it adorable when a young man at my very Southern undergrad college angrily and dramatically stamped out of class one day when our history professor pointed out that the naked male figures on some Greek vases were not wrestling.
"Once he brought up the facts..."
This was more of an experience I had in History Class, But anyways in my case there were these "thoty kind of girls" in my class, and one of them said that it was super sexist of what my teacher said about why men fought in wars and woman didn't.
Once he brought up the facts and logic to the reasoning to why that stuff happened, they went quite fast. Lmao they dont know much history, so this was a very uncharted section of knowledge that they didn't have any knowledge of.
"I think it was..."
Me: Okay does anyone know who killed Abraham Lincoln?
Student: I think it was John Stamos Booth.
"Started a unit..."
Started a unit on the Middle East for freshmen World Studies with a lesson on the most basic basics of Islam in Cornfields, IL. Some of the students and their parents would not hear it that Islam is an Abrahamic religion and thus worship the same god as Christians.
"One of my third graders..."
One of my third graders asked me where Jesus was born when we were talking about immigration. I said that was a question for home. Another kid yelled "in a barn, dummy". I had to change the subject fairly quickly after I told the kid not to call people a dummy.
"I could have gotten..."
4th grade. We are reading Number the Stars. Day after I give my primer about the Holocaust, many kids first introduction to not only the Holocaust but the Nazis at all, a kid tells me "My mom says the Holocaust didnt happen, and is a myth." This was a student from a country where Nazis are strangely idealized to this day.
I decided to kill that with fire. I asked the kid (who was honestly the sweetest little girl in the world) to have lunch with me the next day. I brought my copy of Night from home. First I told her her mom is wrong, which is shocking for a kid to hear but I minced no words. I told her I had an advanced book for her to read called Night. I said its a really hard book but I think shes a great reader so she is up to the challenge. I e-mailed her mom, told her what her kid told me, and attached an .avi of Night and Fog and respectfully told her that shes been misinformed, and asked her to watch it.
Kid came back the next day and I asked her privately if she started reading the book. She said her mom showed her the movie, which wasnt really my intention but it is just as well. We talked about it a bit, and I said that I was sorry she had to see that but it was extremely important she understood that it was real and that it was one of one of the worst things that has ever happened.
I could have gotten into trouble for that one but I didnt really care.
"Just before starting the unit..."
Just before starting the unit on the American Revolution, I told my class of juniors the administration was upset with how many tardies there were already in the school year. Since money is a powerful motivator, the board approved some financial penalties.
- If you are late, you must pay $2.00 for a tardy slip.
- If you want to know your current grade average in any class, that will cost $2.00.
- If you want to print anything, you have to purchase school paper at $0.75 per sheet. (Color prints are $1.50 each page.)
- Any other paperwork they want (such as report cards, permission slips, etc.) has to have a stamp from the main office that costs $2. Any papers without the stamp will be considered a forgery and whoever holds it will receive a detention (that costs $10).
Then I went into a lesson about the Declaration of Independence. While doing this, I read the room. Some seemed not to care, but many were pissed. One guy who showed up late almost every day was seriously upset. (And yes, a few knew what I was doing and sat there quietly smiling.)
That's when I apologized for my ruse, explained there were no such charges, and described how this mirrored taxation during the lead-up to the Revolution.
The response was amazing! We talked about what everyone felt over the fake charges, and that dovetailed nicely into colonial sentiment towards Great Britain and why the colonists were upset. All students got it, and that's both rare and interesting.
"Teaching about the Church..."
Teaching about the Church in Europe during the medieval period. Kid asks "Isn't the Pope that stuff in the orange juice?"
"Reading a Peter Rabbit story..."
Reading a Peter Rabbit story to kindergartens and they all got worried when Mr. Gregor's hoe came into the story. One little girl told me I shouldn't say that word.
"There was a light chuckle..."
I once worked as teacher's assistant and we had a history lesson coming up and the subject would be 9/11 (this was held in 9.11.) The teacher was running late, so i decided to start the class without saying anything and played on a big screen the original news footage of 9/11 and the aftermath. After the clips were over, 1 kid (12yo boy) in the front row had light tears in his eyes, so i asked him what's wrong? The kid answered: "When i'm old enough and strong enough, i want to stop those people who would do such a thing."
There was a light chuckle in the class room after he said that but i followed up with a devil's advocate question to see what he'd answer: "But why would you want to fight on behalf of the U.S.? They attacked them, not our country." "They attacked people, like us, that's why."
Gotta say he's got a point.
"Here's a good rule of thumb..."
Concerning: An outrageous amount of Jewish conspiracy crap, the worst of which basically blames them for pogroms and The Shoa/Holocaust. Also, and probably related, a large amount of people who think a YouTube video is a proper source for a paper or presentation.
Interesting: The same things because I am a professor. Meaning I teach at a university. Meaning these kids actually had to do OK in High School. And I don't teach a low level course either, meaning they had to do ok in other history courses.
Here's a good rule of thumb folks: If it doesn't have sources, it's not a source.
"Surely..."
In a college music history class, one student wrote on her exam:
"Bach had 20 children, 2 wives, and practiced on a spinster in the attic."
Surely, she must've meant to have said "spinet."
"I made multiple students..."
Not one of my students, but last year we were doing a long research project for all the sophomores. I was student teaching and my mentor teacher (who was a very bad teacher) had a student who wrote their whole research essay on how 9/11 was faked.
Now, this is not really the student's fault. The teacher was supposed to teach about source credibility and finding reliable sources. They were also supposed to check their student's sources and read their drafts and generally trouble shoot when they got stuck. The student should have never gotten to the stage of final draft using only conspiracy theory based websites without anyone noticing. That is a teaching failure not a student problem.
I made multiple students re-do steps of the process because they had crappy sources and we talked extensively about what made sources high or low quality all semester long.
As a teacher it's important to remember that your students will come up with all kinds of weird and sometimes shocking stuff, they're teenagers it's expected. It's the teacher's job to help guide them without publicly shaming them or making them feel stupid.
And more importantly your job is to give them the critical thinking tools to help them better navigate on their own, because you won't always be there to let them know the thing they just read on the Internet is a bunch of BS.
"I was presenting..."
I was presenting some Week Without Walls trip options at an international school. A good portion of the Muslim kids (the liberal ones who dislike their own conservative culture and governments) started booing/snickering when Israel was presented as an option.
"The kid spoke to his family..."
My high school history teacher met Revolutionary War hero Samuel Prescott's descendant. When Mr. Kirk said Prescott was half black, the kid shouted, "You're a damn liar!" Mr. Kirk told him that no, it's historical fact.
The kid spoke to his family and it had apparently become a family secret by the time he was attending my high school. Considering this was in the South, the family had good reason to be secretive.
His family told him Mr.Kirk was right but that he should still be careful who he tells about it. I wonder what he's doing now.
"For their final project..."
I did a class project based on Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start The Fire." For their final project of the year, the class had to put together a PPT that described the historical significance of each event and each individual mentioned in the song. Every student had to participate in the project by speaking in front of the audience for a minimum of 3 minutes. I invited the entire high school to come and watch the presentation. It was impressive.
"He was the football coach..."
When I was doing my student teaching, I had to shadow teachers. A world history teacher told his students that the Eastern-Roman monk Methodius invented Methodism (a popular Christian sect in the south). Literally nothing about that is even close to true.
Methodius and his brother Cyril invented the Cyrillic alphabet for the Russians. Methodist Christianity was a hundreds of years later, in America.
He was the football coach, and a moron. At the same school, I sat in on an American history class and the teacher taught them about the KKK....without mentioning anything bad they did. Did not mention lynchings at all. He told they class that they helped enforce prohibition.
Confederate flag boots were the hot fashion statement at this school.
"The look on my professor's face..."
Background: History student with a background in Classics. Lots of work with ancient languages and such.
First day of my university program's advanced Ancient Greek history class. Keep in mind that this is a course reserved for History majors/minors. The professor, who is a really level guy, started his lecture by justifying the reasons why we study ancient cultures. He pulls from a variety of sources, including modern literature and advertisement, and relating them to progenitors. This goes on for about 40 minutes. Everyone is engaged. Connections are being made for the uninitiated. All is well.
In the last few minutes of class, as our professor was briefly surveying Alexander the Great's conquest of Asia Minor, one of the students raises her hand. At this point we're all generally relaxed. That didn't last. She asked:
"So what was the United States doing in this period? What were *we* up to?" That emphasis was very, very punctuated.
The look on my professor's face was absolutely amazing. I have never seen internal screaming look so transparent.
I really feel bad for that student. I sincerely hope she went on to do wonderful things.
"In an AP US History class..."
In an AP US history class some girl asked if Hitler was the reason we got into the Vietnam war.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
| Image by Yerson Retamal from Pixabay |
Books are life. Recently studies have been published that reading for fun, reading for knowledge, just interest in reading in general is down, and that is a tragedy.
We've become too obsessed with our binge watching and ADHD mindset that we've lost focus on one of life's greatest joys... literature.
There are some stories and books that should be a mandatory read for life. There should be age benchmarks that require knowledge of certain books in order to progress. I know, how "1984" of me. ;)
Redditor u/bugtanks33d wanted to hear about what literature we should all be familiar with sooner than later by asking:
What's a book everyone should read at least once in their lives?
One of my favorite books is "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." It was a key element in unlocking what I could see with my imagination. No adolescent should go beyond sixth grade without knowing it. What else?
"ANNOUNCEMENT FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE READING THIS THREAD:"
"MANY OF THE BOOKS MENTIONED HERE ARE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND IN AUDIO BOOK FORM. GO THROUGH YOUTUBE/RANDOMHOUSE/AUDIBLE/OVERDRIVE FOR ALL THE CLASSICAL GOODNESS YOU WANT."
"It almost totally eliminates the financial/time commitment that many will cite for not picking them up. I listen to books on double speed all the damn time. I am working my way through "A Tale of Two Cities" now."
Meaning
wondering simon cowell GIF by X Factor GlobalGiphy"Man's search for meaning - Viktor Frankl."
Oh Milo
"The Phantom Tollbooth."
"Maybe one of my favorite literary moments…"
"Milo: "Many of the things I'm supposed to know seem so useless that I can't see the purpose of learning them at all."
"Princess of Sweet Rhyme: "...what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover the wonderful secrets of tomorrow."
- wort_hog
Johnny
"Johnny's Got His Gun. It's so intense, but it's so good. Metallica's song One is based off this book. Guy has his arms and legs blown off, goes blind and deaf, and is left to live like that. I only read it once, but it's forever engrained into my memory. It hits you like a freight train."
Brothers...
"Surprised I haven't seen it here already so I'll add it... The Brother's Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. In Slaughterhouse 5 Vonnegut said it could teach everything that we needed to know about life, except that wasn't enough anymore."
"If the only thing that book did was make you marvel at how people centuries and oceans removed from you in time and place, could experience the exact same emotions about life as you did, it would be worth the read. There's so much more to it, but Dostoyevsky had such a knack for digging deep into universal human experience. And it's just a hell of a good story too."
Classics
diva read GIFGiphy"Speaking as somebody who isn't religious, the literary value of the Bible (and the Hebrew Bible) is severely underrated."
I took a class on it in college, with a prof who'd once allegedly gotten into a bar fight over Beowulf. We would sometimes spend half a class discussing a single verse or two because there's so much stuff going on under the hood."
- dmillson
I know so many of those. And sadly, I'm already behind in my studies. I love books and I'm always on the path to find more to consume. Let me ready my already lengthy list.
WAR
War Shockwave GIFGiphy"All Quiet on the Western Front. Everyone should have to reckon with the reality of what war actually means."
- BigHern
Thanks Teach...
"Night, by Elie Wiezel. It is absolutely heartwrecking , and I hated every moment of reading it, which is exactly the effect it is supposed to have."
"Came here looking for this one. I had to read it back in high school and it blew me away how moved I was by it. Stories like his need to be remembered for all time, no matter how hard it is to get through (emotionally-speaking; it's actually quite an easy and short read). I'm so grateful that my English teacher assigned it."
West
"The Westing Game."
"A Librarian here, such a terrific book. I have gotten so many kids to read it by hooking them with the fact that the reader can play the game and has all of the clues. And good luck as it is fiendishly clever."
All the Good Crazy
"The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Such a great book."
"Oh my god yes. I love this book for being the sex, drugs and rock and roll of the classics world. It is lengthy but has revenge, treasure, plots and schemes and drugs. There is nothing stuffy about this classic."
- skundrik
The "Good"
"The Giver- that book made my 9-10 year old mind really think about what was important in society. It was the first time the idea of "good" things having a negative consequence was presented to me. I think what makes it work is that we are learning how this whole society really works along side a character who has lived in it his whole life."
"As the facade of the utopian society begins to fall away to show devastating consequences of the "perfect life and society" the reader not only feels their shock but the main character's shock. This was a book I read in school 4 times- once in 5th grade and once in 10th for English and then in both high school and college sociology classes. This book written for 9-13 year olds made for great discussions."
Good and Bad of Life
read ford GIFGiphy"The Grapes of Wrath and/or Of Mice and Men. Both are heartbreaking, but not for the sake of being heartbreaking - instead they provide a glimpse of how freaking hard life can be, but also how beautiful it can be."
That is a lot of good advice. And a lot of great storytelling and advice giving. Did anyone miss anything that should be there? And make sure you read anything by Harlan Coben, he's a fav.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
It's always our high school dreams, as shown by every high school teen movie ever, to marry the popular girl or the jock. But high school is high school for a reason; life does not really last outside of the walls of high school in the way it did within.
Jocks tend to fall off their athletic bandwagons. The popular girls have a hell of a time making their way in the working world when their popularity means nothing. People's lives sometimes completely freeze in place.
Or sometimes those people really do completely change, and live their lives for the better.
"Spouses who married the cool girl/boy from your high school, what are they like now?"
Here were some of those answers.
Southern Romance
"My mom was the elite Atlanta debutante and lived a very cushy life at a budding Miami country club. Beautiful and very popular at the private school. My dad grew up on a farm in Virginia. They weren't poor but they were definitely not refined."
"Eventually my father's family made it down to Miami after selling the farm. He became the lifeguard at the country club pool where my mom spent days lounging about."
"My parents say they saw each other and that was it. The scandal was great - the debutante and the lowly lifeguard...."
"They just celebrated 54 years of marriage. My 'lowly' lifeguard father made quite the life for my mom regardless of what all those elite twats said was going to happen."
"She gladly left the country club life for him and they are still so utterly in love it's crazy. He carries a photo of her at the pool where they met. The only references she makes to being 'that girl' are that they proved everyone wrong."
"They are beautiful and I love their story."-wadinglimpkin
Just Because He's Hot Don't Mean He Can't Be Smart Too
"Not me but my mom married my dad who who was hot sh*t. They met in college when he was an absolute hellion."
"But since then he became a doctor, still a really fun dude. He's also a licensed contractor so when he was bored he built a 6000 square foot barn in our backyard over 10 years completely on his own."
"Absolutely stand up dude."-GravityMyGuy
Inward Focus
"I married the cool girl. Super athletic, everyone was her friend. We started dating in high school."
"She's kept up everything people loved about her. Nowadays she isn't as interested in other people, and focuses on herself, her career, us and our future."
"We're planning to buy a house and have kids soon. I'm the breadwinner today but I'm not so sure if that'll be true in a few years lol"-WakeAndVape
See, not all the cool kids go on to have horrible, boring lives after. Sometimes the cool kids were cool because they deserved it.
Strike Three
"As it turned out, I married one of the mean girls, didn't go to her school, didn't find out she was considered that until after the divorce. That's how it turned out."
"Then I dated one of the cool chicks. Did go to her school, did know she was considered that. And she was the most amazing human being I've ever known. That one didn't work out either."
"Now I'm just retired from relationships for a bit, strike 3 would kill me right now."
"This was very therapeutic. I have friends and family that are awesome. Hopefully, I'll have more Someday. For now it's me and my kids I'm focusing on."-read110
A Tale Of Strength (On The Outside)
"My mom was the cool girl all through high school, undergrad, grad school. But life didn't go that well. For most of her life, she had to be caring for someone in the family who was ill, and that took a huge toll on her."
"First it was her dad, then it was me (I had childhood illnesses), then her in-laws in quick succession, then her dad again, and finally she had to nurse my dad until he passed away from a terminal illness."
"She was meant to be social and have fun, and instead she was forced to be around sickness and sadness for her best years."
"But she is a very happy and mentally strong person in general who made the best of things. She hosted a lot of people and events."
"My house growing up was full of people visiting and having fun. She's very charming and easy to talk to, and has a lot of fans all the time."
"Though, my siblings and I find her social side rather annoying. She isn't like that with us, and she tells us her charming side is just an act, and the real her is the lady who is constantly critical of us 'for our own good.'"
"She likes having groupies hanging around, people who are happy to take her help and be grateful to her. She has very few friends who could be considered her equals."
"She also expects a lot from other people and is constantly disappointed. She wants to be the center of everything. She doesn't know to be a guest at anything, she somehow ends up running every event she's invited to."
"She sincerely believes she's helping, but it's just disrespectful sometimes and when we tell her that, she doesn't get it."
"She likes to dominate everything and make decisions for everyone. We joke that if the prime minister was her friend, she'd somehow end up running the country for him."-sensitiveinfomax
Sometimes, Chase The Waterfalls
"My mum was the nerdy girl who got all the As and had zero social skills, and somehow managed to start dating my dad who was the popular, good-looking guy who everyone thought would peak in high school."
"She was actually advised by her family and friends that he wouldn't give her the future she was hoping for. They got married at 19, had me when they were 20, and while they were pretty broke the first few years of my life, he paid for my mum to attend law school, started his own business and 25 years later with 3 kids, they're still so in love and have a pretty cushy life."
"My dad actually met one of the loud voices who told my mum she was making a big mistake marrying him, and she had said how she always knew he would turn out well, which he found hilarious."-samknowsbest8
#Winning
"Found out recently (30 M) that my dad was extremely popular in highschool from my aunt. I had no idea he was an all-star football player with lots of college offers and was prom and homecoming king."
"Never talks about it, but he's doing well. 2 kids, a dog, and a loving wife, imo he's still winning."-ZoatDGoat
And what counts as successful in high school doesn't necessarily count toward success in later life.
What Kind Of Woman?
"My brother was one of the hottest guys in high school and went on to be a model. He's still cool and hot to many but now he's a bit fat."
"He's my brother so ewww on the hot part in my opinion. But women still swoon and he's so obnoxious. Think Matt Dillon, etc…. Era."
"He got dumped by his model 17 years younger wife for a 26 year old. He has impossible standards and it's making him miserable. He's into these flashy shallow women. Overall he's doing really well and his business is thriving."-RunRevolutionary9019
Always Take The Risk
"I sat next to the popular guy every day pretty much for five years and I was so afraid of speaking to him. I'd watched him and his friends picking each other up and shoving the chosen one into lockers, or chasing each other round into a pile on and throwing their shoes at each other. Typical school sh*t."
"They were rowdy and loud and intimidating, but he was the quiet yet seriously funny one and I crushed on him HARD for years. He remembers me as the little blonde girl who didn't speak to anyone (because I was so anxious all the time)."
"He also protected his sister from some a**holes every break time and she'd come to find him for safety from bullies."
"Should have spoken to him sooner when school finished, because we have the same music taste and we get on well enough now at 26 that we have a 6 month old daughter together, my daughter from a previous relationship and we just got engaged last weekend. I adore him, he's handsome, charming and funny and I would do anything for this man as he would for me."-hospital-flowers
High School Never Ends
"I married the Student Council President/ Prom King. He jokes that he peaked in high school. Graduated 20 years ago. He dropped out of three colleges and hasn't found a career path he is passionate about."
"He hates his job, but he's actually really good at it. He's kind of trapped in it because it would be incredibly difficult for him to find a new job without a degree."
"He's a good husband. He's an amazing father. He struggles with anxiety and some depression. A lot of self-doubt. He's incredibly social and the pandemic hit hard."
"He's put on weight and hates his body. He admits that he worries about what other people think of him and wants people to like him."
"He's introspective and wants to be a better person, but anxiety gets in the way sometimes. He married a theater nerd lol, but we didn't meet until college. I felt a little intimidated by his popular past, but he's very down-to-earth."-madestories
We really want our lives to fit neatly into these stereotypes, but at the end of the day, we are all just people repeating a cycle of wanting more for ourselves over and over again. We can't shove that into a stereotype.
Even the student council president, the prom king, the homecoming queen, and the jocks can't run away and hide in a single identity forever. Life makes you into a more rounded person whether you want to be one or not.
Movies' strong focus on creating drama through conflict inevitably has lead to countless on screen deaths.
Some of those movie deaths occur to minor characters we don't care much about (enter Wilhelm Scream). Nonetheless, they can still pack a punch if the manner of the death was gruesome or sad enough.
On the other side of the coin, a death doesn't have to be spectacular to create drama if it happens to a character we've grown to love throughout the film.
And sometimes, a beloved character faces a gruesome end. That's the double whammy.
Redditor Boston_Strong_CQB241 asked:
"Out of all the deaths you seen in movies, which one really stands out to you as the worst?"
Many Redditors recalled the deaths that drew their intensity from the connection they'd felt with the character who did the dying.
And, yes, sometimes the manner of death only heaped on the drama.
Last Gasps
"The soldier in Saving Private Ryan that had the knife slowly plunged into his chest after a hand to hand fight and he was begging the other soldier to stop. Intense."
That Etched Wooden Beam
"The old man (Brooks) who hangs himself from The Shawshank Redemption."
" 'Get busy living or get busy dyin.' "
-- derty2X
A Very Different Boxing Film
"Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby. Almost becoming World Champion, then paralyzed, her family only caring about the money she won from boxing, then having her limbs chopped off because of bed sores that got infected."
"All this just to be put down as a act of kindness like the story she foretold of her dog she grew up with. I will never watch that movie again."
Stoic Until She Wasn't
"Vesper Lynd drowning in 'Casino Royale.' That moment when she goes serene and calm, to a panicky and frenzied last gasp for air.... that really bothered me."
Others were spooked by the pure violence of some onscreen deaths. They could barely watch the gruesome moments when they erupted.
But now they can't forget them.
Slam, Slam, Slam
"That f**king wine bottle scene in Pan's Labyrinth. The casual brutality is so horribly realistic." -- Darth_Mufasa
"My jaw dropped the first time I saw it and it still haunts me. In fact, that movie gave me nightmares for two weeks" -- TheSilverCrystal
Infamous
"The curb stomp." -- AUTheatreNerd
"American History X. The curb stomp. It haunts me." -- DigitFisher
Yuck
"Ryan Reynolds getting his insides eaten out by an Alien in the horror movie Life. It still traumatized me."
-- Darkrow_
And some people recalled the deaths they witnessed as children movie-watchers. All grown up now, they still can't unsee those old images.
Sizzle
"That shoe from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it was so happy and friendly and then it gets slowly dipped to death. The smoke and its cries of pain are burned into my mind 25+ years later."
-- Lorlocks
Aptly Named
"Artax in the swamp of sorrows. Made me cry so much as kid, Atreyo was so hopeless." -- kirby60
"Don't you dare do this to me right now" -- OmgOgan
Multiple Movies' Worth of Sadness
"Stoick from How to Train Your Dragon 2, I still cry every time I even think about it, and the flashbacks in the third movie just break me, great trilogy. Full of emotion and great everything, best Dreamworks movies, in my opinion"
-- RPAVONM
The worst part is that this is only a small handful of the tragic movie moments that are out there. And we have so many unknown future deaths we'll see too.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
It might feel like a challenge to come back at someone who has just insulted you, but it's easier than you think.
Reddit user, u/MilkshakeDawg, wanted to know about the best clapbacks when they asked:
What's the most memorable comeback you've heard in your life?
No one knows you like your family, hence why they're usually the one who know the best way to eviscerate you using only their words. Anyone with an older brother and/or sister knows what's going on with these comebacks.
She Can Stay
"My son and his newlywed wife were poor college students living out of state. When I went to visit them I took them to the grocery store and let them fill up a couple of grocery carts that I paid for. As we were leaving the store I said, "Now, when your kids are poor married college students trying to get by, don't forget this". My new daughter-in-law piped up and said, "Oh we won't forget. We're going to tell them to go get grandpa!" Haa haaa haaa...I love that gal."
Got That Sacred "Dad Laugh"
"I don't care if it's self-congratulatory, I'm proud of this one:
"Having dinner with my dad and older sister. I got straight As in school or something, and she's doing the older sibling thing."
"Sister: You may have gotten the book smarts in this family, but *I* got the street smarts."
"Me: The corner doesn't count."
"Dad: *chokes whiles laughing*"
Oh, Good Lord...
"My uncle to my husband. "When are you guys having a kid?"
"My husband. "Please don't ask me about my sex life with your niece"
Like, in public. Where people are. Other people. People you don't know, who might just be going about their day-to-day business, and they just so happen to hear someone being roasted alive?
How awful.
What's Keeping You Alive, Grandpa?
"Was standing behind these two older adults and this teen girl at the gas station last year. She was on her phone and the guy snapped at her for "not knowing how to live without technology" and without looking up she went "don't you have a pacemaker?".
When The Store Hates You...
"Someone yelled out in a Walmart , "I'm not ashamed of who I am".
"Another voice echoed back, "that's your parents job"
You Would Really Walk Up To Someone You Don't Know And Say This?
"Young pregnant co-worker had a stranger stare disapproving at her in a restaurant, then walk up and say "pregnancy isn't very becoming on you." She replied, "well, being a nosey rude bi*ch isn't becoming on you, but here we are."
And then there's these clapbacks. Unplanned, zero preparation, and with little prior knowledge, there needs to be a call placed to some local medical center with how much damage was done with these comebacks.
If You Pantsed It, Fix It
"My friend got pantsed, underwear and all at a party. Instead of pulling his underwear and pants up, immediately, he just kept going about his business, while hanging dong. Those of us that knew him already thought it was hilarious. The people at the party that didn't know him, looked really uncomfortable due to this dude having his pants and underwear around his ankles, with his wiener hanging freely. Our friend/the host said "dude, why don't you pull your pants up?" Pantsed guy said "I didn't pull them down." Then took his turn in beer pong. The host then found the guy that did pull them down and made him pull our friend's pants back up."
Definitely Seems Like You Got Tricked Here
"When I was working as a bartender one Halloween, I came dressed as an old Western style bartender (complete with mustache and accent). We had the evening split up into a little costume party for kids and families in the earlier hours, and then an adults only costume piss up later on."
"One of the regulars laughed at my costume and said I looked stupid, so I told him"
"You should probably come back after the kids have gone because you've come dressed as a c-nt".
"He didn't talk to me for weeks after that. It was blissful."
That's A Mom Burn! Those Don't Heal!
"I asked my mum out of curiosity what she would do if she found a used condom in my brother's room."
"Her response: "I would remind him that you can't get HIV from your own hand"
"For context, I live in South Africa where HIV is very common"
If you have some ice nearby it might be a good idea to go and grab some.
These burns spread.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.