Working as a professor or a TA, you're responsible for grading a lot of papers. Thousands along the course of your career, in fact. There are those that stick with you because they are so beautifully worded you could kiss each page, and those that stick with you for a whole other reason. Thanks to these professors for sharing the worst paper they ever graded.
1. I had a student who spelled the country Chile as the food, Chili, and whose only references were a couple of links to google maps.
2. First year english class. The assignment was quite simple a literary analysis of a passage of text. One of my students handed in a stack of pornographic comics, featuring the main characters from the text. When I called him to my office and held up the papers, he gasped and said, "I'm so sorry. I was making those as a joke with my roommates, who also study English, and I must have handed you the wrong papers by accident." He was so red-faced by that point. All I could do was laugh and say, "It was actually pretty good."
Anonymous
3. Hard to choose the WORST, but here are a few that really made me scratch my head...
I once had a student who said the biggest issue facing obese (male) children is that they have small penises. Not ONE of the issues, but the BIGGEST issue. I suppose the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and the potential for issues with confidence and bullying pale in comparison to small genitalia in pre-pubescent males.
In the same class a student wrote that single women were at significant risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection from masturbation. The student was in her twenties.
4. Writing Professor here. I have a couple pretty good ones:
Student 1:
I had a student who was doing pretty poorly in my class. He just wasn't showing up and wasn't doing the work. I asked him to come to my office one day and told him that it wasn't mathematically possible to pass the class anymore. He said okay but that he wanted to stay in the class so he'd be better next time around. I said that was fine, and he showed up for the next couple classes. But then, things got weird.
(Continue reading on the next page...)
For the final paper, I was having them analyze a pop culture text: basically, they had to break down and explain a movie, an album, a TV show, or something like that. This student handed me in an album review cut and pasted directly from Rolling Stone's website. Not a single word was even changed. So I asked him to come to my office again after class. I told him that not only did I find the original article that this was plagiarized from, but it also would have failed even if I hadn't (because it had nothing to do with the assignment). I told him that now his F was an XF (failure for academic dishonesty). He started crying and told me he was "just trying to impress me."
5. One summer, I was teaching a "bridge" course that was for new college freshmen who the university had deemed "at risk" for failing out: usually people who either just barely met the requirements for entry, were first-generation students, or both. Most of the students were awesome. They really wanted to prove something and were hard workers.
One student was trying pretty hard, but she clearly just wasn't getting it. I kept working with her one-on-one outside of class and had my TA tutoring her in the evenings. But we both had the same experience: we'd sit down with her, she'd take notes and even write up parts of a paper, and then she'd turn in something totally different (and way worse). This had been going on all semester, so she was doing really poorly in the class.
She had to get an A on the final paper just to scrape by. So both my TA and I were on her to make sure this final paper was an A. Same problem: we'd work with her, she'd get there, and then she'd turn in something totally different.
She handed in a first draft that was completely unrelated to the assignment I had given. The assignment was to analyze an advertisement for the methods it was using to influence people, but she handed in a paper all about Gwen Stefani. Stefani was in the ad, but the student never got around to actually saying anything about the ad itself. I told her she'd have to completely rework her paper. She said okay, and she worked with both the TA and me one-on-one for the next week to get things in order. She left my office the day before the paper was due with a pretty good draft--not an A, but close enough that I could call it an A. She said she'd tweak it a little and then hand it in.
But what do I get the next day? The first draft with one paragraph from the new draft she wrote in my office, and one paragraph plagiarized from someplace online. The new paragraphs were just dropped in there. I wrote her an email explaining the situation and told her she had failed. Her email back to me, and I quote: "ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?" Nothing else. I honestly have no idea what she was thinking, but god damn, I tried really hard to help her succeed.
6. I teach a postgraduate course in marketing, and often ask students to give a 10-minute presentation on any subject related to marketing. I like it when students come up with something personal and original, that I like learning about, myself.
One student gave a presentation about Nike and Roger Federer, which potentially is a great subject.
However, the presentation was totally off track.
(Continue reading on the next page...)
It was 50% about Federer's career, and 50% about how he needed special shoes due to previous injuries. He did not bring up anything related to marketing, for example how Federer was a great celebrity endorser for the brand.
In fact he seemed to believe that the co-branded shoes were primarily made for Federer, because he needed special shoes, not for regular Nike customers.
7. I was a TA when I was getting my masters degree in music, and at the end of every semester we would allow the students to either take a final exam or do an in depth analysis of a piece of music and write a paper on the analysis. Some were good, some were not as good, but one student absolutely blew my mind.
When I grade, I always read a paper through first without being really critical just to get a feel for the overall effect of the paper, and I then read through it again to find specific errors in the content, argument, or the writing in general. I read through this particular paper and thought "wow, there is some really great and insightful analysis going on here."
I then read it through again, and I notice something.
After the first paragraph, there is a sentence that contains an open quotation mark that started a parenthetical quote. On the first reading, I thought that the student just forgot the other set of quotation marks, and since the style guide we use required endnotes and not footnotes, I hadn't yet seen the citation. However, what I didn't notice on the first reading was that there was another quotation mark... at the end of the second to last paragraph....
So, if you haven't figured it out yet, this student did not plagiarize the analysis, but instead parenthetically quoted and correctly cited the entirety of someone else's analysis. I honestly just couldn't believe what I was seeing, and had to study it for a good 10 minutes to convince myself that that is in fact what this student had done.
We made him take the exam.
8. For their autobiography, I had one student give me something that was barely a half page of incoherent rabble. Some typos were so bad it looked like they typed by smashing their face into the keyboard. Another student turned in a reflection paper that was supposed to be on a current political issue either nationally or globally. The paper was instead on their favorite sport, which they misspelled. I had another student that decided to not turn in any of the papers he had to do until the day after the semester ended. I looked at only one of those papers, and it was unbelievable.
(Continued on the next page...)
It looked like he threw words on the page an hour before he sent them to me. That paper along with the rest of them immediately went into the trash.
9. Worst was easily the essay on Columbia the university instead of Colombia the country.
10. First year physics student fitted an entire 8 question assignment onto a single page of A4. So far, not so bad - if the university I recently moved to allowed students to hand in paper assignments. Nope. Everything must be scanned and uploaded to the online system - the university provides scanners and photocopiers in the library just for this reason.
Student took a photo of the assignment with his mid-2000s flip phone in what I can only imagine was a concrete, windowless cell lit by a single, flickering lightbulb, uploaded the file as a low res JPEG about 250x600px across.
I also got one random assignment I had to send to IT to have the file converted from MS Publisher into something my computer could open (last version of publisher came out in ~2012, I don't have access to the software). Had to email the student to have them resubmit because the equations they'd added got parsed as random-ass rectangles.
Students now get the 'this is camscanner and this is how to make a PDF' talk.
11. was grading a students paper regarding "The Tales of the Heike". I can't remember the line verbatim but the one that took the cake was "readers can agree that Morinaga was kind of a dick."
12. I teach a course on Law, Society and Technology to Software Engineers. Students are assigned an essay where they have to write about how new technology has interacted with law or society to try to take a technology and think about how the specific, technical details have had an impact in a balanced way.
I let students choose topics and as a result I get some really interesting ones. I've graded several papers paper written on Gamergate, which is a term that concerns issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture, stemming from a harassment campaign conducted primarily through the use of the Twitter hashtag
#GamerGate. One paper stands out among the rest.
(Continue reading on the next page...)
One stands out because it talked about the problems feminism and Social Justice Warriors were causing for the development of new technology and science in general. The student suggested that scientific progress can only be made by men because women can't do maths (source:youtube), that the entire independent gaming industry was controlled by feminists who had used their wiles (not joking that's the term) to infiltrate the controlling roles in the industry (source:youtube) and that feminism has killed more people that communism (source:youtube). In fact, all the sources were youtube.
13. In my AP Literature course, I was grading a paper from a student for whom a C- would be an achievement.
The first paragraph is fantastic. I'm impressed. The second paragraph, awful. The third is again written eloquently, the fourth is atrocious. I call the student to my desk after class, set his paper between us, and tell him I haven't Googled anything yet. But if he'd like to tell me anything about the paper before I did, this was his opportunity.
"Yeah I plagiarized a lot of it."
Alright then.
14. I taught second semester introductory biology classes for majors. Our students had to write lab reports on an in-class experiment we did involving snails.
Two students managed to misspell "snail". One spelled it "snale" and the other spelled it "snell". There are plenty of hard words to spell in biology, but snail is not one of them.
15. Definitely the one where the student copied and pasted several paragraphs from Wikipedia without bothering to change the formatting of the hyperlinks before printing it off.
16. I had a student who spelled the country Chile as the food, Chili, and whose only references were a couple of links to google maps.
(Continued on the next page...)
17. I was a TA for a class one time. A sophomore girl wrote an entire 8 page paper on the use of color in early Islamic architecture except there was one problem - all of her examples were Buddhist temples located in east Asia.
18. I've taught a bunch of different classes that required essays. My favorites include a paper on Taoism, which was completely blank. It would have been cute had a dozen students not tried that before. I get it, but you still have to write the damn paper.
The worst was in a composition class where a student asked for special permission to write her paper on her culture. I agreed, mostly so I would get to read something not on the same boring five topics I was forced to assign. The student turns in the rough draft and the paper is literally a copy/paste from a tourism website, so I turn the student in for a plagiarism violation (after trying to reach out to the student multiple times).
Guess what the student turns in for the final? The exact. Same. Paper. That's two plagiarism violations in one term in case anyone is counting. Needless to say, the student was given a zero in my course and most likely expelled from the university.
19. My favourite paper wasn't necessarily the worst, it was just the most baffling. My students had to write an essay on whether "graffiti had to be vandalism to be an art form. Needless to say, this is a somewhat difficult concept for some students, especially those with an ESL background.
One such young woman didn't quite understand what I was going for and sat with me during office hours. I tried to explain it to her with a few examples. For instance, 'do you think, for instance, the crude drawings of penises on a bathroom stall are examples of art? What about scribbles on a wall?' - if not, then why not? Alternately, do you think a beautiful mural criticizing a Wal-mart on an actual wal-mart would still be artistically impactful if you took it out of it's contexts and instead put it in a gallery?
Anyway, we discussed her perceptions on art and how she felt about these examples. She left feeling much more focussed and I felt good to've helped.
Two weeks later I get a copy of her essay.
It was titled "Are Penises Art?". The essay was a very well researched and in depth analysis of penis art throughout history. There were pictures, and a whole historical analysis about cocks and balls as depicted in art work. Her search history is still no doubt eroding her computer from within. There was nothing related to the original question, but the essay was so odd and so out of nowhere and brought me so much joy that I passed it.
Thanks for reading!
There are few things more satisfying than a crisp $20 bill. Well, maybe a crisp $100 bill.
But twenty big ones can get you pretty far nonetheless.
Whether it's tucked firmly in a birthday card, passing from hand to hand after a knee-jerk sports bet, or going toward a useful tool, the old twenty dollar bill has been used for countless purposes.
Breaking Even
<p>"I got a jacket and a pair of jeans at goodwill for about $20. My first time wearing the jacket I found a tiny zipper inside a pocket."</p><p>"There was a secret inner pocket with a twenty in it."</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lvu5aq/whats_the_best_20_you_ever_spent/gpdv70q?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">TheBrontosaurus</a></p>Keeps On Giving
<p>"23 Years ago I was in the US for some work and was not prepared for the cold of Chicago. Went to wal-mart and bought myself a cheap, warm jacket."</p><p>"I'm wearing that jacket right now - still looks fine, still keeps me warm."</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lvu5aq/whats_the_best_20_you_ever_spent/gpe41xv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">TastyEnd</a></p>As Good As They Come
<p>"Wool pinstripe double breasted suit from Goodwill, fit perfectly and was brand new. Ended up wearing it to get married the next year." -- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lvu5aq/whats_the_best_20_you_ever_spent/gpdw6mx?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">verminiusrex</a></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"God I love Goodwill!!" -- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lvu5aq/whats_the_best_20_you_ever_spent/gpe5aee?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">Neverthelilacqueen</a></p>The Socks She Needed
<p>"I work at a thrift shop. A homeless lady came in and asked us where the socks were. We only sell new socks, so I directed her towards the new socks and she was... shocked and disappointed by the price tag, surely."<br></p><p>"I gave her a moment as she looked, and she moved to some kids' socks and picked them up, and I... just couldn't let that happen. I told her that I would help her, and told her to get herself some socks and a jacket."</p><p>"She kind of just... held out the children's socks, so I took them, put them back, and grabbed the extra fluffy socks that were hanging."</p><p>"She grabs a jacket and some pants, and I pay for it. My coworker looks the other way since we're not supposed to purchase anything while on the clock. The lady is in tears as she walks out."</p><p>"I notice that she's still outside a minute later putting them on, and ask her if they fit her or if she needed something else; and she told me they were perfect and proceeded to cry. I cried in return."</p><p>"It was a good day."</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lvu5aq/whats_the_best_20_you_ever_spent/gpen3w1?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">Snowodin</a></p>Not Forgotten
<p>"A guy came into my work when I managed a mom and pop Pizza Place. He said he was stranded with no phone, and no money, but that the people at the Verizon store next door to us said they could get him a cheap phone with some minutes on it for 20 bucks."</p><p>"He offered to do dishes for a few hours to make some money so he could get this phone. I told him not to worry about it and gave him a 20 from my wallet. He thanked me, asked me for my name, and then he left and I never saw him again."</p><p>"Skip forward about 5 months, and when I get into work the owner was there and said she had gotten a letter addressed to me. 'Weird,' I thought."</p><p>"But when I opened it there was a 50 dollar bill and a short note from the guy I gave 20 dollars to thanking me for my kindness and for not turning him away."</p><p>"Turns out he was in a bad way (addicted to hard drugs and homeless) and really was stranded there. He was trying to get a phone so he could contact his parents (who lived in another state) for help."</p><p>"From what it sounded like, he seemed to really turn his life around. He was clean and working a stable job while still living with his parents."</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lvu5aq/whats_the_best_20_you_ever_spent/gpem2xc?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">Mixmaster-McGuire</a></p>The Best Finale
<p>"It was the day before payday. My wife came to see me at work. My break was in an hour, so I asked for her to wait a bit, so we could enjoy it together. She did."</p><p>"I bought her some lunch, because it was what I could afford. I bought her a ham and cheese sub sandwich and two iced teas. These were her favorite. I bought gas with the rest of the twenty so she could get home. She dropped me back off at work."</p><p>"That night, she passed away. It brings me comfort to know that I bought her favorite sandwich and drink for her that afternoon. It was likely the last thing she ate, since it was near dinner. I'll never forget it. Best $20 I ever spent, because it was for her."</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lvu5aq/whats_the_best_20_you_ever_spent/gpe9c6d?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">LollipopDreamscape</a></p>Leaning Into the Nerdery
<p>"It was my ninth or tenth birthday. My grandparents gave me $20. The first $20 bill I ever held in my hand! I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it."</p><p>"A week later, we went into the city and Toys R Us. I went straight to the Transformers aisle. And there he was. My favourite Transformer. The one I always wanted...Soundwave."</p><p>"He's the one who turned into a Walkman and he could eject cassettes that turned into robot animals. The price tag said $19.99. It was meant to be."</p><p>"I took Soundwave to the clerk and gave her my $20 bill. "And here's your change!" she said, as she gave me a single penny."</p><p>"Ah, Soundwave. The best friend a lonely little nerd could have."</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lvu5aq/whats_the_best_20_you_ever_spent/gpdzzxe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">originalchaosinabox</a></p>Different Time
<p>"I went to a Rush concert in 1982. The ticket was $9.50 and the t-shirt was $10." -- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lvu5aq/whats_the_best_20_you_ever_spent/gpdyr0k?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">PaulsRedditUsername</a></p>Motivational Spending
<p>"My then six year old niece had a loose tooth she loved to show off and had resisted pulling out for two weeks. We were all at my parents and I was getting ready to leave, I pulled out a $20 and said 'I'll give you this right now if you pull out your tooth.' "</p><p>"She was already crying because her little sister had did something so when she ran into the bathroom none of us had no idea in what she was about to do."</p><p>"So she comes out crying still, but a little bit of blood I'm her mouth because of course, she pulled out her tooth. But the now removed tooth fell down the drain to the sink and she was crying because she lost her proof!"</p><p>"After she calmed down she was happy as a clam with a brand new $20 and everyone was quite proud of her. My sister told me she spent it on candy and shared with her little sister."</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lvu5aq/whats_the_best_20_you_ever_spent/gpdxi4k?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">themasimumdorkus</a></p>For the Story
<p>"It was actually to a scammer in Rome. There was this guy right outside of Colosseum who started tying strings around my wrist and told me to make a wish. I knew it was going to cost but I thought what the hell, last day in Rome so might as well go with it. </p><p>"My wish was to find love."</p><p>"I spent rest of the day getting lost in the city and stumbled across two weddings and one baptism ceremony. So I did find love, just not for myself."</p><p>-- <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lvu5aq/whats_the_best_20_you_ever_spent/gpe7b2w?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">FatalFinn</a></p>I realize that school safety has been severely compromised and has been under dire scrutiny over the past decade and of course, it should be. And when I was a student, my safety was one of my greatest priorities but, some implemented rules under the guise of "safety" were and are... just plain ludicrous. Like who thinks up some of these ideas?
Redditor u/Animeking1108 wanted to discuss how the education system has ideas that sometimes are just more a pain in the butt than a daily enhancement... What was the dumbest rule your school enforced?Don't Peek
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxNDc4OS9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNDE0Mzc2OH0.Y1Lzy1MTqxyVqOCe9xjeHTRZsKnbyVjYzdb4-Heldyo/img.gif?width=980" id="78b19" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e14a90be026b734830e7661f776ba4a8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="475" data-height="475" />schitts creek wtf GIF by CBCGiphy<p>Took all the doors off the men's room bathroom stalls because of vandalism for 2 months.</p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lwjlif/what_was_the_dumbest_rule_your_school_enforced/gphrfce?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank"> Endless_Vanity</a><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Endless_Vanity/" target="_blank"></a></p>Scanned
<p>School added thumb print scanners at gates of school which counted as registration - needless to say I would just walk to school scan my thumb and walk back home with them none the wiser. Was a great few months until they noticed. </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lwjlif/what_was_the_dumbest_rule_your_school_enforced/gpidnou?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">richpianofan5</a></p>Age of Empires...
<p>Conservative Christian College. A group of us played Age of Empires one weekend. They didn't like it and called a meeting. Everyone involved got misdemeanors on their records. There was nothing in the handbook about it being against the rules. The only person that didn't get any punishment was the son of the president even though he was just as involved as the rest of us. <span></span></p>"Genius"
<p>In my freshman year of high school we had a terrible vandalism problem, the bathrooms would be broken in various ways almost constantly. In a stroke of pure genius, the staff decided that any bathroom that was vandalized would be closed for the week on first offense, the quarter for second, and permanently on the third offense.</p><p>They took back the rule after closing every bathroom on day one. </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lwjlif/what_was_the_dumbest_rule_your_school_enforced/gpi77co?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank"> Samus388</a><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Samus388/" target="_blank"></a></p>Is this Footloose?
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxNDc5Ny9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzg0MjU2M30.PeBUt-YWZeeRStaD_RZlGPQzo29E9t733yqZbIiJlYs/img.gif?width=980" id="3a5bd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="102730e3b1b90ba9cb393561c702c9af" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="500" data-height="500" />kevin bacon dancing GIF by STARZGiphy<p>Prom was a mandatory lockdown for the night in order to avoid students going to parties after prom.</p><p>Prom was held at various house parties across town instead. </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lwjlif/what_was_the_dumbest_rule_your_school_enforced/gpi37x7?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">Coffee-spree</a></p>HOLDEN FOREVER!!!
<p>My high school mascot was Daniel Boone holding a musket. A kid wore a Guns 'n Roses shirt to school and was told he had to change shirts because of the pistols on the shirt. He pointed out the hypocrisy of the school mascot and they changed EVERYTHING. The mascot was switched to holding a flag pole instead. <span></span></p>No Dots
<p>You couldn't wear ANY kind of head items that were "gang colours" (red or blue) - this No included hair bands, scrunchies, beads in your hair, ribbons - ANYTHING. I got in trouble for wearing a blue hair band with white polka dots. </p><p><span></span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lwjlif/what_was_the_dumbest_rule_your_school_enforced/gphzpyf?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">Pleasant-Flamingo344</a></p>Clothes Check
<p>We had to wear belts. Someone snitched that people weren't wearing belts under their sweaters, and they actually checked and a bunch of people got detentions. Stupid. </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lwjlif/what_was_the_dumbest_rule_your_school_enforced/gphz3y6?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">ooo-ooo-oooyea</a></p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lwjlif/what_was_the_dumbest_rule_your_school_enforced/gphz3y6?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a>We had belt raids at my school where the dean would burst into classes, completely interrupting any education, to check that everyone was wearing a belt. </p><p><span></span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lwjlif/what_was_the_dumbest_rule_your_school_enforced/gpia8pp?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">GuinnessMicrodose</a></p>Chase the Flat
<p>We weren't allowed to play tag football at lunch, only frisbee. When I asked the principal what the difference was, he responded with a sarcastic tone, "A football is round and a frisbee is a flat disk."</p><p>He left the school later that year, went to another school, and a few years later was brought up on charges for failing to report the abuse of a student by a teacher. </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lwjlif/what_was_the_dumbest_rule_your_school_enforced/gpi6lh3?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">uninc4life2010</a></p>Poke-Thief
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxNDgwMy9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODg5MzY2Nn0.5LMPk1suou6U2SvAURKP-sHEuK7Izpkbxm0PWqvx95E/img.gif?width=980" id="b6e9f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="92383d30e34aa92fd74cf6c1374ec294" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="480" data-height="480" />hotline bling pokemon GIFGiphy<p>Pokemon cards got banned in middle school because someone stole the vice principal's kid's cards. Yep. </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lwjlif/what_was_the_dumbest_rule_your_school_enforced/gpiapym?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank"> Skadoosh_it</a><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Skadoosh_it/" target="_blank"></a></p>In the Face...
<p>If you were involved in a fight, you got suspended. While it sounds reasonable, context didn't matter.</p><p>I got suspended once not for throwing a single punch, kick, whatever. I got suspended because someone knocked the books out of my hand and when I reached down to grab them they punched me in the face.</p><p>I got suspended for walking down the hallway and unprovoked getting punched in the face.</p><p>Forget Brandon Valley Middle School. </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lwjlif/what_was_the_dumbest_rule_your_school_enforced/gpicbyx?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">CLG_MianBao</a></p>One of the golden rules of life? Doctors are merely human. They don't know everything and they make mistakes. That is why you always want to get another opinion. Things are constantly missed. That doesn't mean docs don't know what they're doing, they just aren't infallible. So make sure to ask questions, lots of them.
Redditor u/Gorgon_the_Dragon wanted to hear from doctors about why it is imperative we always get second and maybe third opinions by asking... Doctors of Reddit, what was the worse thing you've seen for a patient that another Doctor overlooked?Grandma Wins
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxNDcxOC9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0OTQxNTgzOX0.n9IaFGgHwnULMlI2kg7RUftxDg6lyWvdM9CnhvptCRY/img.gif?width=980" id="a0857" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9762f97a23c27ccf6b75974caa854361" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="480" data-height="270" />Old Lady Wine GIF by MattielGiphy<p>Not a doctor, but my grandmother saved my father's eyesight because she didn't listen to their doctor. </p>The Mummy Appendage
<p>When I was a resident, an 80yo female was admitted from the nursing home for confusion. Workup showed some mild UTI and we were giving her antibiotics. The nurse mentioned that her toe looked dark and asked me to look at it. The toe wasn't just dark, it was mummified. It looked like dry beef jerky. I touched it and pieces flaked off. So the patient from a nursing home, had a mummified toe, probably for months, that no one knew about. </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lw2g2z/doctors_of_reddit_what_was_the_worse_thing_youve/gpg00qn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">Dr2ray</a></p>The CT Save
<p>Here's my story:</p><p>A guy came in to our ICU and was very septic but still talking. He had visited his primary care MD with complaints of a sore throat for a couple of days. Dismissed without any intervention since he didn't appear to have strep throat or the flu. At this point he was having pretty severe abdominal discomfort, so we sent him for a CT scan. As the scan was finishing, he coded and had to be intubated, multi-organ failure, etc. </p>Patches
<p>When I was an ER nurse we got an elderly lady in for altered mental status from a nursing home, when we undressed her to put her in a gown and hook her up to the monitor, I noticed no less than 5 fentanyl patches on her, guess I discovered the cause of the AMS. </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lw2g2z/doctors_of_reddit_what_was_the_worse_thing_youve/gpg1lml?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">ChewbaccaSlim426</a></p>Use your Words
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcxNDcyMi9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDA1NjI0MH0.WtyCdxL1vRZwD2-jpKZXMOEakwhiBaJIkp1YPnOzlvo/img.gif?width=980" id="e45ca" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f5b98e6a4605a587dbd97579468a51d8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="498" data-height="367" />Communication GIF by memecandyGiphy<p>Neurologist sent patient to our ED without informing her that imaging showed a glioblastoma assuring her impending death. He didn't overlook the disease, he overlooked the communication. </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lw2g2z/doctors_of_reddit_what_was_the_worse_thing_youve/gpfl5t5?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" target="_blank">AzureSkye27</a></p>Mad Cow Realty
<p>During my residency we had this lady in her 60s who was getting progressively more forgetful, just overall declining and getting less and less able to take care of herself. She had been seeing her pcp who diagnosed her with dementia. And she saw a neurologist who agreed. She was not really able to provide an accurate history. <span></span></p>After Birth...
<p>I used to work in maternal-fetal medicine, and every single week, we would have women referred to us "because the doctor couldn't see something clearly with the baby and wanted to double check." Nope, they just didn't want to have to be the ones to tell you that your baby had a complex cardiac defect or multiple anomalies indicative of a genetic syndrome or any other of a large number of horrible things that can happen during fetal development. Still pisses me off when I think about how many women waited weeks for more information because their doctors were cowards who couldn't tell them, "There's something seriously wrong here." <span></span></p>bad doctors
<p>I'm not a doctor, but a RN. This happened to me, but isn't nearly as bad as most of the stories on here.</p><p>When I was in college, I got to where I couldn't swallow. It started with difficulty swallowing, progressed to me having to swallow bites of food multiple times/regurgitating it, and then got to where all I could swallow was broths and mashed potatoes with no chunks. I went to the doctor multiple times, and was told every time it was acid reflux and part of my anxiety disorder. <span></span></p>The Valve...
<p>He put the pacemaker lead in the subclavian artery (and across the aortic valve into the left ventricle). The proper approach is: subclavian vein to right ventricle). And then he didn't notice it for over a year. I saw the patient (a 25 yo woman who didn't need the pacemaker in the first place) when she was in congestive heart failure. <span></span><br></p>Bitten
<p>Rattlesnake bite. On a 2 year old. Patient and dad out in the fields near a small town that is several hours away from the nearest big city, where I work.</p>When we think about learning history, our first thought is usually sitting in our high school history class (or AP World History class if you're a nerd like me) being bored out of our minds. Unless again, you're a huge freaking nerd like me. But I think we all have the memory of the moment where we realized learning about history was kinda cool. And they usually start from one weird fact.
Here are a few examples of turning points in learning about history, straight from the keyboards of the people at AskReddit.
U/Tynoa2 asked: What's your favourite historical fact?