Growing up, I spent my formative years deeply connected to church. Not so much in conviction, I was way too young for that, but in schedule. Church was what we did all the time. There were bible studies, classes, choir rehearsals, multiple services a week, etc. I often spent five or six days a week in a church for years on end. The Bible just was from God, ya know?
Employees Reveal Why Their Corporate Culture Prompted Them To Quit
Sometimes an idea wall is a very bad idea.
Working in a corporate environment is not for everyone. Some people thrive in them, others (like me) wilt and start to slowly unravel mentally. But what about those companies who pride themselves on their "alternative" corporate culture? We've all heard about companies that let you bring pets or have slides between floors, but even that isn't enough to keep some people there.
One Reddit user asked:
Redditors who left companies that non-stop talk about their amazing "culture", what was the cringe moment that made you realize you had to get out?
The answers are, honestly, kind of killing our hope that any corporate environment can really be different from the others. Having said that, it's also making us really thankful that we can write this article from our sofa while slamming guac and wearing no pants.
#PantsAreLegPrisons
Some responses have been edited for content/clarity.
H/T: Reddit
Romantics Share What Can Instantly Kill A Crush On Someone
[rebelmouse-image 18359450 is_animated_gif=Everyone catches a crush at some point or another. If there's one thing I've learned being old and grizzled, it's that those butterflies can die off just as quickly and easily as they popped up. Usually, that instant crush-killing moment is a gift, let's be honest. One Reddit user asked:
What immediately made you lose a crush on someone?
My mom has instilled in me a thing against mouth noises, so I was expecting a lot of petty responses like that. Turns out, the thing most likely to make someone forget their crush on you isn't mouth noises, not opening car doors or mispronouncing a word... it's just being a trashbag human being. Who knew?
A Consolation Prize
[rebelmouse-image 18359451 is_animated_gif=When we hooked up and I told him I had no idea he liked me too, and he responded by telling me he thought my friend was a bit too out of his league.
Drunk On The Job
[rebelmouse-image 18359452 is_animated_gif=She asked me to help her get a job where I worked as a tutor so I did, I would've done it anyway without the crush as I thought she would be suited to working in the job. After 4-5 weeks she was still incredibly bad at the job, her marking was all over the place and due to my role in the company it was my job to speak to her about it. Fast forward to the next week she comes into work at 3 in the afternoon after drinking half a bottle of vodka and openly admitting it like a badge of honour, I told her that she can't work and she needs to go home and I'll just tell our boss that you're ill, she refused and walked past me to sit down and do her job which she naturally did incredibly badly and was found out within about 2 minutes.
I lost all respect for her that day.
Texting
[rebelmouse-image 18352563 is_animated_gif=Whenever we meet she would be constantly glued to her phone, which is kinda annoying considering she would often take a day or more to reply back to any messages. Taking forever to text back while always clinging to their phone when you see them is the most glaring sign of disinterest.
So I try to keep my distance, but she would just randomly drop a text just to talk about the drama in her life and just generally complain about anything.
Hi Dad
[rebelmouse-image 18359453 is_animated_gif=Turned out she actually just wanted to hook up with my dad... She even went as far as sending me nudes just so I could forward them to him.
Eyebrows
[rebelmouse-image 18359454 is_animated_gif=My highschool crush became a drug addict who doesn't have any eye brows. So yeah, that one sorted itself out.
Only A Teacher
[rebelmouse-image 18350998 is_animated_gif=We were texting while he was at a wedding reception. I asked how it was. His response killed the crush immediately. He commented that it was ugly and crappy because the father of the bride didn't have a good job and was poor. He talked so bad about this man's job and about how low-budget he thought the wedding was. He said something like "Her dads only a teacher." Emphasis on only.
I'm out.
No More Drama
[rebelmouse-image 18359455 is_animated_gif=When the girl I was crushing on kept telling me how much she hates drama, yet kept telling me stories about all the drama she was involved in. Also, she kept asking me if I had any juicy gossip about our mutual friends as she wanted to know everyone's dirt. Immediately made her way less attractive and I eventually lost interest in her altogether.
Fast Food Workers
[rebelmouse-image 18359456 is_animated_gif=I had a crush on my next door neighbor. She and I started to hang out more and more and my crush intensified. Then one day we were in a drive thru. She put in her order and then told them how they'd BETTER give her fresh bread. As soon as she completed her order she told me how stupid fast food workers and how they never listen. Then when she got to the window she again chastised the workers and told them she was coming back if the bread wasn't fresh. I told her when we were driving away that they probably spit in her food. She gave me a "Thanks a lot!" look.
In a way, she did me a favor because I hadn't realized how mean and selfish she was. Other aspects of her behavior started to make much more sense. A pretty face and a hot bod will only get you so far in life.
"I'm Not Paying That"
[rebelmouse-image 18359457 is_animated_gif=Co worker of mine that I had a crush on forever said she was having a bad day and wanted to see if people were going out for happy hour after work on a Friday. So I made sure to ask around and get something going. We go to the place and all have a good time, each of us have 2-3 drinks and all share appetizers. She left a little early and the bill was way higher than expected (sf bars, just the worst). So it was like $40 for each person. I put it on my card and people said they would pay me back which they did. The next week she texted me asking how much it was. Since it was super high and I knew she had a bad week, so I figured I would cover a little bit of her share without telling her and just said it was $30. Her response was:
"Um no, that's way to high I'm not paying that."
I instantly lost my crush on her after that. We still talk sometimes, but the fact that she had no problem knowing it was a high price since she looked at the menu, ordering food and drinks, eating that food and drinking those drinks and was cool with other people paying it rather than covering her own share was just too inconsiderate for me. Fun fact she never paid me anything....
The Men Are Talking
[rebelmouse-image 18359458 is_animated_gif=I walked up to him, talking with a group of our mutual friends, and when I jumped into the conversation, he gripped my arm, pulled me away, and told me, "The men are talking."
Um, no, Rick. No.
As Long As They're Rich
[rebelmouse-image 18359459 is_animated_gif=She insisted that rich people get to act like sh!theads and treat other people terribly because they were rich. She was not a rich girl; she waited tables at the time. I asked her if she ever had rude customers and how that made her feel...she said it didn't bother her as long as the people belittling her were rich...blew my mind.
They'll Burn In Hell
[rebelmouse-image 18359460 is_animated_gif=Crushed on her for years in highschool, met up a couple of years later. Yeah, one on one time really changed things for me, lol. Found out she was super religious, but in a very unhealthy way. We were driving, someone cut us off, she has a quick flash of anger, then calms herself down by saying:
"That's ok, they'll burn in hell... they'll burn in hell after judgement."
Oooookaaaay
The Bartender
[rebelmouse-image 18359461 is_animated_gif=She was horrible to the bartender because she felt her drink was a little watered down. After she loudly berated the poor girl, she had the balls to turn to me and whine that the bartender seemed frustrated by her. I bailed after the first drink and left the bartender an apology note and a large tip for the trouble.
The Realization
[rebelmouse-image 18359462 is_animated_gif=She was actually a manager of mine, she did my interview and was like 9 months younger than me, i was 21 and she was 20. She was the only manager at this store, there were 4 of us, her and 3 sales associates. We all hung out on a regular basis and constantly drank together so eventually we got pretty close even though she had a bf and she literally told me while we were driving in my car, just the two of us that she has literally cheated on every single boyfriend she has ever had. Leading to the realization of why we were getting so much closer so quickly lol. immediately turned away from that one.
Happy Little Dog
[rebelmouse-image 18359463 is_animated_gif=I had a crush on a girl that lived down the street from my friend. I walked home from school with him one day and she walked about 50 feet in front of us. She walked past a house and a little dog came happily running up to the fence. She turned and started kicking the fence and harassing the dog. It ran off looking terrified.
I can't stand people that mistreat animals.
Ugly Dudes
[rebelmouse-image 18359464 is_animated_gif=She texted me and was crying and legitimately upset that "I only want to date hot guys and it's not fair that only ugly dudes like me". That was a big turn off.
Pedicure
[rebelmouse-image 18359465 is_animated_gif=I saw a girl cut her toenails and eat them...that will never go out of my mind!!
Club Of Cows
[rebelmouse-image 18354578 is_animated_gif=He said "here comes the club of cows" when a group of slightly chubby girls neared the corner. Like, they weren't even that fat and cows move in herds you moron.
Erasing LGBT Tragedy
[rebelmouse-image 18359466 is_animated_gif=We were talking about the Pulse nightclub shooting, I mentioned about how the shooter was homophobic and he said "Well most of the victims were probably straight anyway, a lot of straight people go to gay clubs." And then told me that bisexuality wasn't real and when I got pissed asked "Aw, did I hurt your feelings?" Very condescendingly. No idea why I ever liked that guy.
"What's Wrong With Her Face?"
[rebelmouse-image 18351145 is_animated_gif=Freshman year of college, there was this girl in my friend group (she also lived on my floor) who had a stroke as a baby, so part of her facial features drooped slightly. Let's call her Lily. However, Lily was so sweet and funny, it's like the facial issue wasn't even there, you know? Everyone loved her, she was one of the nicest girls in the dorm.
I met this guy a few months into the school year who lived in a dorm across campus. He was super good-looking, polite, respectful, no red flags. Eventually I invited him to a Friday night out with my group of friends, which included Lily. He met me at my dorm and I brought him upstairs so he could meet my friends.
As soon as he saw Lily, he immediately froze up. He was acting so stand off-ish & rude, as though he legitimately had never seen someone who looked a little different before. He couldn't hold a regular conversation with her without stuttering over his words. The second we got a moment alone, he whispered to me, "What's wrong with her face???? It looks so weird!!" as though this girl was some sort of freak.
I was so turned off by the fact that this guy was so immature he seriously could not handle being in the same room as someone who looked a little different. It seemed so pathetic, my crush on him was instantly killed. The way he was behaving reminded me of some sort of high school snob, not someone I wanted to be romantic with. In addition, I have a little sister with a severe genetic disorder and looks very different as well. I knew that if he couldn't handle acting normal around people who have disabilities/physical irregularities, there was absolutely no future to our relationship.
H/T: Reddit
Tech Experts Predict Which New Technologies Will Blow Our Minds In The Near Future
[rebelmouse-image 18360938 is_animated_gif=The future is now. Literally. We're already past where Back To The Future took place... and still no flying cars. One reddit user asked:
What are some upcoming breakthroughs in technology that will totally blow our minds in the future years to come?
And yeah, flying cars totally came up. But things got much more interesting than that! We might be in a world after Back To The Future, but some of these answers have us worried that things might be getting a little Jurassic Park.
Batteries
[rebelmouse-image 18360939 is_animated_gif=Batteries, definitely. It's hard to overstate how much our technology is limited by the horrible batteries we have. It goes WAY beyond phones charging fast. Once we have fast-charging, high-capacity graphene batteries in everything, so much will change. It'll be like science fiction. Think about robots, electric cars, powered exoskeletons, phones and laptops being as powerful as high-end desktops, all kinds of wearables, bioelectronics, and so much more.
Sadly, this is one of those technologies that's constantly in the news but never seems to actually make any progress. It reminds me of all those cancer treatments we read about every week that never actually cure cancer.
Organ Regeneration
[rebelmouse-image 18360940 is_animated_gif=They're working on organ regeneration, which I think is absolutely amazing. They have been doing 3D printing scaffolding and cells, but I bet they have even more coming down the pipeline. My dad is missing both his kidneys and though that tech won't be ready for him, it will improve the lives of so many people in the future.
DNA editing
[rebelmouse-image 18360941 is_animated_gif=CRISPR. Basically gives us the ability to start editing DNA. Which will open doors, that most of us thought would've been only possible in fiction. I think that CRISPR is probably one of the most potentially groundbreaking advancements of our time (I'm not a scientist and I know this sounds like hyperbole but) this has the potential to alter the human genome as we know it. Editing DNA is a huge deal because once DNA is altered, it becomes inheritable.
Here's the thing though. Most people don't recognize the potential for change with CRISPR technologies (they're working on other versions to get around limitations of the initial one), and the people who are aware of it are thinking about how people can edit their DNA to become transhuman, cure disease, etc.
One of the big attractions of CRISPR is how cheap and accessible it is compared to previous gene modification, it's not unreasonable to expect a grey market of "not for use on humans" (wink) body modification gene kits in the near future. People already are fucking around with CRISPR in their backyard. You can even buy your own CRISPR kits.
What most people aren't thinking about is what happens once the technology becomes cheap and available and people start to "homebrew" edits and forms of life. What happens when the people who create and run botnets gain the ability to create viruses that spread to people? What kind of edits will script kiddies and people who think things like swatting are hilarious come up with? What happens when white supremacists or other groups can actually edit existing viruses to only target certain races, or sexes, or other select variables? What's the genetically-edited-human version of "it's just a prank, bro"?
We are not ready for this. In any way, shape, or form. Especially not legally. Did you see the fact that Congress does not understand Facebook, or what it does? And despite that a large portion of them support it unquestioningly because it's "big business".
We will reach a time very soon where casual coders around the world are going to be uploading _edits to humanity_to the App store. A lot of the impetus for this will probably come on the need for humanity to alter ourselves to live in the post climate change world (with 105+ temperatures, etc.).
If you think social media has balkanized or segregated people in any remarkable way that's peanuts compared to what's coming. The freakouts over gender, bathrooms, race, color, religion, it's all nothing really. Not compared to the degree of change that's imminent.
The dawn of "interesting times" is upon us.
The End Of Acting
[rebelmouse-image 18349655 is_animated_gif=Actors are going to have their own bodies fully digitized and idealized, and then, when you think you're watching a live action film, you're actually going to be watching an animation of the actor who is doing motion capture and voiceover work for... themselves.
Why? So they always look 23 and perfect and also never get hurt doing stunts.
Media companies can literally own the actors likeness And not have to fork out tens of millions to have them appear on screen. Hell, they'll just create virtual actors who look like the ideal person for the part and have a sea of theatre actors do all the behind the scenes work.
Lightyears Better Than Chemo
[rebelmouse-image 18360942 is_animated_gif=Some of the new cancer therapies are going to be lightyears better than chemo. Specifically the CAR-T cell therapies which basically remove a person's T cells, gene edit them to attack their type of cancer, then re-inject them back to kill the cancer cells. I think it will be incredible.
I also think some of the new asthma drugs which are more specific and targeted are going to eventually be so good that severe asthmatics who depend on inhalers will be able to get off them completely.
Holographic Center Console
[rebelmouse-image 18360943 is_animated_gif=So BMW is starting to work on a fully holographic center console that projects up into the air, but the coolest part is that there's air feedback so when you touch a "button" (where the hologram is) air will push against you and give a sense of feedback. He said this should be coming out in like 3-4 years on their top of the line stuff like Super cars and M-series type stuff due to cost restrictions right now but would be heading to their normal cars a few years after that.
Finding All The Needles In All The Haystacks
[rebelmouse-image 18360944 is_animated_gif=Astronomer here! On the space research front, while I think a lot of people are impatiently waiting for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the one that arguably will revolutionize astronomy with mind-blowing discoveries is the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). They have already started to build it, and it will see first light in 2021, and basically it's an 8 meter telescope that will survey the entire sky every night. They are going to find literally millions of transient sources a year, ranging from asteroids to supernovae to black holes eating stars to likely a few things we can't even imagine yet! Oh, and they plan to put all the new data online every single day, so you can go look for stuff yourself!
I think it's going to be amazing, and frankly astronomy as a field is a little terrified (but in a good, excited kind of terrified) on just how we are supposed to deal with and do follow up on this fire hose of data that's going to hit in a few years. It's like if suddenly you had needles in a ton of haystacks and showed up with a super magnet and could find them all. It'll be amazing!
Still Waiting
[rebelmouse-image 18360945 is_animated_gif=When I was a kid we were promised flying cars by the year 2000. Still waiting on that.
BUT
The vast majority of people can't drive a normal car properly. I'd hate to see them try flying cars.
AND
The vast majority of people can't do proper maintenance on normal cars, either. On anything that flies, proper maintenance is not just checking tires and washer fluid before you go anywhere. So I think the risk factor (and the generated noise) is why flying cars have been developed, but generally struggle to catch on.
Maybe self-flying vehicles that do full diagnosis before take off and if something is off, you can only drive, not fly.
Chat Bot
[rebelmouse-image 18360947 is_animated_gif=Chat bots with better than human level performance at tinder. Also chat bots that are actually decent at customer service.
Realistic fake video.
Terrifying ai controlled combat drone armies.
Photo-realistic image generation on demand. You'd be able to type an image caption and Google will create that image for you.
Do The Robots Need Bank Accounts
[rebelmouse-image 18360948 is_animated_gif=Self-driving cars eliminating traffic, but it's going to be more than that.
Self-driving cars means that soon humans won't be the only player in the Economy.
Remember back in the aughts when they said that "soon your fridge will be able to tell you that you're out of milk"? Well, that day is pretty much here. What they didn't predict is the fridge will be on the internet and able to order the milk on-line.
So it will go onto an online grocery. It can choose a local one, or a major one like Amazon groceries. Let's say it goes with Amazon to place the order. Amazon will use a robotic forklift to put the milk on a self-driving vehicle (probably from Uber) who will, in turn, deliver the milk to you.
That means that the milk was ordered, purchased and delivered with no human interaction whatsoever, just AI and robots.
So the question is, what does that do to the price of milk? The fridge AI will try to get the best price available while Amazon AI will try to maximize profits.
Bonus question: Let's say the that Uber AI robot that delivers the milk realizes that it needs a new tire.
You would think that there would be numerous AI Robot stations where the autonomous vehicle could pull up and an autonomous repair worker would put the new tire on. So now you have one robot negotiating and paying another robot for its service.
Given that, do the robots need bank accounts?
A human involved in all the price negotiating would just slow down the process of getting the milk delivered at the best price in the most timely manner. So you would want your AI to have it's own access to funds (a back account) in order to both make the best deal and transfer the money.
Before too long, robots will have a major hand in effecting the economy.
Augmented Reality
[rebelmouse-image 18360949 is_animated_gif=I think there will be mainstreaming of augmented reality. We won't need holograms because it will look like they are all over the place.
Male Birth Control Pill
[rebelmouse-image 18360950 is_animated_gif=Male birth control pill. This is something they have been working on for decades and it might be very close as some are being currently tested.
Graphene
[rebelmouse-image 18360951 is_animated_gif=There's this substance called graphene and it's super thin yet if used properly it can bulletproof almost anything! I look forward to future use of this.
Synthetic Fuels
[rebelmouse-image 18360953 is_animated_gif=Synthetic fuels, artificial hydrocarbons made from co2 and excess renewable energy can be used to make plastics, engine fuel, and even drinkable alcohol.
Goods At The Speed Of A Bullet
[rebelmouse-image 18360954 is_animated_gif=The potential of The Boring Co. It's currently envisioned for people transport which is great, eventually it'll be a fantastic alternative to flying. But where I see the true potential is connecting every city in the US with these low pressure vacuum tunnels transporting goods at speeds of a bullet. Imagine driving on the highway and seeing less and less semitrucks. Imagine ordering something from the other side of the country and have it ready for delivery the next day without costing a ton of money.
Feeling Is Believing
[rebelmouse-image 18360955 is_animated_gif=Haptic gloves for virtual reality. Being able to feel what you see sounds amazing.
Cybernetics For The Blind
[rebelmouse-image 18360956 is_animated_gif=I remember seeing a documentary on cybernetics for blind people to see a couple years ago he was hooked directly into their brain and was really invasive but it had a camera and they could see flashes of what was in front of them not very clear no color just black and white but they could tell that there was objects out over the ocean line like there was a sailboat in the distance that they could identify as a sailboat.
Project Zanzibar
[rebelmouse-image 18360957 is_animated_gif=Tangible user interfaces. Just took a class on them and Microsoft's Project Zanzibar is one of the newest developments. MIT also has a dedicated TUI program that my professor worked with for his grad degree.
Project Zanzibar is a flexible, portable mat that can sense and track physical objects, identify what they are, and allow you to interact through multi-touch and hover gestures.
Electronic High
[rebelmouse-image 18360958 is_animated_gif=Electronic devices that will stimulate brain areas responsible for the highs produced by various drugs.
Immersive Tech
[rebelmouse-image 18360959 is_animated_gif=Holoportation. Predicated on AR glasses shrinking to a size that people will actually wear them.
It may look like it is a small thing you will use to video chat with your family but I see it as so much bigger than that.
For office jobs, remote working could be seamless. Your home office and work office could be rigged with capture equipment such that it looks like you are actually in the office. There will be very little difference between coming in to the office and working remotely. If we get to that point the ramifications could be huge, including the slowing of urbanisation as the need to move to cities for jobs could decrease.
Sporting events could be filmed this way allowing the viewer to project an entire, miniaturised hockey rink on their coffee table. You would have a birds eye view of all the action. Meanwhile an individual sequence could be enlarged for replay at fill size from any angle you might want to view.
Video games are obvious. Television and Cinema implications are obvious.
It could literally change what we consider reality to be as digital entities will interface with "real" entities seamlessly.
H/T: Reddit
Students Share The Absolute Worst Things They've Ever Heard A Teacher Say
[rebelmouse-image 18360536 is_animated_gif=Being a teacher is hard, it takes a certain kind of person to be one of those teachers who changes worlds for the better. We're not all that kind of person. When the wrong kind of person finds themselves in a teaching position, they have the capacity to do damage in ways they probably can't even imagine. One calloused word or phrase from a frustrated or burnt-out adult can change the way a child sees the world - or themselves - forever. One Reddit user asked:
What's the worst thing you've ever heard a teacher say at school?
Not all of the answers were horrific, so don't worry. Some made us laugh harder than we should have. Others were absolutely soul crushing. Scandals, racism, pot leaves and the Virgin Mary all show up, so marvel at some of the most terrible stuff teachers have said.
Bored Not Board
[rebelmouse-image 18360002 is_animated_gif=Freshman year, a girl complained to my history teacher that she was bored. He waggled his eyebrows at her and replied:
**"You don't look like a board to me." **
It made me so uncomfortable and I still remember knowing something was not right with that. It's now 20 years later and I don't remember anything else from that class or much from high school in general; but I never forgot that.
On The News
[rebelmouse-image 18360537 is_animated_gif=This one English teacher at my school once told an African American kid to read a passage in some slavery novel to:
**"Read it blacker." **
It got on the news and she eventually just quit. She also moved into my apartment building and I occasionally run into her which is pretty funny
Buckeyes
[rebelmouse-image 18360539 is_animated_gif=I moved from Ohio to Iowa during middle school. One day I was wearing an Ohio State Buckeyes shirt. One of my teachers grabbed me and dragged me to principal's office. When I asked what was going on she told me:
**"You know exactly what you did!" **
I had no idea what she was talking about. At the principal's office she finally explained how I was wearing a marijuana t-shirt. The Buckeyes logo is sometimes just a Buckeye leaf without a nut. After I quickly explained, my teacher called me a liar. Then the principal just kind of sighed and told me I could go back to class and the teacher needed to stay behind. He clearly knew I was in the right.
I got a half-hearted apology from her later.
Not The Right Kind Of Encouragement
[rebelmouse-image 18350104 is_animated_gif=5th grade teacher responds to a student who said they wanted to kill themselves with:
"Good, you'd be doing your family a favor."
Wheelchair Bound
[rebelmouse-image 18360540 is_animated_gif=I had a tax teacher in college point out the kid who was bound to a wheelchair and had an aid who would take notes for him. The professor told us all that the student wouldn't get far in life because of his disability; and that was just the way his life would be. Like it was a casual fact. He told us all that he knew this because his mother was also bound to a wheelchair.
This made me so angry, sure he's going to have a tough time but no teacher has the right to tell a student what they can an cannot accomplish in life. That teacher was a dick, I told our coordinator and wrote it on our end of year evaluations. I'm not sure if he returned. to be honest.
The "Black Chick"
[rebelmouse-image 18359991 is_animated_gif=One of my college professor straight up said one day:
"From my experience, African American students tend to drop my class the most. It's probably too hard for them. Any of you notice how we haven't seen that one 'black chick' who used to sit in the front row for weeks now?"
Guy was immediately shot down when the "black chick" raised her hand from the back row saying she'd been here the whole time; she just moved to the back row because that's where her boyfriend was sitting. He tried to tell us he "didn't see color" and that's why he hadn't noticed her.
Australian Wild Animals
[rebelmouse-image 18355350 is_animated_gif=I grew up in Australia. In high school, we had a Canadian teacher who taught us Australian studies. He asked us about what kind of wild animals you'd find in Australia. The class answered kangaroos, koalas, crocodiles etc. After we named a few, he told us that we were missing one. We racked our brains trying to think of it until he finally told us the wild animal we were forgetting:
**"Aboriginals." **
Seriously, this was only about 13 years ago
Republican Or Hell
[rebelmouse-image 18360541 is_animated_gif=When I was in 6th grade the second election for Bush Jr was coming around and they were teaching us about political parties and being a kid I asked which political party I belonged to because as a kid with no prior knowledge I wanted to know if I had one. My teacher then proceeded to tell the class that EVERYONE. EVERYONE IS and MUST be a Republican or will burn in the fiery pits of hell with the dirty no morals having Democrats.
Turns out you don't go to hell for not being a republican
Everyone In Africa
[rebelmouse-image 18360394 is_animated_gif=While teaching us about STDs, the teacher locked eyes with our Kenyan classmate and said:
"Almost everyone in Africa has AIDS."
Is That Even Possible?
[rebelmouse-image 18360542 is_animated_gif=My sociology professor in college! He once stopped mid-lecture, looked around the room and must have decided nobody was really into it, because he went:
**"Don't ever get road head while riding a motorcycle. There, don't say I never taught you anything." **
And then walked out an hour early.
Expelled
[rebelmouse-image 18360543 is_animated_gif=Okay I have one. When I was in elementary, I got confused at lunch time and threw my food out early and wandered outside for recess. (alone)
Realizing my mistake and having no idea what to do, I went back inside and told a lunch lady and asked what I should do.
She dragged me by the arm to the center of the lunch room with a live mic and informed EVERYONE of my mistake and how no one should do what I did because it was a bad bad thing. She told everyone I was going to get EXPELLED.
I was sobbing at that point. I kept asking her what expelled meant but she didn't answer me. All I knew was that it was a bad thing. I never told my mom until years later.
And no. I didn't get actually expelled.
Like Daddy
[rebelmouse-image 18360545 is_animated_gif=When I was about 9 our teacher asked the class what we wanted to be when we grew up. One kid said he wanted to be a bin-man (a garbage man, for US readers?). The teacher went into a rant, saying that jobs like these were for the lowest, most unintelligent people in society. She barked that he should aspire to be better than those people. Finally she asked why he wanted to be a bin-man anyway. The kid, now crying, said: "Because my dad's one."
Reggie
[rebelmouse-image 18360546 is_animated_gif=In first grade there was one boy in our class, Reggie, who lived in a van. Most of us kids knew about it because a counselor had come round to talk to the class after someone had teased him about not changing his clothes. The counselor did a great job explaining to us that now was the time he needed support and friendship, and so us kids were all pretty nice to him after that. Then after winter break we were all sitting around at sharing time talking about what we got for Christmas and Reggie said he got a Super Nintendo. We knew this probably wasn't true but we went along with it so he wouldn't feel bad, but the teacher totally called him out on it, saying: **"You've got a Nintendo in your van? Nobody likes a liar Reggie." **
The kid just wilted, it was awful and just the pure lack of compassion she showed has stuck in my memory for 25 years.
So Many Questions
[rebelmouse-image 18360547 is_animated_gif=We had a huge influx of Hispanic kids in fifth grade. There was a lot of cultural tension from the adults, though us kids really didn't care all that much. Anyway, one of the teachers insisted on calling all the Hispanic kids Anglicized versions of their names. For example, Juan would be called "John." There was one girl named Rosa Linda and she insisted we all just call her Linda because:
"Rosa isn't an English name."
Had she never heard of Rosa Parks? Did she forget Rosa translated to Rose? Did she not realize Linda is a Spanish word that means "pretty"? How can one person be wrong on so many levels? We have so many questions.
Two Dollars
[rebelmouse-image 18360548 is_animated_gif=Age of 9, lost my father in a horrific accident. I returned to school a few days later and after attendance was taken the teacher said to me in front of the class:
**"The class got together and sent flowers to your father's funeral, I paid your share so make sure you bring in $2 tomorrow as I need to be paid back." **
She then went on with the lessons.
"Traditional Food"
[rebelmouse-image 18360549 is_animated_gif=In sixth grade, there was an Indian girl in our class, and she was getting teased because of the way she smelled. She didn't smell bad, she just smelled like Indian food. Our teacher took this girl into the hall and had a talk with her.
The teacher then comes back into class, and tells us all that she explained to the girl being bullied that maybe her family could eat their more "traditional" foods on the weekends and more "American foods" during the week so she wouldn't smell so much. I will never forget being a child looking at this woman and thinking: **"Is she crazy?!?!" **
I felt so bad for the girl. I told my mom about it when I got home. My mom started packing me Syrian food for my lunches and called the teacher and b***hed her out for it. The teacher then apologized to the class and the little girl.
H/T: Reddit