• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

High Strangeness

lordmongrove said:
The wonderful Zelia Edgar on the Uniontown case.
Click to expand...

Interesting case, but my first thoughts were "only in the USA eh"?
You're pointing your shotgun at a tall figure in the dark that raises its hands, so what do you do? Blast it in the torso of course!
Then the son spots some more tall figures in the dark and instead of challenging them, starts shooting away with rifle and revolver.
Shoot first and investigate cryptids later.
No wonder poor old Bigfoot makes himself scarce!
 
escargot said:
As a young child in junior school I once mentioned the Flying Fox bat in class, having read about them in our encyclopaedia at home, and was thoroughly humiliated by Mrs Bosworth for making things up. A flying fox! Foxes can't fly!

A cockier kid might've taken the book into school the next day to prove my point; but I'd've then collected two extra beatings, one from home for taking the book out and another from school for continuing the argument and of course for being right. So I preferred to draw a veil over the incident.

I'm still angry though, 50-odd years later.
Click to expand...
Off topic, but yes, teachers can be like that.

I used to live in a property situated on a dairy farm in Norfolk (East Anglia, UK) and my mother used to grow sweetcorn (corn on the cob) in the garden.

I then moved to Nottingham (only 100 or so miles away) and a geography teacher told me (a) there were no dairy cattle in East Anglia and (b) you could not grow sweetcorn in England.

When I corrected him on both points, based on my actual life experience, he remarked wryly that I must have lived in Norfolk, Virginia.

Another teacher edited a poem I had written for the school magazine and changed "bark" ( very light and fragile small boat such as a birchbark canoe) in a "barque" (a ship with 3 or more masts with all but the mizzen square rigged, and the mizzen rigged fore and aft). This was a considerable change of imagery, but she insisted she was simply correcting my "American" spelling. (Americans use "Bark" for the ship with 3 or more masts etc.)

I'm now 60 and still resent it.
 
Mikefule said:
Off topic, but yes, teachers can be like that.

I used to live in a property situated on a dairy farm in Norfolk (East Anglia, UK) and my mother used to grow sweetcorn (corn on the cob) in the garden.

I then moved to Nottingham (only 100 or so miles away) and a geography teacher told me (a) there were no dairy cattle in East Anglia and (b) you could not grow sweetcorn in England.

When I corrected him on both points, based on my actual life experience, he remarked wryly that I must have lived in Norfolk, Virginia.

Another teacher edited a poem I had written for the school magazine and changed "bark" ( very light and fragile small boat such as a birchbark canoe) in a "barque" (a ship with 3 or more masts with all but the mizzen square rigged, and the mizzen rigged fore and aft). This was a considerable change of imagery, but she insisted she was simply correcting my "American" spelling. (Americans use "Bark" for the ship with 3 or more masts etc.)

I'm now 60 and still resent it.
Click to expand...
Yup, we were taught that there were no sheep in Cheshire where we lived because the climate and geography were suited to cattle.
Whereas one only had to look out of the bus window, say on the school trip to Chester Zoo, to see ewes and lambs in the fields.
 
Mikefule said:
I then moved to Nottingham (only 100 or so miles away) and a geography teacher told me (a) there were no dairy cattle in East Anglia and (b) you could not grow sweetcorn in England.
Click to expand...

escargot said:
Yup, we were taught that there were no sheep in Cheshire
Click to expand...
Gob smacked on both of those! Good grief how the hell did they get to be teachers? It's the confidence that comes packaged with such ignorance that amazes me.
 
Sollywos said:
Gob smacked on both of those! Good grief how the hell did they get to be teachers? It's the confidence that comes packaged with such ignorance that amazes me.
Click to expand...
"

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”​

I have seen this variously attributed, but a search this morning attributed it to Charles Bukowski.​

 
Sollywos said:
Gob smacked on both of those! Good grief how the hell did they get to be teachers? It's the confidence that comes packaged with such ignorance that amazes me.
Click to expand...
As a precocious reader I often learned interesting facts which I'd share in class. This often saw me punished for lying/making stuff up, as with the flying fox debacle.
This was the '60s when it seemed children were still seen and not heard. Clever kids were a threat to authority. They might know too much and start thinking for themselves.
 
PeteS said:
Seems over confidence and ignorance is a prerequisite to become a teacher in some cases.
Click to expand...
My Dad was a teacher. He would never have said anything without fact-checking first.
But speaking from my own personal experience, I came across a few teachers like this when I was at school. I had to put them right after they'd down-marked me (presumably a punishment for being a know-it-all). Easier to do that now, as the info is right there on a phone.
 
Mythopoeika said:
My Dad was a teacher. He would never have said anything without fact-checking first.
But speaking from my own personal experience, I came across a few teachers like this when I was at school. I had to put them right after they'd down-marked me (presumably a punishment for being a know-it-all). Easier to do that now, as the info is right there on a phone.
Click to expand...
I was talking to an old boy the other day who said that one of his teachers used to smoke in the actual lessons.
I don't suppose you can do that anymore though.
 
escargot said:
This was the '60s when it seemed children were still seen and not heard. Clever kids were a threat to authority. They might know too much and start thinking for themselves.
Click to expand...
Interesting that you should say this. At my primary school, we had an awful headmistress who didn't like smart kids.
She short-listed a group of us to see a psychiatrist. My Mum was smart enough to be suspicious and spoke to all the other parents about it,
All the kids on the list had high IQs and were grammar school material. No psychosis or mental issues, just smart kids.
My Mum spoke to the psychiatrist after finding out who he was. His reaction? He laughed and said "oh her, she keeps sending me these bright kids with no problems - what can I do".
 
Floyd1 said:
I was talking to an old boy the other day who said that one of his teachers used to smoke in the actual lessons.
I don't suppose you can do that anymore though.
Click to expand...
I never saw that done but one of my kids' own teachers used to smoke in the classroom in the mornings before the kids turned up, and they'd sometimes see him doing it.
When I found out I asked him firmly to stop, and he did. My point had been that it was a bad example.
 
escargot said:
I never saw that done but one of my kids' own teachers used to smoke in the classroom in the mornings before the kids turned up, and they'd sometimes see him doing it.
When I found out I asked him firmly to stop, and he did. My point had been that it was a bad example.
Click to expand...
I bet Gordon keeps a bottle of whisky under his desk though.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot 2023-12-22 at 12.41.59.png
    Screenshot 2023-12-22 at 12.41.59.png
    891.2 KB · Views: 9
Last edited:
escargot said:
As a precocious reader I often learned interesting facts which I'd share in class. This often saw me punished for lying/making stuff up, as with the flying fox debacle.
This was the '60s when it seemed children were still seen and not heard. Clever kids were a threat to authority. They might know too much and start thinking for themselves.
Click to expand...
Rachel Newling, 'Grey Headed Flying Fox' hand coloured linocut.
'ave THAT, Mrs Bosworth!
 

Attachments

  • Rachel Newling, 'Grey Headed Flying Fox' hand coloured linocut.jpeg
    Rachel Newling, 'Grey Headed Flying Fox' hand coloured linocut.jpeg
    155 KB · Views: 21
Floyd1 said:
I was talking to an old boy the other day who said that one of his teachers used to smoke in the actual lessons.
I don't suppose you can do that anymore though.
Click to expand...
In my secondary school in the 70s, one of the teachers was a heavy smoker ( his fingers were yellow from the nicotine) and I remember quite often that he would be taking out his packet of cigarettes and getting ready to light up just before the end of lesson bell went.
 
escargot said:
As a precocious reader I often learned interesting facts which I'd share in class. This often saw me punished for lying/making stuff up, as with the flying fox debacle.
This was the '60s when it seemed children were still seen and not heard. Clever kids were a threat to authority. They might know too much and start thinking for themselves.
Click to expand...
I was very similar. I can remember clearly, in the 60s in junior school, having to write about what toys we had received for Christmas. I wrote that I had received a Scalextric racing car set and the teacher marking my book had crossed this out and written Scale electric. I can clearly remember thinking (maybe harshly!) my teacher was an idiot and I think that one thing shaped my future thoughts on school (i.e. a waste of time!).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top