Question for the day: When's the first time you realized that people older than you...

[Bicoastal]

...weren't necessarily smarter than you?

I'm not sure, but I THINK I corrected a substitute teacher in Middle School when they were teaching something erroneous as fact. Nothing more dramatic than that...you?

[baby_mouse]

1. Continuous process... most marked version was explaining to my Dad how things can be in orbit...

... he was convinced that orbit was all wrong and not explicable in terms of the laws of physics.

[QMPMom]

2. Pretty young, but the most stellar example was in

church camp when a preacher was telling us that the "War to end all wars will be between the Masons and the Knights of Columbus and that the Knights of Columbus had instructions to cut all the babies out of all protestant pregnant women's wombs."

I leaned over to my best friend and said, "This guy is full of shit."

[HERVEPA]

3. Corrected a teacher on spelling of gover(n)ment in 4th grade

[harmonicon]

4. teen years, I guess

probably junior high, and definitely by high school. I was a real dick about it too, which now makes me feel bad, but oh well.

[Inchworm]

5. I knew that all along

:)

:hi:

[supernova]

6. Found errors in my second grade spelling book

crazy:

[youthere]

7. When I was about eight. Both my parents were heavy drinkers...

and I remember my mom being very hung over (for about the 20th day in a row) complaining to my father that she just couldn't understand why she couldn't "kick this flu".

[DarkTirade]

8. The moment I moved to FL.

I went from a private school in NY to a public school in FL.

This was in 1st grade.

And then people wonder why I have such low opinions of most of most poeple... :P

[zingaro]

9. In grade school. During

catechism rote drill learning. We learned tidbits and blurbs of catholic doctrine and I had questions ("But what happens if somebody is born jewish or buddhist or hindu and they never have anybody tell them about catholics - but they're the best jew or buddhist or hindu they can be? They still go to hell?") that the nuns and priests just fish-gaped at, glossed over, and never answered.

It was then that I learned about adults and bullshit. And religion, too.

That was definitely a pivotal year for me.

[MorningGlow]

12. Lucky--I didn't tweak to that till high school

I had my suspicions, but I was still trying to be a good little Catholic. Went to a Catholic girls school (:scared:), so we had religion classes, taught by nuns of course, as part of the curriculum. In New Testament class sophomore year, one girl kept asking QUESTIONS (the horror!) about how we can "know" to be true what is dictated as "fact", and the nun paused and said, "...Well...you just have to have faith."

End. Of. MorningGlow. As. Catholic.

[zingaro]

24. Yeah, isn't it such a shock

and a weird disappointment all at the same time? Like the first time you realize your parents can't Do Everything or that they can't make it snow on christmas? Reality never was a gradual awareness experience for me. It was always a great jarring moment that left me staggery and dazed for a while.

"...you just have to have faith." Yikes.

I will admit this: There are moments when I wish I *could* just "have faith" but that wish is dead long before I've even completed the thought. I think it'd be so much easier, kwim?

[MorningGlow]

26. I wasn't so much shocked as cynical

By the time I was a teenager, I knew QUITE well that adults had a zillion faults (started when I was 6 and my parents divorced--ugh, did they make some bad choices). But because my parents were older than my friends' parents (they were born in the '20s and raised during the Depression), I was indoctrinated with their old-fashioned belief that teachers, as individuals in positions of authority, were always right. Finding out that wasn't the case WAS a hard lesson to learn and definitely stunned me.

As for the religion thing, I do have faith, but in the belief system I finally embraced, that doesn't mean "don't think--just accept what we tell you". THAT I can't abide.

[zingaro]

27. That's interesting.

My parents were born in the mid-1920's as well. Were both Depression Era children with the same "yes, doctor" and "yes, sir" mentality just like yours. :)

[MorningGlow]

29. Didn't it just drive you crazy?

I can't tell you the damage it did in so many areas of my life, as I tried to abide by that rule--teachers, yes, but especially with doctors. I'm hypothyroid, and I went to hell and back trying to get treated. (Because my TSH blood test for thyroid problems was in the "normal" range--which was later changed--the doctors I saw all thought I was crazy and told me to get lost.) Fighting for my health--and, I would swear, my very life--taught me to stand up for myself and NOT blindly obey the doctors.

It was a tough lesson to learn.

And every time I argued with a doctor or--heaven forbid--"fired" one of them, my parents practically fainted. "Ohhh how can you DO that! He (she) is a DOCTOR! They must know what they're doing--and they certainly know better than YOU."

Turns out they didn't. I was right all along. Thank the gods I found a homeopathic MD who knew better, too. :)

[zingaro]

31. Oh yes!

My mother worked in a hospital all of her adult life, behind the switchboard, so it was even more natural to her to defer to doctors. To this day she practically bows low, kwim? When I chose the medical field I had to consciously work past that natural deference and it was maddening. Of course, years and years of working in a teaching facility cured me of that lol My mom's sister recently had some major health problems and we had to find her a good nursing home. I was so glad I offered to do the legwork because my mom was way too busy kowtowing to the Powers That Be, whether the administrators or the case workers or the whoever, to actually ask the right questions to get things done. In the end, everybody was helpful and amazing, so I can't complain but it was really hard to watch. I do know *exactly* what you're taking about lol

And yes, thank all those gods that you found a good homeopath. So many people don't.

:)

[LostinVA]

15. Actually -- according to Vatican II, they don't go to hell

[zingaro]

25. No? Purgatory, then? Or a different mansion

in the house of the lord?

:) And thank you for answering the question a priest and three nuns wouldn't deign to answer.

[av8rdave]

10. Third grade....

We had a geography textbook that showed buildings on an incredibly curved earth (at that scale, the world would have been about 3/4 of a mile in circumference). It was on a chapter intro page, and very cartoonish.

The teacher remarked, in all seriousness, "That drawing looks a little off. I would think the earth is larger than that."

I knew.

It was confirmed in the 7th grade, when I had a Geography teacher dedicate an entire class hour to why the colored man is inferior. This was northeast Ohio in the early 70s, but I still can't believe that happened!

[NewWaveChick1981]

11. You must have had the same substitute teacher I did.

:P Only this one was in second grade. Our regular teacher was out on maternity leave, and the substitute was an airhead. She mispronounced simple words in reading assignments, and I told my mother about that right away. Mom went to the principal, who said the other teachers had already told her something similar. Other parents came forward too, and that substitute didn't last long. They hired a much better sub who was a lot of fun and a very good teacher.

[ZombieNixon]

13. Probably the moment I entered public school.

The people I spent my first ten years (I was in a very good private school until we moved) around seemed to have good judgement about most things. My parents are still right about most things, factually and judgementally (or at least very good at hiding when they screw up :P). Other people out there in the "real" world? Not so much. :(

[calico1]

14. When I was about 11.

I realized I was so much smarter than my parents. They were so hopelessly clueless I couldn't imagine them tying their shoes, let alone figuring out how to have children. :rofl:

Funny thing is the older I get the more I am like them and they don't seem so dumb now. :-)

[TrogL]

16. When I was 4

...and people were asking me to do impossible things.

[SOteric]

17. I have older brothers,

so it's pretty much been a resident fact in my life.

[LynzM]

18. 5th grade

When my teacher told me to go sit back down, I couldn't be done reading the chapter yet, because she wasn't. :eyes:

[rug]

19. The day I saw my father, drunk, pissing in the sink.

[unpossibles]

20. 4th grade

My teacher asked, "what is the most adaptable animal?"

I replied "humans" but he did not hear me, so I assumed I was wrong and when he told us to think about it and have an answer tomorrow, I did.

The next day, one of the class brains answered "humans" quite smugly and the teacher told him he was correct. I spoke up (I did not mention that I had said "humans" the day before) and told them (more or less) that actually the answer is birds because birds can live on every continent, yet humans can only adapt other environments to fit us, but that we can't live in extremes without shelter or clothes.

I got in trouble for being a "smart ass" of course, but I still maintain I am right. Plus I had the answer he wanted first. At that point was the beginning of me saying "fuck the man" and not caring about my permanent record.


:toast: :smoke: :nopity: :spank: :headbang:

[krispos42]

21. When I had to tell my grandfather...

that Earth's axial tilt caused seasons, not the Earth being closer or further from the Sun. I demonstrated with a flashlight and a piece of paper.

Worse, I don't think he got it...

[laconicsax]

22. Consistently in middle school.

6th grade science teacher insisted that people coexisted with Dinosaurs and that there was fossil evidence that proved it. Best part? She wasn't a creationist, just an idiot.
7th grade English teacher who at some point felt it necessary to explain the Out of Africa model that included people first reaching South America by way of a land bridge from Australia. (We were reading the book "Walkabout" I guess it was relevant.)
7th grade long term substitute for my science class who didn't know what NaCl meant and punished those of us who tried to explain it.

[kwassa]

23. Don't all teenagers think they are smarter than adults?

I thought it went with the territory.

[RadiationTherapy]

28. Right around when I noticed that academic "smarts" didn't translate

to travel and improvisational living.

[Jamastiene]

30. I'm not sure about the first time, but

I remember having to lug my heavy ass unabridged dictionary to school in tenth grade to point out to my horticulture teacher that bisexual can also mean "of or having sexual organs of both genders" in that dictionary at least as a secondary definition. He changed my grade from 98 to 100 on my essay after that just to shut me up. :P