
As teachers, we expect to build background knowledge. After all, students come to our classrooms with vastly different experiences, backgrounds, and educations. Still, sometimes they manage to catch us off guard with things they don’t know, as evidenced by the responses to this trending Reddit thread.
Redditor TapiocaPudding98 kicked things off by sharing that her ninth grade students “don’t know what country they lived in, didn’t know their birthday, and kids who have never heard of 9/11.”
What was your HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW THIS moment? from Teachers
Those responses might seem pretty surprising—if you don’t teach high school. But other teachers were quick to add the surprising things their students don’t know. Some of these gaps are generational, others stem from background and education, and others…well, we can’t explain: