Surprising things pupils don't know?

[letsgomaths]

Usually, we adults are surprised when the younger generation do know something we don't expect. But are there any times you have been surprised by a child or teenager being quite unfamiliar with something you thought they would know about, or have had to shift your expectations? Here are some I things I have had to explain unexpectedly, come and share yours!

Pin the tail on the donkey. I used it in a maths question about probability: a pupil had never even heard of it! I didn't get them to play it though.

Also about probability, I've sometimes had to explain playing cards to teenagers who have never used them.

I once had to explain to a teenager what a microscope is used for: it was news to them.

I was going to add the Millennium Bug to this list (it seems like only yesterday everyone was terrified of the impending doom), then I realised most of my pupils hadn't been born then!

I quite enjoy telling pupils about old technology, such as looking things up on microfiche, or TVs that were not flat screen.

I had a VI former not know there was an actual Titanic, not just the film.

I also think teenagers sometimes (a lot) just don't think things through, I had a conversation that went like this.

Me: Did you say 'pheasant'
Student: no Miss, what is a pheasant?
Me: It's a kind of bird, you can eat it
Student: Uhg, who'd eat a bird?
Me: Do you eat chicken?

The student had not put together the idea that the yellow fluffy chicks on easter cards and the chicken in a sandwich.

And many people don't buy whole chickens, just the breast or thighs.

I think children forget how to tell the time on an analogue clock because they don't do it often. Public transport tends to have live boards telling you when the next tube/tram/bus/train is due and it is in digital format.

I used to tie my older brother's shoe laces for him so not all children could do it at school age.

There are things my mum learned to do that I didn't because life changes, I've only ever taken gibles out of a chicken in a plastic bag, my mum grew up in a time you bought a chicken with the feet still on and the giblets in situ.

Re telling the time. If a child doesn't know how to tell the time on an analogue clock, do the numbers on a digital clock mean anything? They're just numbers.
It has only just occurred to me that this is why some of my students come at the wrong time for their 1-2-1 music lessons.
My DP and I taught our dcs to tie their shoelaces, but IMO - he does it wrong!

'You don't know what you don't know'.

I was amazed when I learned that pineapples grow in a field and not on trees.

Children will learn what they are exposed to.

I'm amazed about the lack of analogue clocks. I have a clock in my kitchen and would hate not to have one in the house. I find it so much easier to tell the time by an analogue clock rather than a digital, I don't have to think about it whereas with digital it takes me a second. And as supersop said I'm confused how someone can understand the concept of time without an analogue clock, it's a visual representation of time passing.

I give a lot of individual tuition (maths), and one thing I often have to drill teenagers on is to look stuff up when they've forgotten how to do something they did last week: I tell them that even I occasionally have to look in a book to remind myself. When they don't remember, many of them simply guess, and muddle through. Asking me is an improvement, but they often need a lot of encouragement to find the method in a book, or even their own class notes. Some of them might Google, but the disadvantage of that is not always getting the right level: you might find a university level explanation of a GCSE concept.

@elephantoverthehill Ah yes, the index. Many of them go to the contents page to look things up, rather than the index, and not many look in their notes from class.

Dictionaries: we were taught to use them aged 6, and to put words in dictionary order. But I remember being puzzled when teachers told us "if you're not sure how it is spelled, use a dictionary", and they meant a proper dictionary, not the "dictionaries" we each had where they would write spellings for us. How can you look up a word if you don't know how to spell it? Yes, I know: they meant that you only need to check the last few letters. But that doesn't always work: I think my brother once tried to find "photograph" under F, and I asked for "electricity" while presenting the "I" page to my teacher; to my ears it began with an "I" sound, like "it". (Why did I need the word "electricity" aged 6? I was writing about a house we had stayed in, which had no electricity.)

@headinhands That sounds terrible, and you should be very cross.

You might be better to start a new thread about this in the Relationships topic, as you'll be more likely to get relevant responses from people who have had similar experiences.

Oh god how did I manage to post that in the middle of another thread! So sorry! 😁

Reading all these posts about teenagers not knowing about playing cards reminded me of my Maths GCSE. I have To this day the unfairness of it still grates in me.

So in my final GCSE paper, back in 2001, there was a twelve point question about playing cards (a probability question) and no information was given about how many cards were in the pack / proportions of each card etc. I was great at probability but had never been allowed playing cards at home as my mother thought they were 'evil'. Result - I got a C in my GCSE maths paper (4 points off a B) despite being predicted an A.

Here are some cunning ways teachers got us to understand the concept of time:

"If you are good, you can have an extra long play, when the big hand gets round to the 3." Lots of clock watching that lesson!

"We need to keep breathing all the time. Who can hold their breath for a minute? Let's close our mouths, hold our noses, and we'll all watch that red hand going round."

We were timed getting dressed after PE, using sand timers: one for one minute, three minutes, five minutes. (Our teacher sensibly did not call them "hour glasses"!) Only one child managed to get dressed in less than a minute.

Children get taught how to read an analogue clock from reception up.
But if you never use one outside of the lessons then you will never really gain the skill.

Prize goes to Yabbers for missing the point of the thread!
Much of what is mentioned on here could be down to the child just not particularly paying much attention when these things are going on in school. Others could be to do with a low general ability or memory. Some is because some items of our youth are simply going out of use (floppy disks, anyone?)
But analogue clocks?! Every primary teacher I know is pulling their hair out about that one and every classroom has one. It is assumed that by Year 4 they can do it, and the curriculum then shifts to timetable work, but I've rarely had more than half a dozen children in a class who can reliably tell the time to 5 minute intervals. We mention it to parents in a request that they can practise the skill at home but many don't.

As an aside, my class of 8/9 year olds couldn't identify Princess Diana in a photo, recently. But then, she did die over 20 years ago.

Money's one I've increasingly noticed kids struggling to grasp - think it's definitely one as a result of society changing as time's moved on... kids don't get to go to the shop on their own anymore, and adults tend to pay with cards so much more these days (although the cheeky little bugger who decided to liven up five currant buns in the baker's shop with the reply of "do you take Switch?" was just having a giggle with me - very very sharp kid that one)

I remember one school where the Head was absolutely horrified that 90% of his staff didn't know how to play Top Trumps properly and taking a segment of a staff meeting to make sure the staff knew such a fundamentally important skill (he was starting a tournament with the kids on it)!

One of my kids can't do shoe laces - but has dyspraxia so motor skill stuff tends to come a lot later anyway - thank heavens for those no-tie silicon ones (she walks in such a manner she just shreds velcro shoes - lace up brogues are the only thing we've found where the strap doesn't come off in under a month - so we put no-tie laces in them)... the other one I taught the "cheaty" way to tie them last year when she was about 6.

Both of mine are good at telling the time to at least the quarter hour - they can complain instantly lunch is a second late!

When DD was 15-ish, so about 2 years ago, we were in Tesco buying fruit and she looked over to the grapes shelf and scoffed ”Seedless grapes! Why do they even write that! Like... as opposed to what? Seeded grapes? There’s no such thing! Grapes don’t have seeds!”

I realised then that she has never come across a grape with a seed in it in her life, and I had never explained to her that that’s how grapes naturally are

Analogue clocks are still common in public though. In pubs, restaurants, conferences, events - I guess people just use their phones and ignore these clocks then?

When I'm planning out itineraries or whatever, I always have to look over to the clock face to help cement it in my mind. I don't see how you could do that on a digital clock.

@PantsyMcPantsface "Do you take Switch?" That made me laugh! It's the sort of thing I might have said, I was always putting teachers on the spot with things I knew were not part of their script; my parents told me later that I was always "seeing through the system", and warned me not to do this too much at secondary school. I'd learned to keep my mouth shut when our primary teacher assured us that we were all born in 1980. I wasn't!

As for the head drilling his staff in Top Trumps - Nice to know there is time for such things besides SATs!

My very Catholic grandmother (also a teacher) used to rant about how "intelligent people" on quiz shows such as Fifteen to One knew so little about the Bible. Mumsnet was after her time, and she'd be turning in her grave if she read the cries of "indoctrination" which come forth regularly!

I don't believe in God, but I do think having a passing knowledge of the Bible helps enormously to understand medieval art and some literature.

Lots of our 4 and 5 year olds have no idea how to use a mouse when in the school's computer suite. They keep trying to touch the screen and move things. We have to teach mouse skills from scratch, whereas 10 years ago most children started school with some idea.

My 14yo DD knows most of the above.
But the other day I had to explain tweets & twitter to her (came up in English homework).
Although I'm not very pro social media I was somewhat surprised she didn't know.

Took me ages to learn to tell the time...

One of the oddest internet (not MN) rants I've ever seen was from someone having serious conniptions because UK primary schoolgirls are no longer taught to set gathers into a band*

• Needlework thang - and I was, indeed, taught this back in the day. I hasten to add that I didn't mind because I like needlework, but really can't agree that it's some kind of cornerstone of civilisation

One of my boys when they were about 14 had no idea when i pointed out a new car (17 plate i think) how i knew. I went on to explain all about number plates and what the letters and numbers mean. He was amazed! I guess unless someone tells a child this specifically they will never know.

I am 52.
When I started primary I was in buckle shoes, as were my brothers.
But laces came soon after.
My brother was 6 when he learnt his.
His teacher got so fed up that she told him on Friday he had to learn them by Monday as she WASN'T tying them again.
He forgot, come Monday lunchtime he raced home (home dinners - remember them?) and told my mum he had to learn before pe that afternoon, spent and hour tying and retying a piece of wool round a washing up bottle til he got it!

I think we could all do it at 5 or 6.

BUT most schools started at 5 plus. reception classes were uncommon, you started the September after your 5th birthday, in year 1

I am amazed at the clocks one, as every house I know has an analogue clock in it. The kids must just see them as decorative.

I know that some unis now insist all English students do a basic Bible course in their first year. Otherwise they miss all the key references in literature! I imagine art history students would be the same

steppemum I keep seeing on here how everyone started at 5 in the past. I am mid fifties and started at 4.5, and I was not the youngest in my class. My mum said she started school at 4. And there was no reception, it was straight into a classroom sitting at desks in a row.