Helping A Dense Class

(My mother and I move from California to Arizona the summer between my eighth and ninth years of school. It is my first week of school in a new state where I know no one. My very first class of the day is Biology. The teacher starts by teaching some basics that my eighth grade teacher had already shown us to prepare us for high school. We are going over density.)

Teacher: “All right, so, what is the length of the object?”

(One of the other students gives an answer. Without checking she writes it on the board.)

Teacher: “And what’s the height of the object?”

(Another student answers and she again writes it on the board without checking. This repeats with all the necessary variables to calculate mass and volume.)

Teacher: “Now, let’s see what happens if we cut the object in half.”

(She then has the class give her all the answers to the same variables if the object had half its height. She still isn’t checking their answers and I start to get frustrated because it’s obvious that these kids don’t know what they are doing. By the numbers they are giving her, the density of the same substance would be halved when the height is halved. I know this is wrong so I finally raise my hand.)

Me: “Ms. [Teacher], I don’t think this is right. The density should stay the same no matter the size of the object.”

Teacher: “Are you saying we’re wrong?”

Me: *feeling the eyes of every kind in the class on me* “…Yes.”

(She didn’t correct the lesson there and then. It was a week before I heard back from her. She had apparently consulted with one of the math teachers, who had backed me up. She did apologize at that point and I pretty much could do no wrong in that class from then on, but I can still feel the stares of every kid in that class as I corrected both them and the teacher.)