When I was a small child, I had very bad handwriting. (I still do.) My printing was barely legible, so long as I wasn’t excited, but my cursive was a muddy mess. My teacher despaired of teaching me to write better.

One day, while I was taking after-school remedial lessons for my writing, my teacher said:

Teacher: “[My Name], with handwriting as bad as yours, the only thing you’ll be able to be when you grow up is a doctor.”

I did not become a doctor. I became a typist.

I am teaching a small group of adults, all seemingly over forty-five. [Woman #1] has brought her husband as her aide since she had a stroke and struggles to do things on her own. [Woman #2] brings a dog in a “SERVICE DOG” vest. Of course, they sit beside each other. This is the first class.

Me: “So, each week we—”

Woman #1: *To [Woman #2]* “My mother had a dog just like that. He was so handsome.”

Woman #2: “He really is!”

She lifts the dog into [Woman #1]’s lap.

Woman #2: “Say hi, Tucker!”

Me: “Hey, ladies, I know he’s cute, but can we please focus?”

Woman #2: “Oh, right.”

Woman #1: “What are we doing?”

Woman #1’s Husband: “She’s talking about the curriculum, honey.”

Woman #1: “Oh, okay.”

They quiet down for about three minutes before they start whispering again. 

Woman #2: “I’m here because I just need something to do in the evenings.”

Woman #1’s Husband: “We are here to learn. Please stop.”

Woman #2: “I wasn’t talking to you.”

Woman #1’s Husband: “You shouldn’t be talking at all.”

Then, the “service dog” has to go potty. 

Woman #2: “Uh, hi, yeah he just peed over here.”

Me: “Okay, you can go to the bathroom to get some paper towels.”

Woman #2: *Disgusted* “Isn’t there a janitor or something? Or can you—”

Me: “You are responsible for your dog.”

Woman #2: “I can’t believe this.”

She drags the dog out of the room. I continue talking because, quite frankly, I don’t care if she comes back or not. But she does, with an entire roll of paper towels. She drops the roll on the puddle and sits down.

Me: “Pick that up, please.”

Woman #2: “What? You said I had to clean up the pee. You didn’t say anything about the paper towels.”

Woman #1: “My dogs never tinkle in the house. They—”

Woman #1’s Husband: “Honey, please, let’s just focus, okay?”

Woman #2: “You—”

Me: “Stop. Talking. If you keep interrupting class, I will not stop, and I will not go back to repeat anything. Is that clear?”

Woman #2: *Rolls her eyes* “What an attitude.”

They didn’t say anything for the rest of the class. [Woman #2] left the dirty paper towels on the floor when she walked out, and she demanded a refund from my superior. Unfortunately for her, I get the final say in refunds, and I denied it. I told her she could come back to class, but she could not be disruptive. If it continued, she would be removed from the class. She did not come back.

My geometry teacher would offer what he called IOUs to students who answered difficult questions or otherwise impressed him. After we collected enough, we could trade them in for various perks such as removing the usual penalty that came with turning in homework late.

Pretty early in the year, he offered up a flawed postulate: “Multiplying a number by another number always results in a larger number.” He offered out IOUs to anyone who could disprove him. He got all the obvious answers from various kids: zero, negative numbers, decimals, etc. After they were all used up, I decided to try a shot in the dark for a second IOU.

Me: “I’m not sure if it works, but what about imaginary numbers?”

Teacher: “How do you know about imaginary numbers?”

Me: “Our science teacher rambled a lot last year. He told us he wouldn’t have trouble giving us negative points because he learned to do far more complicated math like imaginary numbers once.”

Teacher: “Do you know what imaginary numbers are?”

Me: “Not really, but would they make a number bigger?”

Teacher: “I don’t know if they would make it bigger or not, but I’ll give you an IOU just for thinking to try imaginary numbers.”

I got my coveted IOU, but I was still disappointed. This was a math teacher. How could a math teacher not know what happened to the size of a number if you multiplied it by another number? Math teachers should understand imaginary numbers, shouldn’t they? The fact that he wasn’t able to answer what should be such a simple question frustrated me so much that I set out to find out the answer myself.

First, I asked my sister, who was two years older and had learned about imaginary numbers already, but she couldn’t answer whether multiplying by one made a number bigger. I tried my mother, an accountant and presumed master in math, and she couldn’t answer me. I didn’t try my father as I knew his skills didn’t reside in math, but a week later, when my uncle came to eat out with us, I tried him. He was a smart programmer, and programmers were supposed to know math, right? He couldn’t tell me, either.

Every single adult I tried could not answer my question. Most of them seemed to not fully remember what imaginary numbers were. With each failed answer, I grew more frustrated, but also more committed to solving this conundrum once and for all.

Eventually, I gave up on asking adults and decided to research the question online. This was back when the Internet was new and search engines were abysmal, so it wasn’t as easy a feat as it would be today. I partially taught myself what imaginary numbers were by reading an online encyclopedia about them, though I was still confused about some things, such as why everyone insisted on charting them on graphs.

Finally, I thought I might understand the problem, so I caught my geometry teacher after class to verify if I was right.

Me: “Do imaginary numbers not have a size?”

Teacher: “What do you mean?”

Me: “Like, if you have a normal number and an i-number added together, you can’t combine them to get a single size from them?”

Teacher: “Not really. You can calculate a magnitude by treating the two parts as points on a plane and using Pythagorean’s theorem, but that’s not really the same as a size.”

I had no clue what he meant about calculating magnitude, but all I cared about was that he had confirmed that complex numbers didn’t have a size.

Me: “Why didn’t you say that the first time?!”

Teacher: “First time?”

Me: “When I asked if you could multiply a number by an imaginary number to make it smaller.”

Teacher: “Oh, that. I gave you the IOU so we wouldn’t have to discuss the various ways you could handle the size of a complex number.”

Me: “But you said you didn’t know what would happen!”

Teacher: “Have you been trying to figure out if imaginary numbers made things smaller for the last month?”

Me: “No one was able to tell me what would happen.”

Teacher: “You could have just asked me.”

Me: “You said you didn’t know!”

My teacher was clearly a bit amused by my frustration but trying to keep a straight face at that point.

Teacher: “And did you learn what imaginary numbers were in that time?”

Me: “Sort of.”

Teacher: “Well, what do you know?”

Me: “The ‘i’ means the square root of negative one, which shouldn’t exist, but if you keep it around as an ‘i’, you can still solve problems with it anyway. But there was a lot of other math for using it that I didn’t understand.”

Teacher: “There is lots of math using imaginary numbers that math majors in college don’t fully understand. You still learned about imaginary and complex numbers well enough to answer your own question. If you ask me, that’s impressive enough to be worth two IOUs. But next time, just ask me after class if you want to know something like that.”

I was then sent to run off to try to make gym class in time. I was still slightly frustrated that my teacher hadn’t just told me that from the start, but I admit that managing to earn not just one but two IOUs at once seemed an impressive enough feat to mostly appease me.

One of the comments on this story reminded me of one of my teachers and his… distracted approach to teaching. He would talk to you about something you did that he didn’t like, you’d tell him why you did it and/or apologize, he’d agree with you, and then, he’d completely forget that the conversation ever happened.

For example, I liked doodling. It helped me focus, which was dearly needed because [Teacher]’s teaching style could be pretty boring. But every time he called on me in class, I could answer his question or at least explain why I didn’t know the answer, so it was obvious that I was actually listening, even if I wasn’t looking. Even then, I often raised my hand without him prompting me, and I always did most of the work in all group projects.

One day, [Teacher] asked all of us individually to come outside so he could talk with us about our grades, especially how we behaved during class and how much we participated.

Teacher: “Sorry, I can only give you a C.”

That’s eight points, for the German readers.

Teacher: “You are not paying enough attention.”

Me: “But I am.”

Teacher: “No, you’re doodling the whole time. It doesn’t look like you’re listening to anything I say.”

Me: “But… I am? I can answer your questions every time. Doodling actually helps me listen and focus. I’m sorry if it seems like I’m ignoring you, but I promise you, I’m not. You can test me if you want.”

As if he hadn’t been doing that already…

Teacher: “Well, okay. I think I understand what you mean. I’ll definitely keep it in mind.”

A couple of months later, he talked to us again about our participation grade. I had tried to look more attentive, and I was sure that I’d get a better grade. But alas…

Teacher: “I’m sorry, but it’s just a C again. I thought you wanted to improve?”

Me: “I… have improved. I thought I had.”

Teacher: “You’re still doodling!”

Me: “But I told you why, and you said you understood. And I still participate, answer questions, and do every task you give to us, most of the time even faster than the rest of the class.”

Teacher: “Sorry, but you really need to stop being distracted.”

The best part is that he taught “pedagogy”, which is not very common in Germany. In our case, it was basically how kids learn and how to best educate them and stuff like that. None of us ever found out how he got to teach this specific class, but it couldn’t have been his amazing skills or understanding nature.

Related:
The Early Days Of Lieutenant Literal

When I was in elementary school, we went on a field trip to a historical pre-US fort. It was a long drive to the fort on the bus, and we were not very patient children. School started at 7:30 am and we were loaded onto the bus around 8:00 am.

When we got there around 10:00 am, it turned out that the school had forgotten to buy tickets for us, or even to let the fort know we were coming. One of our teachers stayed behind at the fort to negotiate with the staff while the school buses brought us to a McDonald’s with a Play Place.

Unfortunately, the McDonald’s manager saw a full busload of children descending upon the play place and said, “No way.” While the bus driver was trying to make the sharp turn into the parking lot, the manager knocked on the window of the bus and told the driver, in no uncertain terms, that we would not be permitted to play in the Play Place as there were more of us than their maximum safety capacity allowed.

We wound up driving around apparently aimlessly until we stopped at a park in the countryside and were let out of the bus. Only it turned out not to be a park, as a farmer arrived to tell the driver that it was private property, and we were to leave. We weren’t even given long enough to finish the packed lunches we’d broken out. We were ordered to eat them on the bus.

Now, at about 1:00 pm, out of snacks and still quite rambunctiously energetic with no outlet for our energy, we drove back to the fort to pick up the teacher who had been left behind. She had been unable to secure places for us at the fort. After that, we drove back to the school where we were dropped off only to head home.

The parents found out about what happened and tore the school administration a new one. Rather than learn their lesson, the school announced that, for an indefinite period of time, there would be no further field trips.

We never had another field trip as long as I was there, and after asking around at our reunion with some of the young parents who were once children I went to school alongside, I’ve learned that it was almost ten years after I graduated before that school started doing field trips again.