This story reminded me of something that happened during my university time.

We had an old professor who was a bit weird. Grey beard, long hair, looked a bit like an aged hippie who had a bit too much of various “herbal remedies” in his youth, and likely that wasn’t that far from the truth. If you know the look of Richard Stallman, you have a pretty good idea what he looked like. And he had the demeanour to match it. Nice, laid back, never said an unkind word.

He was absolutely brilliant and had an insanely sharp wit, so don’t let that old hippie look deceive you; he could get quite blunt if he noticed you trying to pull a fast one on him or weaseling out of something. He knew how to make you look like the total fool that you were for trying. But overall, a fun guy, great entertainer during his lectures, still getting his point across perfectly, with a wealth of knowledge, and still a curious mind that wanted to see more. 

And that professor is behind me in the queue at the supermarket next to our university. In front of me, a guy not unlike that pr*ck in the story mentioned above.

Customer: “That’s DOCTOR [Name]!”

Clerk: “Sorry, doctor [Name], here is—”

Customer: “It says so clearly on the card.

Clerk: “Yes, sir. My apologies for not noticing it. Here is—”

Customer: “—I wish you would pay attention to the details.

Clerk: “I will try my best, sir, if you would now—”

Customer: “—I didn’t spend years to achieve what you never shall just to be insulted like that.

Professor: “So we now gotta spend years hearing about it? Get over yourself; it’s just a doctorate.”

Customer: *Now turning on the professor.* “Yeah? Like you could ever achieve one. The way you look, you live in the gutter!”

The otherwise quite mellow professor took a look at the customer and took maybe a breath or two before replying with a near endless stream of achievements, titles, honorary and real doctorates from a few VERY well known universities, a list of patents, research along with the associated papers, and the works.

I have to admit, I barely remember even the more important parts because not only was the delivery quite fast, it was a LOT. After a moment or two, he cracked a small smile and asked:

Professor: “Your turn, my esteemed colleague.

There was no reply.

Later, I told him I didn’t even know all that, that I’m really impressed with it all, and asked why he never talked about it. I mean, there were things like tenure in Cambridge and a few research credits with some important people in the field, where I really would have wanted to know what he did there and what came out of it; that guy had a VERY interesting life! He just shrugged, and he said something I certainly took to heart:

Professor: “Look, that’s all in the past. Sure, it was nice, and I love to remember it all. But talking about it, that’s like parading old slides from past vacations in front of your relatives. Nobody wants to see them but yourself. So I don’t pull that out, unless some little prick like that needs a d**k-measuring contest. What really matters is where you’re here and now, and what’s in your future. So I should envy you, you got a lot more of that than me.”

My high school algebra teacher asked me to hang back after class.

Teacher: “I’m convinced you cheated on the last test, so I’m failing you.”

Me: “What?! I didn’t cheat!”

Teacher: “You got almost every question correct, but you didn’t show any of your work. You must have copied the answers from somewhere. Tell me where.”

Me: “I did them in my head.”

Teacher: “What?!”

Me: “I did the algebra in my head.”

Teacher: “You can’t do algebra in your head.”

Me: “No, you can’t do algebra in your head.”

That was probably not the best response, but I was angry. I made a complaint to the principal, via my parents. When I demonstrated that I could complete a new algebra question in front of them without writing down my work, the teacher was forced to give me my passing grade.

This is a story my dad told me about his psychology class in college.

In this classroom, one could look out the window and see a tree that was in the middle of a roundabout-like division in the road. Basically, a big patch of grass and a tree dividing a focal area of road that people had to drive around.

Professor: “[Dad’s Name], I want you to convince me that the tree over there exists.”

Dad: “Well, I can see it, I can touch it, I could taste it if I wanted to.”

Professor: “That’s not good enough. I’m not convinced that it exists. What else?”

Dad: “Well, we are talking about it, so we are aware of it; if I knocked on it, I could hear it…”

Professor: “That’s good, but I’m still not convinced. I don’t believe that the tree really exists. What else?”

Dad: “Look, when I drive home today, I’m going to drive down that road, and drive around that tree, and go home. You can drive down that road and continue going straight. Then you can tell your insurance agent that the damage to your car doesn’t really exist…”

When I was in Middle school (age thirteen, back at the start of the millennium), we had a math teacher who was… special.

She was a fairly young woman (about thirty-five) who never arrived on time, had below-zero patience, and the teaching abilities of a mousepad. I was never a math genius, but I was still better than my friends, who struggled a lot and would have needed a more one-on-one approach.

This teacher hated my friends for the simple fact that they asked about everything because they didn’t understand. She just resorted to telling them to shut up, or plain ignoring them.

Around November, we were having some sort of final, and when the grades came… it was strange. I got a ten, and one of my friends had a three (A+ and F, for the Americans).

Friend: “I… don’t get it. I’m bad, but not that bad.”

Me: “And I’m not that good.”

Friend: “May I see your exam? I want to compare.”

We put together both sheets, and they were identical. We hadn’t cheated, but for some magical coincidence, we did exactly the same steps and method despite being on opposite sides of the classroom.

Friend: “Well, one of us is straight-up graded wrong. I’ll take it to the teacher to see what’s wrong.”

So he went into the classroom, talked to the teacher, and even though she had two identical exams with different grades in front of her, she maintained that it was right. So obviously, my friend went to the director, and the next day, his parents came.

Next week comes…, and the teacher is no more.

Me: “Hey, [Friend]. Where’s the teacher? What happened at last week’s meeting?”

Friend: “Oh, I thought I told you… They fired her in front of my parents, and I have a ten (A+) now.”

Me: “What?! How?”

Friend: “Well, they all sat, my mom demanded answers, the director showed her the exams and asked what happened, and she just said, ‘answers don’t matter, one is stupid and the other is smart, so the smart will get extra graded, and the stupid will be punished.””

Me: “She… called you stupid in front of her boss AND your parents?”

Friend: “Honestly, firing her was the peaceful solution. According to my mom, it was mere seconds away from first-degree murder.”

My Grandpa is a retired physics professor, and he was quite good at it, too. One of his favorite complaints that he got on the physics book he published was “Physics is supposed to be hard, and he’s making it too easy!”

Anyway, one year, Grandpa was nominated for a major faculty award that was to be given out at graduation. Graduation rolls around, students graduate, and when they announce his name as the winner of the award, the entire engineering section stands up and starts cheering. According to my grandma, the givers of the award turned to each other and said, “Well, I guess we got that one right.”