(My teacher assigns our class a project using a clunky slide-making app that barely functions on a good day. I ask her if I can draw an animation instead of the slide project, and I use one of my YouTube videos as an example of the work I can do. She agrees, but says I have to work in the back of the classroom, and I must record my audio at home. The next day, I have recorded the audio, but I still need to match it to my animation, and draw more stills. When my teacher finishes with the day’s lesson, she tells us we can work on the slide project, or catch up on other schoolwork, so I take my phone and headphones and sit in the very back of the classroom to finish my animation. Several rows away, a new classroom assistant is helping a small group of her own students work on the project.)

Classroom Assistant: *walking towards me angrily, and pointing* “YOU! You put your phone down. Now! You’re supposed to be doing your work!”

Me: “I am, Miss [Assistant]. I’m making sure the audio matches my animation.”

Classroom Assistant: “Pffft. You’re just listening to music. Headphones off! Now.”

Me: *takes out an earphone* “Ma’am, I’m using [popular free animation app], not listening to music.”

Classroom Assistant: *looking over my shoulder* “Really? What’s that moving at the bottom of the screen?”

Me: “The audio track that goes with the animation.” *shows her my last drawing*

Classroom Assistant: “You’re just drawing! That is not an animation!”

Me: “What?! How… How, exactly, do you think animations are made?!”

Classroom Assistant: *ignoring me* “Hmph! Well, we’ll see what your teacher says about this!”

(The assistant scoffs again, and takes my phone directly from my hands! She then walks through the middle of the classroom to hand it to my teacher. Many of my classmates have already stopped working completely, and are whispering among themselves, wondering what was going on.)

Classroom Assistant: *loudly* “[My Name] is not working on the slide project! She’s just drawing things on her phone!”

Teacher: *calmly* “Yes. I told her she may animate her project, instead of using the slide app. ‘Drawing things’ is how animations are made. You know, drawing the same thing, with small differences in each drawing, a thousand times or so? Now, give [My Name] her phone back… *pauses* “Actually…” *a little louder* “[My Name]! Come to my desk, please?”

(I walk over to her desk, where the assistant looks at me smugly. I smile, knowing what my teacher will say.)

Me: “Yes, Miss [Teacher]? What’s going on?”

Teacher: “This is a really cool app; how does it work?” *looks at the assistant* “Oh, [Classroom Assistant], you’re still here? Your students need your help.”

Classroom Assistant: *visibly deflates and walks away*

(My teacher handed me my phone, and we started going through the animation for her lesson. I told her about the animation style I chose to use, and explained how the app works. As I showed off some of my favorite features, she downloaded it onto her own phone. The classroom assistant has tried since then to get reassigned to a different group of students.)

Since I was in high school, I’ve made some money on the side by helping my neighbors’ children — and later, children of their relatives and acquaintances, as well — with their homework. This mostly consisted of reading over written assignments for spelling and grammar mistakes, since most of them had Portuguese rather than English as their first language.

Recently, one of the girls I tutor started high school with a teacher who apparently didn’t expect his students to have much of a vocabulary, because she was constantly bringing her papers back with comments from him saying that they “didn’t sound like her own words.” I want to emphasize that I didn’t write the papers for her, and while I’ve always loved learning rare or unusual words and can give plenty of synonyms off the top of my head, the ones she was told to change seemed pretty basic to me — “protagonist” instead of “main character,” and such.

The cherry on top was an instance where one of the sections she was told to edit was a quote from a source she was required to have in her paper! I don’t recall the subject matter, but the sources were from the 1800s, so of course their language was a bit more flowery than how people speak today. We ended up changing it to the shortest quote we could find in the source material, which apparently satisfied him. You can bet there was plenty of disbelieving laughter from both of us at the irony of a teacher having his students dumb their work down!

(I am taking an Abnormal Psychology course. Our professor is discussing delusions of grandeur.)

Professor: “There was a man who said he could turn his fridge on and off, just by thinking about it.”

(The class chuckles. When the professor starts speaking again, his microphone has shut off.)

Professor: “It sounds odd, and we snicker, but it makes you wonder—” *pauses, looks down at his microphone*

(Everyone laughs.)

Student: “I did that!”

(From preschool to third grade, I attend a small private school. It has about 15 students per grade. It is an interesting place. The library is actually the back room of a mobile home — not as creepy as it sounds. One day in third grade, our teacher brings our class to the library to check out books. The books are sorted by grade level, with more than enough to go around for 15 students for each class — especially ours, since we dwindle down to five halfway through the year. I am having a tough time picking out something to read, specifically thinking that all these books are too boring, and wanting something that is more of a challenge, so I march my nine-year-old self over to the area for fifth and sixth graders. The librarian — or at least the woman who was put in charge of organizing this back bedroom — notices me.)

Librarian: “No, those aren’t for your class. They’re too hard.”

Me: *points to the third-grade books* “Those are too easy.”

Librarian: *takes hold of my arm and steers me back to my classmates* “You have to pick one of these.”

(Being so little, I didn’t argue, but even then I thought it was stupid, especially when I had tested into a sixth-grade reading level. The kicker: the school didn’t use computers to check out books at the time this happened. Everything was done by hand. The book I chose that day was missed in their paperwork. I still have it over twenty years later.)

(As part of our training for our job, we have to attend a workshop on communication and confidence. The trainer has asked us all to go round and say what we want to get out of the workshop, but for some reason, we are not allowed to repeat what anyone else has said. I am near the end of the group of people and am therefore struggling to think of what different thing I might want to take from the workshop. I also happen to have a very common name.)

Trainer: “And you?”

(I say the first thing that comes to mind.)

Me: “Uh. Okay. I would like to, uh, I guess, be able to address my colleagues with confidence and not come across as doubting what I’m thinking when, uh, presenting my ideas.”

Trainer: *smiling* “Ah, I see. A bit of lack of self-esteem.”

Me: “Uh, yeah.”

Trainer: “You’re not someone who thinks that your job application was accepted by mistake, or that it’s a case of mistaken identity?”

Me: “Well, it is possible, I guess, but I guess I wasn’t thinking—“

Trainer: “Really? How likely is it that they mixed up something as important as a job offer with someone with the same name as you?”

Me: “Er. Well, actually, in my year at high school, there were three of us with the same first name and second name. They tried to enter me for the wrong exam papers several times, gave me someone else’s report at least once, entered me as dyslexic for one of my papers, and then nearly didn’t give me my exam certificate because they assumed my name on the student list was a typo. Among other things. So, uh, if we’re going by my past experience, I’d say it’s not impossible that someone with my name applied and the paperwork was mixed up. But I never really considered it until you said it, and now I’m wondering about it.”

Trainer: *a little flustered, having clearly not realised how common my name is* “Right. Okay. I can see why you might think that. Erm, I’m sure that didn’t happen, though. Moving on…”

(Everyone joked later that I was the only person to come out of the training with LESS confidence than when I started.)