(I teach physics to students in a university aviation course in New Zealand. It is like flight school, but with more depth of background knowledge, and you get a degree at the end of it. There are about 20 students, and about half of them are from Asian nations: Malaysia, Korea, Indonesia, etc. The first lesson is unit conversion. I give them some unit conversion factors, like miles to feet and feet to meters, and give some examples, one of which is something like, “Convert 340 yards and 2 feet into miles.” An Asian student raises their hand.)

Student: “What is a yard?”

Me: “I am so happy to find out there are people in the world who don’t know what a yard is. Alas, I am about to destroy your innocent ignorance.”

(I explain inches, feet, yards, chains, furlongs, and miles, to the astonishment of half the class.)

(My junior high school AP history teacher is explaining his test policies to us in the first class of the year.)

Teacher: “In this class, I honor the seventy-percent rule for tests. If seventy percent of the class gets a question wrong on a test, I have clearly not taught that concept well enough and everyone gets that point for free. If you get one of these questions right, you get an extra credit point for it. Any questions?”

(We all glance at each other until one girl raises her hand.)

Girl: “So… If we all get a question wrong. Like, really wrong. On purpose. We all get the point, anyway?”

Teacher: “Yes.”

Girl: “And… If we did a whole test like that?”

Teacher: “There’s one every year! And I’ll tell you what I’ve told all my other classes. You’re AP kids, so you care about your grades. If seventy percent of you decide to throw one of my tests, and stick to it, then I will give you all full credit just for being ballsy!”

(Sadly, we were never able to get enough of the class to agree that we could try this. I wish now we had… I have a feeling he would have kept his word!)

(I am seven years old in second grade. I start having stomach pains. In February, after being checked out, my doctor decides I might be lactose intolerant and tells my mom to have me stop drinking milk for a month to see if that helps my problems. My mom lets the school and teacher know that I am not to have milk. Our class makes Valentine’s Day mailboxes, and on Valentine’s Day, we all bring in cards and treats to give to our classmates. After everyone is done my teacher makes me give her my mailbox, which she then goes through and takes out all of the chocolate.)

Me: “Ms. [Teacher], what are you doing?”

Teacher: “Your mom said you can’t have milk, and these are milk chocolate, so you can’t have them.”

(She then sent me back to my desk and ate my chocolate while I cried.)

(My baby sister is taking beginner ballet classes; she is four years old. There is a large age gap between us, so usually I’m the one who drops her off there and picks her up an hour and a half later. The teacher believes that people shouldn’t be watching the class, as it distracts the kids from learning. My sister loves dancing, so she does well until we have to pull her out because of this encounter.)

Teacher: “I had to put [Sister] in timeout today; she was being really bad!”

Me: “Oh, really? What did she do?”

(As I grab my sister’s hand, I notice she looks as if she has been crying for a long time.)

Teacher: “She pushed another girl today.”

Me: “How long did she have to stay?”

Teacher: “The majority of the class. She didn’t seem to learn her lesson.”

Me: “And how long did she cry?”

Teacher: “I couldn’t move her until she learned her lesson!”

Me: “And? Did she apologize, at least? I’m not sure why she would be there for so long.”

Teacher: “I mean, she did say sorry after she pushed her, but she needed to learn!”

Me: “So, leaving her alone, and letting her cry this entire class, was her ‘learning her lesson’?! She’s four years old, she apologized, and she has been crying this entire time, and you left her there all class long?! Not only was this a wasted class for us, you needlessly punished her for so long, even when she apologized!”

Teacher: “She needed to learn her lesson!”

Me: “The only thing I’ve learned today is that you don’t know how to handle a child. We’re not coming back once I tell my parents.”

(We got her out of that class, and have since admitted her into another dance school. I’m not saying that my sister didn’t do anything wrong, but keeping her in timeout while she cried her eyes out, after she had apologized, is ridiculous. We give her timeouts, too, sometimes, but never for so long!)

(I get a phone call from my daughter’s school.)

Caller: “Mr. [My Name], we believe your daughter may have been in a fight at school. However, she is refusing to say anything. Would you mind coming along to get this sorted?”

Me: “My wife works closer to school; I’ll call her. Why do you think our daughter was in a fight?”

Caller: “She came into her English lesson with a nosebleed.”

Me: “She gets those from time to time.”

Caller: “We believe she was in a fight.”

Me: “Was there anything else to suggest she was?”

Caller: “She came into her lesson with a nosebleed.”

Me: “Yes, I know that. What else?”

Caller: “That’s it.”

Me: “And you say she said nothing?”

Caller: “That she had a nosebleed.”

Me: “So, my daughter came into her lesson, with a nosebleed, said it was a nosebleed, and there was nothing else to suggest she was in a fight.”

Caller: “She had a nosebleed.”

Me: “I’m curious; can you check my daughter’s record, as we requested that her frequent nosebleeds be noted down?”

Caller: “Yes, it’s here. I had to pull up her record to get your phone number.”

Me: “And you still think she was in a fight?”

Caller: “Yes.”

(I give in and call my wife. When I get home that evening, she’s having an argument on the phone.)

Wife: “I don’t care. I don’t want someone like that at my daughter’s school! A cabbage would be smarter than her!”

Daughter: *whispering to me* “We all call her ‘cabbage’ after she photocopied an entire book without collating it.”

(After she hung up, my wife refused to tell me what happened at school, saying she’d already lost enough brain cells, and sadly my daughter wasn’t in the room at that point, so I may never find out.)