(While my best friend in this class is a year younger than all of us because she skipped a grade, I am a little older, because my birthday is exactly one day after the date that determines if children allowed to start school. My best friend is one of the teacher’s favourites and a really good student, but, like me, somewhat of a s***head sometimes. I’m behaving myself and taking notes while my friend is next to me drawing incredibly intricate stars with faces. However, my ink runs out, and I change the cartridge and make a few scribbles on a scrap piece of paper to get it running again.)

Teacher: “[MY NAME]! STOP DRAWING AND PAY ATTENTION RIGHT NOW!”

Me: “But I’m not drawing; my ink just ran out and I—”

Teacher: “YOU NEVER PAY ATTENTION! LET ME SEE YOUR BINDER!”

(He stomps over to the desk my friend and I share and grabs my binder. Since I did take notes, he instead berates me for my handwriting and “doodling” — the scribbles and half-visible words I wrote after changing my ink cartridge. All the time, my friend calmly continues to draw her smiling stars, in plain sight, and really obviously spreads out the coloured markers she’s using. Her whole binder is covered in smiling rainbow stars.)

Teacher: *finishing his rant* “…and I really wish you would take [Friend] as an example; her work is always beautifully done! Look at her writing!”

(We look at the multitude of stars.)

Teacher: “And from now on, PAY ATTENTION!”

(Needless to say, I didn’t give a single flying coitus about his opinion after that, anymore. My friend drew stars for the rest of the lesson.)

(My teacher is explaining the Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus, a story about a father and son who made artificial wings to fly over the sea. Icarus flew too high, the sun’s heat melted the wax glue holding his wings together, and he fell into the sea and drowned.)

Teacher: “…and so Daedalus flew home to Mrs. Daedalus and said to her, ‘Don’t save a place for Icarus; he’s having seafood tonight.'”

My dad has always been a man of strong opinions, and this was no different back when he was in medical school. One of his professors was super passionate about a subject my dad thought was dumb and unscientific, and shouted at anyone who dared to challenge him in class, so Dad decided to take a more… creative route.

This professor always closed the glass-paned classroom door and pulled the double-sided chalkboard to a very precise angle before beginning to teach. One day, he had just finished his little ritual when his students began to point towards the door and laugh.

The professor, noticing that his students were snickering, started looking around for what had amused them. He checked the door, the back wall, even the reverse side of his chalkboard, but saw only some “gibberish stuff, must be Russian or something.” Eventually he gave up and just taught his lesson, to the accompaniment of much laughter.

My dad had sneaked into the classroom before the lesson and written on the reverse side of the chalkboard, in mirror writing so it would reflect the right way around in the door, “DOWN WITH PSEUDOSCIENCE.”

As far as I’m aware, he was never caught!

(The first day of kindergarten, we get to choose anywhere we want to sit. Unknown to us, these seats are put on the seating chart. The next time, I want to sit somewhere different.)

Teacher: “Welcome, class. Now, let’s take role with your seating chart.”

(At this point, many of us become scared and confused because we aren’t sitting in our original seats.)

Teacher: “Now that everyone is settled and in their seats from last week, I’ll go down the rows and double-check.”

(She gets out a stamp and starts with the first few kids; they are all sitting in their original seats and get “good job” stamps on their hands. All the kids sigh, realizing we probably won’t be punished. Then she gets to the next kid.)

Teacher: “There is always one kid…”

Kid #1: “One kid who does what?”

Teacher: “One kid like you who sits wherever they want.”

(Then the teacher takes out a stamp and stamps the kid’s forehead. It reads, “Fail.” All of our eyes go wide.)

Kid #2: “My mom will kill me if I have a mark on my forehead!”

Me: “THIS IS PROBABLY AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION!”

All The Kids: “YEAH!”

(All the kids who sat in the right places stay quiet while the rest of us chant. At that moment, the teacher stamps my forehead three times with the “fail” stamp. I am very sensitive and begin to cry.)

Me: “But… but… I was just… just… telling the truth!”

Teacher: “Now, listen: there will be no uprisings in my class this year!”

(I’ve recently gone back to college to do a business course and they’ve hired a lecturer that used to be a professor at a well-off university. He often gives us vague information and expects us to do the entire class as self-study. A lot of the students are doing the course without any experience or knowledge on the subject and frequently ask him for help.)

Lecturer: “I don’t know why you’re having so many problems; just read [text book #1] and [websites]. It’s not that hard.”

Student#1: “Okay, but that’s a pretty big textbook, and I don’t know what information would be relevant to the tests. I mean, there are several case studies in here; do you expect us to memorize all of them?”

Lecturer: *scoffs* “If you were in [University] you would memorize all of this.”

Student#2: “We’re not in [University]!”

Lecturer: “That’s why you read the texts! Follow that power point I gave you.”

Student #1: “You mean the one that just has keywords listed on each slide with no context, or the one that’s just web links?”

Student #3: “We’re obviously not learning anything like this. Can’t you just run through some stuff with us?”

Lecturer: “I’m used to [University] students, smarter students, ones who go off and do learning independently. Why can’t you do that?”

Student #2: “You are our lecturer; what is the point of you even being here if you won’t lecture?”

(It didn’t get much better after that, and eventually the class complained so much that we got a new teacher who was actually willing to work with us instead of watching us work.)