Teacher : Idiot
(I am a sophomore in high school, and this takes place in English class. We take a quiz which includes a few analogies. I get one of the analogies ‘wrong,’ but I know the answer I gave was the best answer, so I go to the teacher after class to see if I can get the point for it. This was the question:)
Question: If Baker is to Bakery, then:
- A) Blacksmith : Foundry
- B) Stoplight : Car
- C) Pilot : Cockpit
- D) Chat : Chatty
Me: “Hey, [Teacher], I have a question about this quiz.”
Teacher: “I won’t change your score. You got what you earned.”
Me: “…All right, then. I hadn’t actually even said that’s what I wanted, but okay. Here’s the thing, though: I think question 14 was badly written so that the better answer is actually Pilot : Cockpit, not Blacksmith : Foundry.”
Teacher: *in a very condescending tone* “Well, [My Name], let me ask you something. Do bakers make things?”
Me: “Yes…”
Teacher: “And do blacksmiths make things?”
Me: “Yes.”
Teacher: “What about pilots?”
Me: “No…”
Teacher: *triumphantly* “So the stronger connection, the better analogy, is between the baker and the blacksmith!”
Me: “Well, you would make a good point, except that what you say is irrelevant since blacksmiths don’t actually work in foundries. A foundry is where they smelt the ore and get the metal out of it. A blacksmith would work in a smithy.”
Teacher: “Well… maybe the question refers to the times before then, when each blacksmith had to do that for himself.”
Me: “Again, it’s a moot point. It still wouldn’t be called a foundry; a foundry is exclusively for smelting ore. A place that was used for smelting and forging both would still be called a smithy. The bottom line is, bakers work in bakeries; pilots work in cockpits; blacksmiths don’t work in foundries.”
Teacher: “Well… the book says the answer is ‘A.’ So the answer is ‘A.’ Live with it.”
(I wouldn’t really even have minded not getting the point back; since the class was so easy I was getting a comfortable A anyway. But I hate it when teachers won’t admit you have a point, especially when it doesn’t even mean admitting they were wrong. In this case, all the teacher would have had to admit was that the textbook wasn’t infallible!)
Question of the Week
Have you ever served a bad customer who got what they deserved?
