For people who are really good with words, middle school is when you either get the passion beaten out of you like this, or you encounter a teacher who is a Difficult Person, but they like you and you gain their powers

Wow that is bullshit. Reminds me of the teacher who failed a student for drawing a digital clock in a square that prompted 'Draw a clock showing 4:30 pm.'

Kid wasn't wrong at all. Poorly worded question.

Further, please enjoy my own bitching about bad teachers all the way up into college:

I had a college professor for Political Science give me a shit grade for only one of the multiple papers required of the class.

Why?

I referenced US Army soldiers out right stating, on video, and with legit newspapers covering this, that they were being instructed to guard opium/poppie farms in Afghanistan, back when even liberals were pretending that was not happening. It was a paper on conflict goods, such as blood diamonds, and she pretended I was a conspiracy theorist.

Next year I had an Econ professor give my group and I got a crap grade (got nearly 100% on every thing else) on a report and presentation about Iceland's response to the Financial Crisis of 08.

Why'd he do that?

Because Iceland's actions and the subsequent effects on their economy did not fit into any of the possible policy choices (send all the corrupt bankers to fucking prison) and outcomes that his macroeconomic paradigm allowed to be possible, and functionally disproved it, as according to the model he was teaching us, this should have resulted in basically a total collapse of their economy. (There were some short lived negative effects, but faaar from what we should have expected)

I got a BS in Econ and a BA in PoliSci, double majored in 4 years, and what I learned was the only way to excel in either of these fields is to pick some kind of ideology to pledge your allegiance too, suck up and kiss ass and you'll go far.

I once got a C- on an essay, but for extra credit we could submit that paper to a state essay contest. I was a state finalist in that contest, with my only revision from the class-submitted version being spell checking Britan->Britain.

Fuck you, Mrs Wickham.

Had an English teacher do kinda this to me once. We presented our research paper to the class, teacher tells me the birthday of the dude I'm presenting on, I correct her like; "bitch, dis my mf research paper! I know my dudes fuckin birthday, it the one damn slide I memorized!" (Paraphrasing, but the meaning was there, expertly and subtly disguised of course.) She then proceeds to tell me I must be wrong and failed my whole project, my magnum opus of eighth grade.

P.S. Frank Lloyd Wright was born June 8, 1867 in Wisconsin, not 1701 like some cranky, funny smellin old English teacher insists upon

Checks out

Too many teachers assume if they admit they were wrong, the students will get more insolent, as if sensing weakness. I've briefly been an assistant teacher in a middle school, and I found that on the contrary, students seem to appreciate an earnest admission of mistake and calmly accept the apology. Even some students that would be insolent in other situations. When it's clear you're wrong and the student knows it, pretending you're right won't do any good. Acting in a respectable manner will get you more respect.

Started in a new school. Had to begin attending before I actually moved to the new house. First class the teacher says I am to spend the first week observing the class, and getting an idea how it functions. I will not be required to participate, or do work, until the start of the next week. At the end of that week he calls me over to his desk and, in a clearly annoyed tone, asks me why I had done no work that week. So I told him he said I wasn't supposed to, not until the upcoming Monday. He then tells me I should have taken the initiative to do work anyway, even when told I didn't have too. This showed I was lazy, and then he said I was being a smart ass for "using his words against him" for reminding him what the instruction, he gave me, was.

So I said, if you tell people not to do something, don't expect them to do it. I can't just know that they want the opposite of what is asked for. So he said he is gonna call my parents and tell them all about this. Then he asks for my phone number. I didn't know it, we got into the new house the night before and all we had was suitcases, boxes, and mattresses on floors. So he tells me that trying to hide it won't help, the office will have my number. So I tell him to get it from them, as I didn't know the phone number yet. He calls my mom, and tells her "You know, your son acted like he didn't know his own phone number, like that would stop me from calling" and my mom informs him that the phone was activated 2 days ago, and that I don't know it. Then she said he huffed and then said "well the problem is, he didn't do any of the work this week". and she then told him I was informed not to, in fact, he put it in writing, and sent the outline of what he expected from me, home, on my first day.

This motherfucker held a grudge until the day I no longer saw him again. He even lied about the situation to other teachers, so when I started their classes, I got a lot of "Oh, Mr. Heckman (real name, fuck him) told me about you" in a sardonic tone. This started a 2.5 year shit storm with this school, that ended with them paying my tuition to go somewhere else.

Something like this happened to me as well, but it didn't directly impact my grades. In the 7th grade my teacher accidentally locked herself out of the shitty filing cabinet that was standard issue in every classroom. I had learned from my cousin a couple of really basic Lockpicking techniques, just raking and jiggling, nothing with actual pin picking.

I told her I could try to open it with a paperclip and she was like "yeah okay sure lol" totally sarcastically. I get down there, bend open a paperclip, and start trying to jiggle or rake the pins up. This process looks a bit like I'm struggling to do anything, so she immediately goes "see? You can't actually open it". I told her I just needed to get the mechanism to catch the pins, she became completely insufferable, and started making fun of me for being a 7th grader who knew a 10 dollar word like "mechanism". I honestly wish I was making this part up but for the rest of that school year she joked about me... knowing the word "mechanism". What a fuckin' nerd amiright?

Anyway I got the cabinet open after maybe a minute of fucking around with the lock and she barely even thanks me at all, mostly just acts sheepish because she probably never believed I could do it, and suddenly realized that a student could break into her cabinet where she keeps her teaching materials (not that I ever would have)

I have two professors that I have strong memory of.

The first thought classes that she was not qualified to teach. Using methods outside her narrow window of understanding hurt your score. She set a rule that if you ask for her to recheck a question on the final you will lose 20 points. On my final I had a minus 20 because she doesn't understand powers of 2.

The second is brilliant but very absent minded. Gave us a badly worded question. It was meant to be a very hard question and I didn't know the subject well enough to solve it. Used mathematical logic to prove he didn't ask what he thought he was asking. And solved the very easy question he actually asked.

He gave me a perfect score and a job.

Wins argument

"Quit being a sore loser"

I called a college professor out on a wrong math equation on the board (missing a 0, not a huge deal) and he argued for a few minutes and carried on. A few hours later I got an email and he apologized, said I was right and sent me the right equation. HE DIDN'T DO THIS FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS. There are another 30-40 students who all wrote down the wrong math to study off of.

Had something similar in an english class back in 6th grade (Brazil, 12yo students) - I knew some english words better than her and I wish I was making it up. She would say to class that checkers is chess game, call muffins doughnuts and vice versa (and say it like "dougonoot"). Of course, she always ignored my corrections and told me I was wrong whenever she could, like with checkers (she probably assumed that because "checkered" translates to "xadrez" despite the meaning there being for the texture/stamp, an adjective, rather than the game "xadrez", a noun)

So, one bright day, she gives us an exam where the first 10 or so questions are just True or False according to the text. I read the text, I read the questions and notice that they don't reference the text at all. I quietly ask her if the text is right, because several words being referenced in the question are nowhere in the text and she just dismisses me, "Just read and you'll find the answers", so I sit back slightly pissed and do what every other student did: randomly guess. Next week, we receive the exams back with our grades, another kid asks the teacher if she could show where in the text the answers for the T/F questions were. She starts reading and realizes her mistake. "Sorry class, I forgot the second half of the text" - which was a total lie because "second half" implies that at least something would have used the first half. I guess she learned how to revise her exams, because the others we had during the year were fine.

Anyway, if you ever wonder why most Brazilians know jack shit about English, it's because the mandatory English classes are fucking shit. My conspiracy theory headcanon is that this is on purpose to sell extracurricular English courses

That teacher is a sore looser.

In middle school I had to argue with a teacher that "Floral" was a word. I was unsuccessful in convincing him.

Two biggest groups of assholes in the world: cops and teachers.

I remember a 7th grade teacher making fun of my computer knowledge as I had made some fun adjustments to the qbasic gorillas game. She said "you act like you know more than anyone else does" trying to shame me in front of the class. My response? "That's because I do." As flatly as I could. She was silent.

I have software developer in my title now.

Skill issue, have parents that can afford a better school district.

I had a high school civics teacher tell the class that the the 2nd to 10th richest people in the world were the Walton Family heirs(Walmart). I knew at the time that Steve Ballmer was like the 5th or something. I brought in a printout of the Forbes Top 50 Richest people and he coped by saying that if you combine the wealth of the Walton family, they'd be in the top 5.

That was probably one of the more benign falsehoods that teacher taught.

I've had a few awful teachers or professors over the years. One professor that sticks out was a total asshole to me. I had to go for surgery and rehab on an injury, so missed two of his classes. I emailed ahead to ask if there was anything important covered that I should make sure to read about in the required text, and his response was "this is an ignorant comment, everything I teach is important, if this is your attitude you're going to fail". The man was such a cunt that 16 years later I still use his work and personal email address (note: don't put your personal email in your book that every student is forced to read for your shitty intro class) as spam fodder whenever a dodgy website has a subscription or email box.

Pair that with another professor, who gave an assignment with tiers for extra credit, on the basis that you complete the first tier to be eligible for the second. I decided to go for full marks, and completed all tiers, but broke my code 10 mins before review. He reviewed, told me that it was great that I even attempted, and only marked me down for the case I failed - turning a potential zero into 90%. It was the final mark I needed to pass his class, complete my degree, and to get the prerequisite to join my masters degree programme.

Galactorrhoea. It's when not pregnant people lactate.

I wrote an essay in high school in which I compared Hamlet and Horatio to Starsky and Hutch or Batman and Robin. I was saying that Hamlet was trying to solve his father's murder and Horatio was his sidekick. The substitute teacher didn't like it so I complained to the regular teacher when he got back.

OP was probably saved by that final exam score. Judging from the opening from the text, it seems they were not putting much effort into the class. Sometimes a teacher needs to be stupid for a student to realize they can be smarter.