I once made an English teacher cry, as she could not justify all the silly rules we were required to learn. I pointed out the purpose of speech and writing is communication, and if all parties understand the communication then everything else is sophistry and arrogance. We didn't need an English textbook, we needed an English pamphlet.
I was cruel at 12 years old.
The year after that, I pissed off my math teacher so bad, he stopped talking to me the rest of the year. We had in-class assignment, and I did mine by the book.... and he marked it wrong. I called him out on it in class, and asked to know what was wrong with my work. He said I did not use the right method to get my answer. I opened our textbook and showed him the method in the book, and he said we hadn't learned that one yet so I was wrong. I asked him if it would be right if we had covered it in class.... and he said yes, then it would be right. I countered that means it will be right then, but isn't right now.... which means everything he tells us is wrong at some point. The whole class stared at him, while he turned beet red and stalked out. He never spoke to me again. I passed with a B.
My first year in high school, I took a C in a Spanish class. I suck at languages, but I knew I earned better than a C. My dad questioned the grade, and I told him the truth.... that teacher hates boys. No boy gets better than a C in her classes, ever. We all knew it. Dad was... unhappy. He made an appointment with the principal, to which I was called as well. He told me to repeat what I had told him, and I did. The principal started sputtering, but Dad shut him down and told him to produce the grades from that teachers classes for the past year, which the principal refused. He said they were private and he couldn't share them. My Dad used the word bullshit to his face. Told him "You are covering for a psychotic teacher. Deal with it, or I will". He grabbed me by the arm and we left. In the truck on the way home, he said "You tell me if that man has anything to say to you". The teacher retired at the end of the school year. I told my Dad when I heard, and he said "I already know about it". He never mentioned it again.
The next year, in an algebra class which I was floundering in, I asked my Dad for help (which I almost never did). My Dad read the textbook chapter, then began crossing things out and writing in the margin. He told me to try doing it the way he wrote, which I did and it made sense. The teacher asked me how I had arrived at my answers, and I showed him the book with my Dad's changes. He was incensed, took my textbook, and said I'd be paying for the book. Before the weekend I was called to the Assistant principals office and told what discipline I would receive for 'destroying a textbook'. It involved a weeks detention. I explained I'd need a ride home, because detention would mean missing the bus. He told me that was my problem, and tell my folks. I did, and Dad told me I could walk it... "It's only 5 miles". My first day serving detention, I wasn't there for maybe 10 minutes and I got called to the principals office. There I found my Dad, the principal, and the algebra teacher. When I walked in I saw the text book on the principals desk, open to the changes my Dad had made. I heard my Dad say "Is there anything else we need to discuss?" and the principal said "I think we are done". Dad pushed me out the door in front of him. In the truck on the way home, he said "You are done with detention'. Never said another word about it, but the algebra teacher never even looked in my direction after that. I passed the class.
For the record, I never finished high school. I took a GED, and had it in hand six months before my class graduated. My Mom helped me apply to the local college which ran the GED program. I was interviewed, and told I was the first person they'd ever had take the test at 17. He let me know he had discussed it with the high school principal, who had written an endorsement that I be allowed to take the GED as soon as possible.
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