Perfect inspiration for a spanking story

Schools are meant to teach children about the world they live in. I was taught by experience that this world is unjust. Let the schools keep on with the good work.

I think the original letter is an appalling example of bad teaching. The teacher is setting a terrible example to the kids in his care, and the idea that they should blindly accept what people in authority tell them is downright dangerous. Sadly there will always be bad teachers as well as good. I was lucky enough to have one outstandingly good teacher, he knew a great deal but was never ashamed to admit what he didn't know, nor to learn from his pupils. He was appointed to his job in the 1920's on a temporary basis, and was still doing it in the 1970's when I took my A-levels!

I used to have an Electronics lecturer at technical college (next stage up from school for me) and when he was about to demonstrate a proof on the blackboard he would sometimes say "Stay a nano-second behind this" because he wasn't absolutely certain that he'd get it all right every time, and might need to backtrack a bit.

I don't recall thinking any the less of him for that, but as this was Engineering where the students were ALWAYS called "Mr. This" or "Miss That" by the lecturers perhaps the balance of respect was very different than in a school setting

Planning a career in government management, I took an upper level economics course ion cost benefit analysis for public decision-making - just me, a couple economics majors and a few grad students. The professor, while attempting to show a concept graphically at the end of one class, became a bit befuddled (and embarrassed) when the point escaped him. Perhaps still smarting from the incident in my eighth grade math class, I kept my hand down during the class, but stayed afterwards to show him the area on the graph the represented the answer. That led to a quite lengthy discussion. When he found out my career plans, he all but offered me a spot in the multi-disciplinary graduate program in public policy analysis he was planning to start the following year. THAT was a GOOD teacher.

Postscript: the initiation of that program got delayed, and I ended up elsewhere. He eventually became disillusioned with the public sector (in class, he mentioned more than once, with disgust, how politics intervened to cause 'cheating' on most public cost benefit analyses to get the desired answer). Years later he surfaced as Boris Yeltsin's economic adviser as Russia moved towards a capitalist economy.

I had my share of bad teachers. Looking back at school photos I recognise all the faces but can only put names to the ones who encouraged me, the others are forgettable and were soon forgotten.

if I had become a teacher, I would have reflected on that, because what is the point of spending time with people if they don't remember you, or if they remember you with dislike?

At school I was taught the pleasure of working things out for myself. If the teacher in njrick's Base-12 example had completely understood what she was teaching she might have understood njr's challenge and backed down, and she might not turned it into a matter of saving face. The same with Goodgulf's example at the beginning.

As to the sense of injustice I do have a similar experienceof my own: I got a detention when my French teacher misunderstood my clumsy explanation in French of why I had not handed in some homework. The injustice of it stayed with me for years (I was in the right, goddammit), far longer than the injustices I felt earlier when we often received whackings for unfair reasons, and knew were in the right. Now why is that? Is it just that I had learned to be self-righteous?

Spankos, it is better to be spanked than to be right.

He did say that the teacher was "Lying to the class." In a way he's right. He should have just spoke with the teacher after class, but I doubt that Mr. Egotistical would have been any kinder.