Forum Post: Obedience first, Education second.

In the 7th grade I had a social studies teacher who told the class 1/12 was more than 1/6. This same teacher came to class 20 minutes late one day. As one would expect, 5 of the 30 students including me were sitting at their desks quietly reading their textbooks. About 20 were seated and talking with each other. 5 or so more were treating the classroom as a playground, running, yelling, and throwing things. The teacher's response was to mandate that ALL students must write "I will not run and yell in class." 100 times by the end of the week, or be put in detention. I raised my hand and told the teacher that I would write no sentences since I had been doing what was expected of me, and if he was not willing to make an exception that he should just send me to detention now. The principal later called my mother when I had not written the words. I had told my mother my side of things and she told the school that she would back me up in my decision. I spent the rest of that year last hour of school in detention, detention was in the high school library. I read dozens of books. Issac Azimov, George Orwell, physics books, dictionaries, etc. I learned more in detention that year than I would have learned in 100 years from an idiot teacher that does not even get basic fractions. The most important thing I learned, was from the idiot teacher. I was not in school to learn. I was in school to learn to OBEY. I Failed to learn that lesson.