Teacher Refused To Let His Student Sit Where They Could See The Board And Their Revenge Is Amazing
There is nothing worse than a bad teacher....
One classroom rule turned into a full-blown petty revenge story, and it starts with a teacher who refused to move a near-sighted student closer to the board. The student was shy, tried to ask politely, and got shut down with a hard no, which made every lesson harder to follow.
Instead of arguing, the student found another way to push back, and it involved a book, a quiet classroom, and a teacher who clearly did not expect the response. What happened next is the kind of school story people remember for years.
Read on for the full revenge.
It was shared by u/MustbeeaWeasley.
"Math Teacher Forgets Object Permanence, and Retires."
"Setting (USA): Me, sixth-grade math classI was a painfully shy kid. I'm near-sighted, and most teachers noticed it. Being able to see the board meant being engaged in learning. Teachers usually seated me in the front of the classroom, and I would do really well. Except for this math teacher. My last name is towards the bottom of the alphabet, and he would only seat us alphabetically. For context, he was an older teacher. I ended up in the back of his class. After struggling to see the board, and being a non-confrontational child, I wrote him a note on my homework asking to move to the front.I got my homework back at the end of class with a big red underlined "NO! Assigned seats only." written on it. I was devastated. I've never been in trouble and didn't think that it was that hard to switch me around. This is where the revenge plays out.I love to read. I always have. I always had books with me. After being frustrated by not being able to see the board, I quit trying. I would bring out whatever book I was currently reading and just read during class. Nothing was said at first.
One day, I was reading in class, and it just got quiet. Like a sudden drop in temperature. It got quiet enough for me to look up. He was lingering next to me, and the whole class was staring. Again, I'm painfully shy. He held his hand ou...[truncated]That quiet classroom moment is where the story really turns.
It was an act of revenge that was MEANT to be
"For a self-described shy kid who was mortified to be singled out, you were incredibly brave planning that act of defiance."
[ADVERTISEMENT]"Whenever anyone asks me, 'What's the bravest thing you've ever done?' I tell them this story. I've never done anything like this since. The opportunity presented itself when the library had five copies of the book series (Animorphs); no other book in the series had five copies."
OP was compared to another rebel book lover
"This isn't petty revenge. This is Matilda-level stuff right here."
A book? In SCHOOL.
"I lost it at 'SHE HAS A BOOK!' Never laughed so hard on this sub! You rock, OP!"
Nothing worse than bad teachers
"My goal after I finish my PhD in education next year is to make sure teachers like this one get curb-stomped.But really, while I don't study your exact issues, I am indeed getting my PhD in education because I hated school THAT MUCH."
This also hits like a parent questioning a teacher who cancelled recess every day over class misbehavior.
OP did end up getting glasses
"I wish my mom had gotten me glasses. She was a single mom with four kids and couldn't afford them. After this incident, though, the librarian of my school actually took me to get glasses. I love having glasses now, just because I remember how awful it was when I was younger. (And as an adult, I can buy my own.)"
Librarians are blessings
"I keep thinking about the librarian, sitting there. You want five copies of the same book?"
[ADVERTISEMENT]"So, I actually spent a lot of time with that librarian after school. I never told her how bad things were at home, but she knew. She would let me check out extra books for the weekend/holidays too. I was literally checking out a book a day in this series. If she noticed they were all the same book, she didn’t say anything."
Unfortunately, OP wasn't the only one with a story like this
"I had a teacher like this (math, actually, same grade) who sat me at the back, and I was near-sighted and didn't have glasses. I wrote her a note on an assignment apologizing because it was incomplete, I had been able to get some of it done by writing down the questions as she read them out loud while writing them, but couldn't keep up.She replied with the most snotty, rude, bright-red ink note about how I was lazy and didn't care, and my 'can't see the board' comment was an excuse.I showed my parents, and this resulted in an immediate meeting with the principal, superintendent, teacher, and my parents and myself.I also got glasses (my parents hadn't known I couldn't see, I was very good at hiding it).The teacher ended up apologizing, but I still resent her to this day because I tried explaining something to her, and she was awful in response. I was bullied a lot in school (by students and teachers), so trusting someone at all was a big deal, and she showed me I picked the wrong person."
Plenty of readers had their own school memories ready to spill out.
"Damn, this brings back memories, except for me, it was eighth-grade algebra. I was an excellent student; I was always at the top or near the top of the class in every subject, even math, which was my least favorite subject. I would have been in a gifted or accelerated program if they existed back then.I had the same issue; I happened to sit in the back in that class and couldn't see the board and the equations. I didn't realize that everyone else could see the board easily; I thought I was just too far back. I did the homework and tests fine at first but started lagging behind after a while. I was too embarrassed to say anything in class. School had always been rather easy for me; I never had to put any effort at all into getting As. I thought I had finally found a subject that was difficult for me.I ended up having a parent-teacher conference to figure out why I was doing so poorly in that class when I was a straight-A student in everything else. Luckily for me, my teacher wasn't an idiot like OP's. During the conference, which was in the classroom, I was sitting up front in the first row. I could just barely make out the board if I squinted. He noticed that, then made me sit in the back where I normally did, and asked me to read what he wrote. I...[truncated]
And, as usual, the comments kept the sympathy rolling.
We love to see it.
"Similar things used to happen to me; it's good to hear a story of someone who got the best of a teacher like this."
Some teachers really do make the whole class harder than it needs to be.
Want the same kind of petty payoff? Read how a man tracked down an old classmate to remind him of a hurtful high school prediction.
