When I was in elementary school somewhere around forty years ago, I was, ummm… gifted, I guess. I was very good at math and was probably several grade levels above everyone else. I was also dealing with some issues at home and had no real way to “read the room” or any kind of social acumen whatsoever. I was actually pretty bullied, but I was so dumb I didn’t even realize it.

Yeah… that’s a thing. I guess I was pretty happy at the time because I was too stupid to be unhappy.

Anyway, one of my formative memories at the time had to do with division.

There are two ways to write the result of division (well, more than that, I suppose, but two major ways). You can write the results as a fraction (5 divided by 2 is 2 1/2). Or you can write the results as a decimal (5 divided by 2 is 2.5). Both are equally correct, and are just different ways of expressing the same result.

Somehow I learned that you could write results as decimals instead of fractions and answered some math tests that way, when the expected answer was fractions.

I got zeros. In fact, my math scores were so bad that I was put in remedial math in junior high. The junior high teacher had no idea why I was put in that class, I was clearly a lot smarter than everyone else and was put into AP the next semester (and was promptly pulled out into homeschooling, but that’s another story).

To this day, I resent that. While there is certainly some value in following instructions, my answers were correct, and I should not have been marked down. It was clear that the teacher was far more interested in whether I could follow instructions than whether I was correct.

Was this a valuable life lesson? Maybe. I guess. It certainly isn’t one I’ve forgotten. And there are plenty of people in authority who have this same personality flaw.

I had a music theory lesson today. My teacher assigns me some exercises as homework where I have to make up a harmony/chord progression with some restrictions. Today’s homework was to write a chord progression that included a VII°4/3-V chord. Yeah, that’s a complicated one. I got to choose my own chords otherwise.

I went with a pretty complex progression that had some chromatic passing tones, which was actually rather nice. But at the back of my mind, I was remembering what my sixth grade teacher did, and wondering if he’d get pissed off at me for doing things beyond the level I’d been assigned.

He didn’t. He said that’s the purpose of these lessons, to foster creativity as much as to learn how to do proper harmony. I know I’m an adult now, and I’m interacting with my teachers as adults, but that still surprised me.

Here in Texas, we have a saying for people when we basically want to say “screw you” while keeping a thin veneer of southern hospitality.

We say “bless your heart”.

Mrs. Scobie is probably dead now.

Bless your heart, Mrs. Scobie. You didn’t ruin my life – so many more impactful things were going on that what you did was a drop in the bucket. But you tried, and I still remember it. I still remember how my correct answers were marked down because I didn’t conform.

Damn, I wish I’d had some good teachers. Seems like just a string of duds.

I still won’t conform. You didn’t break me. But you, along with everyone else, sure did try. Hard.