Challenging social rules

[pegkerr]

This was a comment I made at sartorias's journal at a discussion about social rules, and I thought I'd re-post it here.

I vividly remember two instances when I was growing up when on separate occasions two teachers told me something I knew was DEAD WRONG.

One was in kindergarten, when another child was drawing a (rather inept) picture of a turkey. She painstakingly drew a circle on the turkey's tummy, and told the teacher, "That's the turkey's belly button."

Now even I, at the tender age of five, knew that turkeys didn't have belly buttons. But I was genuinely startled by the teacher's response. "Linda," she sniffed, "it isn't nice to talk about belly buttons."

I knew, even then, that there was nothing wrong with any part of the body. Even belly buttons.

The other time happened in eighth grade. I was stopped by a teacher in the hall. "Margaret," he told me loftily (he could never grasp the fact that I went by Peg, not Margaret), "ladies don't whistle." (Edited to add: Oh yeah, and I just remembered: he actually quoted to me, "Whistling girls and crowing hens/Always come to some bad ends.")

Again, I was so startled by the immediate and sure knowledge that he was wrong that I didn't make the obvious answer until he had passed.

I was a lady.

And I damn well could whistle anytime I liked.

Tell me about a time a teacher or a parent or someone else in authority told you something that you knew immediately was wrong.

Comments

[vass]

Tell me about a time a teacher or a parent or someone else in authority told you something that you knew immediately was wrong.

Oh dear. You asked. I've had a bee in my bonnet about this for the last eighteen years!

It was grade three. We were studying units of measurement (metric, because this is Australia.) We'd done kilometres, and now we were on to kilograms. A penny dropped in my head. A thousand metres, a thousand grams...
"Miss B_, does 'kilo' mean a thousand?"
And with the most patronising tone imaginable, she replied "No, Ellie, *kilo* is short for a *kilogram*."

[vass]

Another one:
This one in year nine, by which time I was fourteen, so old enough not to think teachers were automatically right. First year at a new high school, first day, core music class (we had elective music as well, but the school made a big deal of being a 'designated music school', so everyone had to do it - not always a good use of the students' time, musician or not.)

Miss C_: Now, a MAJOR chord is a HAPPY chord, and a MINOR chord is a SAD chord.
Me: No, they just have different scale patterns. Minor melodies are frequently associated with sad music, but Bartok, for instance, has written some very happy music in minor keys. And the saddest aria I can think of, 'Che Faro Senza Euridice', by Gluck, is in a major key.

After Miss C_ went out of the room, another student turns to me, shocked and appalled: Elena, you can't say that! She's the teacher, I'd *think* she knows better than *you*!"

Part of the problem being that I wasn't questioning Miss C's knowledge - I'm sure she didn't think minor means sad and major means happy... at least, I hope she didn't. She was just oversimplifying to the point where what she's saying is *wrong*.