“You’re wrong. Learn English!” Jacob didn’t raise his hand, he just called his teacher out.
“Excuse me, Jacob, but in this class we raise our hands to speak.”
“No, ‘we’ don’t. You never raise your hand. And you’re wrong when you use ‘they’ for one person. ‘They’ is plural. If you don’t know the basics of the English language, maybe you shouldn’t be teaching.”
“That’s it, you’re out.”
Jacob fumed all the way to the office, referral slip in hand. He was still mad when he got to his counselor’s office.
“He should be thanking me for helping him do his job, not sending me to the office! What an idiot!”
“That’s never going to happen, Jacob.” Mr. Craft sighed. “You know, you were the one in the wrong here.”
But I was right!
“But I was right! ‘They’ is plural, and he was using it in the singular!”
“Actually, he was correct. The singular ‘they’ as a gender-neutral option is accepted usage going back to the Elizabethan era. But the important thing here is your behavior.” Mr. Craft paused and tapped his pencil on his desk. “You’re not that teacher’s supervisor, Jacob. You’re a student. When you call him out, it’s not only rude and inappropriate, it is insubordination.”
“Well, maybe he shouldn’t be teaching if he can’t handle students telling the truth.”
“It’s not for you to decide who should be teaching. Your teacher, on the other hand, does get to decide who stays in his classroom, and you’re out.”
“That’s not fair! He can’t kick me out, I need that class to graduate!”
Suspended.
“Teachers can suspend a student for disruption. Tomorrow, instead of going to his room, you will report here and do the work for the day independently.”
“Just one day?” Jacob had never been suspended before.
“As of now, it’s just one day, but you need learn to control your outbursts. If you disagree with a teacher, write a letter, and then let someone who is calm read it before you send it. It’s not smart to insult someone who’s grading you in a required course.”
“I didn’t think about that.”
“Your case manager will work with you on self-control with authority figures.”
“Oh, I don’t need that,” Jacob said confidently. “I got an A in social skills. It’s one of my strengths.”
“Not according to your behavior, it’s not. If you pulled this kind of thing at work, you’d be fired.”
What if he had a stupid boss?
Jacob had never thought about that. What if he had a boss who was as stupid as this teacher? Would he mouth off and get fired?
He realized it would be smart to learn to control himself with authority figures.
And Jacob was smart.