When in school you have to learn a lot of different things, and sometimes they are things that you already know.

What would you do if your substitute teacher was telling you one way to do a math problem, but you already knew a better way, so you were finishing your school work fast.

That is what happened to the student in this story, so when the teacher told him to share with the class, he complied, which actually upset the substitute teacher, but when the primary teacher returned, he was impressed.

Malicious Compliance from High School Years

We had a substitute teacher for our Algebra class for a week.

There are a lot of useful ‘tricks’ for solving math problems.

And when I was at home doing homework, my father taught me an easier way to solve the problems.

The following day I was doing our in-class work and was almost done when a couple friends noticed I was getting the answers quickly.

That is great that he is helping other students.

So, I showed them the way I had learned the night before. Well the substitute didn’t like that we were talking while working out the problems and said if I had something to say I should share with the class.

So, not seeing any issue with teaching the class the easier way to do things I went to the board and showed the whole class what I was doing.

There often is value in learning certain methods of doing things.

Well the substitute then goes to say that where the short cut works now in the real world it won’t always work out. To which I tell her I learned it from someone who uses it in the real world and believes in working smarter not harder.

I was told to sit down and not talk the rest of the class, which gave me time to finish my assignment.

It doesn’t seem that he was being disruptive.

When our regular teacher returned he had a note that said I disrupted class. When asked why I disrupted the class, which was strange of me, I just told him that I had learned a different way to solve the homework and when asked to share it with the class by the substitute I did.

He laughed and asked me to show what I did, then he laughed again because he was going to show us the method I used that week.

At least this all worked out well in the end and the teacher was happy with the progress.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this story.

This would be infuriating.

Sadly, school often doesn’t teach kids how to learn.

This commenter makes a good point.

This is how a teacher should react.

Sorry teacher, but he clearly does know it.

Maybe that teacher could learn something from the student.

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