I grew up in a small rural town in the 80's. I was one of the first kids to have a computer in that area. I was 9 years old in 1980 and had begged for one. By t

I grew up in a small rural town in the 80's. I was one of the first kids to have a computer in that area. I was 9 years old in 1980 and had begged for one. By the time I entered high school I was just starting to learn Assembly. Our school had never had a computer course before and the first one opened up my Freshman year. I was so excited. The teacher was also the Typing class teacher and had almost no experience with computers. She was picked solely because she could type. On the first day I excitedly told the teacher how much I was looking forward to the class and how much I already knew. She gave me the course book to bring home and asked me to find the spot in the book where my knowledge could be tested. It was a huge disappointment, the courses mostly focused on spreadsheets and data entry with some Basic programming. I had already written many programs on my own to automate various tasks. I had written a few simple video games, worked with joystick inputs, even built a simple alarm system for my room using serial input and some basic wiring. When I brought her the book the next day and explained I already knew everything in the book she got visibly upset with me. Her attitude towards me became terse and she decided I was too big for my own good and should start at the beginning. That course was pure misery. I'd finish my lessons within the first half of a single class and have nothing to do. I'd start tweaking my programs, but it felt like fiddling my thumbs. The teacher came to treat me like a bad element and in return I became antagonistic to her. I once switched the cables between my and a friends computer so my typing would go to his screen and vice versa. I showed the teacher I had ahem programmed the computer to react to my voice. My friend would type in the responses to my voice, his results appearing on my screen. The teacher looked dumbfounded, she seriously could not process what was happening and sat down at her desk. It was hard to respect a computer class teacher who couldn't figure out how easily we had tricked her. From there it just got worse and worse. I had many teachers like this, where they felt I was too big for my britches and needed to be put in my place. I was very much like the first kid described in this essay.