Quirks you successfully got away with at school as a child

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Let's face it: most of us caught A LOT of heat for our aspie quirks when we were kids. My parents AND my teachers were very ruthless about it. Every little thing they didn't like, they did everything they could to make my life miserable in retaliation for it. But some things slipped through the cracks or flew under their radar, or maybe they simply didn't care enough to retaliate for it.

In my own case, it was capitalizing dog breeds. The Webster's Dictionary guidelines dictate that dog breeds are not capitalized, unless its name includes a geographic term, as they're considered descriptors and not proper names. However, I liked dogs a lot as a child, as well as now. So in early elementary school, I used to capitalize all the words in the names of dog breeds. For instance, I'd write "German Shepherd" or "Poodle", rather than "German shepherd" or "poodle" as the Webster's Dictionary guidelines said. I saw all dog breeds as proper names.

When my teacher first corrected my writing with her red pen, I went to her desk and pointed out that the American Kennel Club (AKC) capitalizes all parts of dog breeds' names. She gave me a strange look and pointed out that it's just one organization, but she didn't seem angry. After some arguing on my part, she no longer corrected my capitalization of dog breeds, although I'm sure she still wished I didn't do it. I stopped forcing this capitalization quirk onto my teachers in 5th grade and higher, and started following the Webster's Dictionary guidelines, hoping to avoid awkward arguments.

That said, capitalization rules in English are more flexible than in most languages. For instance: the dance community sometimes capitalizes the names of dances, like "Waltz" instead of "waltz"; the AKC capitalizes dog breeds; the cat equivalent of the AKC capitalizes cat breeds. Also don't forget: the English language capitalizes the names of months and days of the week, which isn't true in most other languages. This gives away English's German roots: going from all nouns to some nouns isn't a big stretch, which allows for flexibility---it's not fully clear even in 2022 what should be capitalized and what shouldn't. So while my teacher was super-strict with almost everything else, capitalizing dog breeds was one thing she let me "win" in.

Other WP's on here: what quirks did YOU get away with successfully as children?

Almost all of them.

Including the absurd sleep schedule and sleeping in classes, at the front row no less.

Why? Because I can answer questions if I get called, pass any surprise quizes, and write written lectures fast enough to finish all of it. They just all assume I'm working hard at night.

People even missed that language is my area of weakness the entire time, and thought it's the opposite.


Anyway.
Almost all of it except that one whole time, at the very first days of my first elementary year. Let's just say I was stuck at daycare days and that elementary was too different for me back then.

It just took me some time to adjust and it eventually just fade away.


The gradually disruptive behaviors and intolerance that I didn't had in the first place if it weren't for bullying.

And people figured I didn't do those things without a reason -- and figured that reason is either not being left alone in peace as I would or bullying.


The only time my mom tried to intervene is either that, or my increasingly aloofness towards others.
That nagging about didn't last either.

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"Zoning out," is that equivalent to daydreaming, cause I was reprimanded in a way for that. She said I wasn't concentrating in class. She even notified my parents. I think this was same teacher i then went on to crush hard over. A few years later. lol.

I liked the Teachers who weren't so strict, you could just goof out in class, It was a like a break. I remember Teacher was absent once time, and me and my friends ransacked her desk, very naughty of us. In my defense i was only like 7, 8 years old, and it wasn't malicious.

Quirks, i don't know about that, I'm sure i got away with a lot of things. I was definitely not singled out for ASD. I was occasionally punished for 'bad behavour', causing a disruption, but that's about it.

I cant remember . It was so long ago. All i know is, teacher absence = It's our class now. Desk is untended. (Doesnt happen everyday.) Lets see what's in there. Teacher may have confiscated some items. Toys. We thought it was quite amusing. I actually think some kids stole items, from desk. lol. I think we met on playground, and looked at what we took. "Oh you took that, this is what i grabbed." kinda deal. Just another day at school. No suspects. No snitches. I don't think we were caught or punished in any way. School days is kind of a blur. But it's something I vaguely but specifically remember. School days is kind of a blur. We might have later returned items. Most likely. As There wasn't really any maliciousness behind it. We were just naturally mischievous. And just not respectful of others peoples property.

I could go all day just looking out the window and daydreaming, but if my name was appended to a question, I'd be able to remember it and answer. I did all my homework on the morning bus. I read what I wanted - when I flunked out of high school, my general knowledge level was above college grad scores.

I used to create little spoof magazines with strip cartoons lampooning the teachers and with stories in the style of John Lennon's "A Spaniard In The Works." They improved my popularity with the more rebellious kids, and I never once got caught.

More shamefully, along with a couple of other kids I removed a few components from the music teacher's Ferrograph tape recorder. Not that I regret annoying him. He couldn't be bothered to do his job, and when I'd told him I could use a bit of help catching up with the basics of music theory, he said "You mean the rudiments? How rude," and walked off. But these days I'd consider it immoral to disable a good tape recorder. Anyway, he probably just ordered replacement parts on the school budget (the school wasn't struggling financially) and was up and running within a few days.

One teacher was always confiscating our toys and locking them away in his desk drawer. But he didn't realise all we had to do was to remove the unlocked drawer above that one to access our property. I think I was instrumental in the liberation of those items. I figured he deserved it because he hit me once for threatening to sue him.

During a chemistry practical session I put some zinc and HCl into a conical flask, attached a bung with a glass tube in it, and set fire to the hydrogen coming out of the end of the tube. Unfortunately it wouldn't go out, and eventually the bung flew upwards like the cork out of a champagne bottle and landed in front of the teacher. He never found out I'd done it.

I organised a clandestine re-enactment of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party scene from Alice In Wonderland during a French lesson. How we got away with that I'll never know.

Another kid showed me that it was possible to alter illustrations in the French text book by erasing parts of the pictures with an ink rubber and drawing on the blank areas thus produced. That was quite risky because they often checked the text books when we handed them in at the end of term, so I surgically removed the most conspicuous pages to help avoid detection. I've still got one of them somewhere.

I don't know if those antics would qualify as quirks or whether they were just normal schoolboy behaviour. Schools in those days could get very boring.

Sleeping in class. A lot.
I still need more sleep than my peers these days to function above minimum level.

Playing PC games in the classroom. A lot.
During math class, I played Space Invaders on my Ti-83 Plus calculator.

Arriving late.
The only time I was shamed for it was in French class.

I was a terrible student who relied on talent and rote memory to pass the exams. I changed my habits for the better when I entered university but burnt out in 3rd year. Still permanently tired everyday.

I actually remember now, the lord of the flies, taking over class room, chaotic thing was separate. But same room.

Time I ransacked desk with friends, was actually during a break. Somehow got back into room, nobody around.
I don't know why we hatched scheme, but we did.

I normally went along,with whatever crazy plans or ideas my delinquent friends thought up. I wanted to 'fit ' in.

Whatever quirks i had, was not detected in childhood. I was well behaved by my own, one on one with a teacher. But with others, some of my peers, i could become 'unruly.'

Correcting the teacher, because I was almost always right.  For instance, during a lesson on Hawai'i . . .

"Uh, ma'am?

"What is it, Fnordie?"

"You might want to re-check your facts, ma'am, because the pineapple is related to neither the pine nor the apple; but is instead a cluster of berries that have grown into one solid pulpy mass."

"Don't you have homework to do?"

"Finished . . . up to next Friday.  It is there in your in-basket."

("Stupidsmartassedkid.")

"Wazzat, ma'am?"

"You parked it in the basket."

"Yes ma'am . . . I certainly did."

Nope....I didn't get away with much while I was in school....

My notes were very brief, but I could prove them adequate.