Some valuable life lessons in Kindergarten.
I knew my numbers before entering Kindergarten. So, whenever we had assignments to draw numbers, it wasn't a problem for me.
However, in one case my teacher turned it into a problem. She showed us how to draw a number 5. She drew the perpendicular line, then the oval, and then "put the cap on top" -- drawing the top line as the last step. I drew my 5s by starting at the "cap", then the perpendicular line, then the oval. My way was one step with my pencil never leaving the paper. Her way was two steps because once completing the oval, she had to take her pencil back to the top to put the cap on.
So, when given the assignment to draw rows of 5s on our papers, I drew it the way I knew how. When the teacher looked over my shoulder, she said, "No, you're doing it wrong. Like this." She took my pencil and drew a 5 with her two-step method and gave the pencil back to me. Puzzled, I drew the next 5 the way I always had -- ending with the same result more efficiently. She said, "No," and showed me her way again. I didn't understand what she wanted from me, so drew another 5 my way. Then she said with frustration, "No, like this." She put her hand on mine, and guided my hand to draw the perpendicular line, then the oval, and "then you put the cap on top" she directed as we drew the top line. With that demonstration, the light bulb went on, and I drew my next 5 her way. That made her happy and she went on to the next student.
Even that age, I knew my way was better in the sense that it was more efficient. Those few minutes were the only time I drew 5s with "put the cap on top" as the final step. I quickly went back to my one-step way and nobody else ever declared my method "wrong" the remainder of my schooling.
What I learned in those few minutes was that sometimes it's just easier to please other people, even when it doesn't make sense to you. I would now call it "taking the path of least resistance". Arguing something for the sake of principle just makes things hard for the sake of making things hard. I knew in Kindergarten that as soon as the teacher moved away from me, I could go back to drawing 5s my way, and it wouldn't be a problem because my end result matched hers.
What I also understood, on some level, was that the teacher wanted me to draw it that way because she'd been told that was how she was supposed to teach drawing 5s. She had her own masters, so to speak, that she needed to please. I suspected that she knew that there was nothing wrong with how I drew my 5s, but she had to teach it the way she was "supposed" to teach it. In some distant way, I sympathized with her.