This Troper is a 5'11" geek who's high school teachers favoured him for his sheer potential and scolded him for his infinite laziness. During the first year of University, a friend and I were coming home on the train at night when a few chavs/lads/whatever started hassling us. My friend, most unwisely, gave them the finger, which did little to help. So I began speaking, respectfully, asking them to leave us alone and ensuring they knew that we had no interesting in conflicting with them. They continued to mock us for such crimes as having long hair and glasses. Eventually, we decided to get off the train, not believing that they'd make anything of us. Hoo boy. Four of them got off. Halfway down the ramp from the train station, I turn to my friend to find that he's higher, towards the station, a fair way away in a tense situation like this. I later learned that he dropped behind to try and hold them off so I could get away, knowing that he'd get beaten up. Even had I known that he was doing that, I would've had none of it and walked back up, two of the thugs breaking off to deal with me. We got beaten and bloodied. But it was okay, and I was proud of myself and him. He put himself in danger to protect me, and I refused to allow him to fight alone, despite knowing that we couldn't win. Even winning the fight would've been secondary to gaining that knowledge, and since then, this Troper has become markedly more outgoing and courageous because he's taken a beating for another person and smiled through bloody teeth.

This Troper's teacher, who combines Crazy Prepared, Authority Equals Asskicking (I need to start transcripting his conversations with the idiots), Pyro Maniac (Ooh, random powder! Lets see what happens when we throw it at fire!) and Deadpan Snarker attitude to create one of my favourite flavors of Badass Bookworm. CMOA was when he dealt with a fight in the Chem lab: He dropped a clear liquid down their shirts, and told them it was concentrated acid (HCl), and that it would start burning them in about half a second. What he DIDN'T tell them was that it was 0.05 molar acid, which couldn't burn through rice paper, let alone human skin.

That...that sounds completely unhinged. Who lets a man like that anywhere near children? How the hell does he still have his job? It doesn't matter if he's not physically hurting people, he's terrorizing his goddam students.

This troper doesn't know about actual wisdom (though he believes he is ahead of most teenagers in that area as well,) but in terms of morality and philosophy I am far beyond my years and far beyond anyone I know (except maybe my parents) and most people I've heard of.

Wow, that sounds a lot like me. Though I was also often told that my reading and writing abilities were several years ahead of my age (and at seventeen, I can still write what are apparently university-level essays with less effort than I thought was necessary).

Same here. My reading and vocabulary are just about college level, although due to minor disability my writing skills leave a lot to be desired. As far as morality and philosophy go, I like to think I'm ahead of my peers in these areas.