You know, I hope nobody is offended by this, but I think "they sucked" is pretty funny, and gets to the point--maybe he'll be a comedian when he grows up.
But I agree he needs to have an appropriate response in the classroom.
I actually enjoyed the extra challenge of irritating teachers I didn't like but doing it in a way for which I couldn't really get in trouble.
There was a thread on this site somewhere awhile ago about what kids can do to deal with boredom while still appearing to behave appropriately in the classroom. This seems like a similar problem IMO of having to find covert ways of not going nuts when you have to do something you don't want to do. So while I never tried to covertly irritate teachers, perhaps some kids might enjoy this approach, or just doing the chore differently--for example, using 'big words' to say the same thing while not getting in trouble (with the irritating the teacher thing being a possible side bonus, depending on the kid and the teacher, ha). This could also be a good vocabulary-building exercise as well as a teaching opportunity--why did the stories suck? Did the villains prevail? Was the hero improbably pure of heart? Did the gods do irrational things that one might get in trouble for if one were a kid at that very school? It could be really fun.
