A Score To Settle

(I have a math learning disability that is documented officially. It’s my senior year of high school and I’m in a math ‘trailer course’ for students who are ‘trailing behind.’ The teacher we have usually works with the ‘gifted’ class. She doesn’t hide her disdain for us, treating all of us as beneath her teaching abilities. We put up with it because we just want to graduate and we feel if we complain about her, she’ll flunk us in revenge. She is that kind of teacher. We have taken the final exam. I knew all the grades from my other classes. There is a slim chance I won’t pass my senior year, and have to take it all over again.)

Me: “Sorry for troubling you, Mrs. [Name], but have you graded my final exam yet?”

Teacher: *smiles brightly* “You passed!”

Me: “Really?! What did I get?!”

(I am excited, because I had studied REALLY HARD for the test, and hoped to do well.)

Teacher: *annoyed* “I don’t know! Once I checked your answers enough that you were sure to have made 70 per cent, I didn’t bother to grade the rest. I mean, you passed and can graduate! What do YOU care how much you got on the exam? Pfft!”

(And they wonder why kids don’t feel motivated to try hard anymore.)