If You Could Grade Teachers, An F Would Be More Than She Deserves
A similar thing to this story happened to me in high school. It was highly annoying, and, to be honest, it still infuriates me thirty years later that anyone can be this ill-equipped for their job.
For whatever reason, my science teacher didn’t like me. Mostly, she seemed annoyed to meet me outside of school, and I get that she didn’t want to mix her work life and personal life, but it wasn’t my fault that her children’s daycare provider was my next-door neighbour. ([Teacher] lived one street over from us.) Thus, I met her or her children almost daily after school.
[Teacher] sucked at math. If we had a weekly test and I had 12 points on one page and 14 points on the other, she would add it together and conclude that my total point was 10 out of 26. It never made any sense. I would point out her error, and she’d tell me that she’d correct it in her notes and it wouldn’t affect my grade. Hah. Suuuuuuuuuure.
She never made these errors on other students’ tests, just mine. It was weird. Oh, well.
Then, we had the major exam for the semester. The day before, a Thursday, I was in massive pain and went to the school nurse, who sent me to the hospital, where I was booked for urgent surgery during said exam.
So, I went back to school to talk to [Teacher] as I had missed her class for the hospital visit.
Teacher: “Come straight after surgery to take your exam.”
I showed up on Friday, almost unconscious from the massive pain as the anesthesia from the surgery was fading off. [Teacher] just looked at me and told me:
Teacher: “Just take the exam during class on Monday.”
Me: “You could take my books to make sure I can’t study during the weekend.”
Teacher: “Go home.”
And she closed the door in my face.
[Teacher] was sick that Monday, but I still got to take the exam. And then, I fell ill and missed a couple of weeks, so when I finally was back in school, the grades were final. [Teacher] threw my exam at me. The score was mediocre, and I knew I had done better than that, so as she began berating me for my poor results, I quickly checked the test. Then, I heard her yammer about my poor results on our weekly exams.
Darling, I have the weekly exams right here. Let’s take a look at them. Oh, yes, she hadn’t corrected her stupid errors and still had those abhorrent “results” she had somehow conjured up by failing first-grade math. And THIS exam? She had outdone herself.
As usual, she was unable to add two sums together (13 + 26 = 12), AND she had missed grading the major task, worth a whopping 25 points. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but I think her original result was that I had 21 out of 50, whilst the actual result was 49 out of 50. As I said, infuriating. She had given me a grade THREE STEPS below what I had actually achieved, and she told me that she couldn’t possibly change it nor raise it more than one step the next (and final) semester.
[Teacher]’s solution was that I was relieved from attending class. I could skip the entire semester and she would still raise my grade. She had effed up that badly. But I like school. I like to learn stuff. So, I attended class, did all the assignments, got top scores (she still never calculated the results correctly because she was a moron), and graduated with a grade two steps below what I had achieved.
Yup, I’m still pissed about that.
[Teacher] also had to start the semester by telling my extremely ambitious classmates that no one would be able to get top grades because I was the top student and I couldn’t get it, and thus, no one else could, either. They really hated me because of it — like it was my fault [Teacher] was such a moron. Oh, and she actually could raise grades more than one step as she did it for one of my classmates, so she was a LYING moron.
One of my priorities as a teacher was to make sure I NEVER missed grading anything. And that my calculations were correct. It is my duty as a teacher to ensure that the students get the grades they deserve.
There was no way for me to dispute my grade. As a teacher, I always make sure that the students know how to dispute grades, and if they want to dispute another teacher’s exam, I listen to their complaints and support them however possible. That only happened once, but it was not a pleasant battle. However, the students who asked for my assistance were students I was mentoring, so I was the obvious go-to person for help. In the case of [Teacher], this would have been an issue, because, well, [Teacher] WAS my mentor.
Question of the Week
Have you ever served a bad customer who got what they deserved?
