For the most part, I got along with my teachers growing up. My ninth-grade (freshman) English teacher, however, absolutely hated my guts.

I was in school sports, on both the wrestling and football teams, and I was on the school chess team, so I had to take a lot of days off for events. This specific teacher looked up the days I would be away and doubled the homework due after those days, knowing I wouldn’t be able to finish it all. (Yes, I know that was a lot of clubs. I was an overachiever in high school. I kind of regret it now; it cost me a lot in lost time and stress.)

She didn’t check the homework every single day, but she always did after those long away periods!

Worse, she would give me low grades — seventies and eighties — on my papers that had very few notations or marks, but I would talk with other children and see that their papers were heavily marked up but would be scored in the nineties.

After one particularly low grade — sixty-four — on an assignment that I had busted my a** off for and knew I had performed particularly well on, I asked her about it.

Teacher: “You’re only using about half of your total capacity, but these other students are doing 100% of their total capacity. I have higher expectations for you than for them.”

Me: “So, you mean that if my paper is better than, say, [Classmate]’s paper… you’re going to give me fewer points because you think I’m smarter than him?”

Teacher: *Smiling and nodding* “Yes! Exactly!”

What. A. B****.

If that wasn’t bad enough, she gave us an opportunity for extra credit: we had to go to a local college’s rendition of a play called “Eye Piece” and write a 2,500-word paper on it, tie it to what we discussed in class over the play, and turn in the ticket and playbill.

It was due on Monday. The play ran late Friday through Sunday, so there was no way to do it and turn it in ahead of time. But I was going to miss Monday for a competition — a huge competition that our school only got into because we placed highly in our circuit during the year.

I asked her if I could turn it in on Tuesday, and I got confirmation that I could multiple times — over and over, every day, the whole week in the run-up to the event.

I busted my f****** a** off writing that paper after the play so that it wouldn’t interfere with my event. Come Tuesday, she wouldn’t accept it.

Teacher: “That would be unfair to the students who got their assignments in on time. I don’t remember ever telling you that I’d accept it today. You should’ve dropped it off yesterday after your event.”

(At least the play was very good. I recommend watching it if they ever put on a production of it near you.)

I finally got my revenge during the final exam. It was a 105-question exam scored out of 100; the final five questions, for an extra point each, were “freebies”. “What did you learn in this class?” “What was your favorite part of the class?” “How do you plan to apply what you learned in this class to your life?” And so on.

I gave her both barrels. I said, “Because you never left comments on how to improve on my papers, I didn’t learn anything.” I said, “My favorite part of this class is that it’s over.” I said, “I plan to use what I learned in this class to better recognize bosses and other superiors when I finally start working.”

I gave many examples of the things she’d done, the mean things she’d said to me, and the names she’d occasionally called me (she often referred to me as “The Jock” as though it was an insult), and used them to support my positions in my little essays, as I proved that she was the most terrible teacher I had ever had and that she was hurting not just me, but the other students in the class with her terrible teaching style. 

I spent all the time I had left after finishing the rest of the test pouring my pain into those bonus questions.

I finished the test and went to wait in the study hall for a bit before my next final.

The teacher confronted me in that study hall with snot running down her face and demanded that I see her at the principal’s office.

There, she told her side of the story first, crying, screaming, and choking with tears. I apparently had hurt her feelings very badly and was a very ungrateful student. I mostly tuned her out as I prepared my defense.

The principal then asked for my side of the story, and I explained. I even was able to read sections from the answers I had given. The principal listened attentively to my venting about all of the s*** and abuse I’d gone through that year. (It had been a lot, much of which I am not mentioning here.)

The principal sighed and turned to the teacher.

Principal: “How many points were these questions worth?”

Me: “Five bonus points!”

Principal: “So, don’t give him any bonus points if you feel so put out by it.”

I still made the highest score in the class on the final, so I had that going for me.

I heard later that, after that performance, the next school year, the teacher had to have all of her assignments signed off by the department chair, and she had to begin accepting assignments by email.

A few years later, she chose another student to abuse like she had abused me, and this time, she got fired for it because they were actually watching her. Prior to my dramatic complaint, the administration hadn’t known she was a problematic teacher.

I had myself a little celebration on her firing-versery the next year, even though I had moved on to college by then. I made my whole dorm cinnamon rolls and refused to explain why.

I had a lot of trouble in school, mostly because I was identified as gifted but my school didn’t have any gifted programs. For context, this was back in the 1990s in the UK, where “gifted” for a lot of people, including many teachers, got translated as “You’ll get straight As and be a perfect student, and we can use you as an unpaid teaching assistant!” If you think I’m exaggerating, my only answer is, “I wish.”

I spend every day being bored out of my skull and have no interest in much of what’s being taught unless it’s relevant to me. I skip most of my homework unless I happen to like the teacher since homework doesn’t affect the grade. (In the UK in the ’90s, your GCSE grade was judged purely on your exam results and submitted coursework; everyday homework assignments and attendance had nothing to do with it.)

I also don’t do well on science tests, since I’ve never bothered revising. I usually average about sixteen out of thirty. This year, I decide that with GCSEs (a series of exams that UK students take at sixteen) around the corner, I’m actually going to make an effort.

Enter my biology teacher. Unlike my previous biology teachers, I actually like this one; she loves her subject and has the same inquiring mind as I do, so I have a bit of extra motivation to make an effort in her class. The subject we’re covering this time is DNA and genetics, which I find fascinating, so that’s an extra plus. 

I study the unit during lunch and then take it home the night before the test and ask my mother to quiz me on it. We have a really good revision session, and I’m feeling confident about the test tomorrow. A little part of me is also looking forward to the teacher’s reaction to getting a good result from me for the first time in my school career.

We have the test, and although I know it’s not likely I got full marks, I come out of it with the warm, happy glow of having done a lot better than usual. The teacher always takes the tests away to mark them and gives them back during the next lesson, so I have another week to wait.

At the next lesson, I’m eagerly awaiting the results. I get my paper back and look at the mark.

Sixteen out of thirty.

My heart drops. I’m not going to lie; my first thought is that revision was obviously a waste of time since doing so made no difference to my final grade. I also can’t understand it, since I was pretty sure I KNEW the answers in many cases. 

I open the test to find out where I went wrong. Our tests are never a single page but around ten to twelve pages stapled together. I go through it, pausing at a couple of pages. Then, I go through it again just to make sure I’m not mistaken. 

Nope. No mistake. I begin to grin. 

After getting our tests back, we can go up to the teacher’s desk one by one to ask about any points we’re not sure of. I get to my feet and join the back of the queue, trying very hard not to smile.

The student in front of me gets her question answered and goes back to her seat, and I step up.

Teacher: “Yes, [My Name]?”

I hold out my test, open in the middle.

Me: “I think you forgot to mark these two pages.”

[Teacher] blinks at me. A teacher forgetting to mark a single question isn’t unheard of, but an entire two pages?

Teacher: “Let me see.”

She takes the test and a shocked, embarrassed look appears on her face.

Teacher: “Oh, my… Yes, you’re absolutely right, [My Name]. I’m so sorry. Give me a few minutes and I’ll mark it now.”

She does so and then proceeds to double-check the entirety of my test just in case she’s missed any other questions.

Teacher: “I can’t think how I missed two pages without noticing. This is terrible.”

Me: *Sporting a cheesy grin* “I don’t think so!”

Teacher: *Laughs* “Well, no, from your point of view, it’s fantastic. I have to admit, I was surprised when I saw your score on this test since you seemed so interested in the subject. There you go.”

She handed it back with my new score: twenty-four out of thirty. Since most of the class averaged around twenty or twenty-two, I was happier with this than I’d ever been. Coming on the heels of my earlier disappointment, I was also on a natural high that lasted for the rest of the day.

I got similar scores in all subsequent science tests and didn’t do too badly on my actual GCSEs.

When I was a freshman in college, I had a maths teacher who was very strict about how she taught and how she expected us to learn. For example, she would force students to take notes, and if they didn’t, she would make them leave.

During our midterm exam, someone asked how much time was left and [Teacher] said we had five minutes. At this point, I was only about halfway done with the test, so I rushed and finished it barely in time. Most of my classmates and I turned in our tests and left the room. When I checked my phone, I realized there were another twenty minutes left. The students who hadn’t finished in five told me that after we left, [Teacher] realized that she had read the clock wrong and gave them another twenty minutes that those of us who left didn’t have.

I’ve always been pretty good at math, but obviously, after rushing half the test, I didn’t get a good grade. The part I didn’t rush was perfect, though.

In the next class, after showing us our results, [Teacher] said that we needed to develop a strategy to improve our grades. She said that if we created a plan, stuck to it, and provided evidence of us doing it, she would give us some extra credit. What she expected us to do was say something like, “I’ll practice every week,” and submit pictures of us doing it as evidence, or something like that.

Now, while I didn’t blame [Teacher] for reading the clock wrong, I did blame the fact that I thought I only had five minutes left for not doing well on that test. I was confident that I could have gotten a perfect grade on it if I’d had the extra twenty minutes. And so, what I said I would do is “bring a watch to the next exam”.  Was it an arrogant thing to say? Yes, but I also thought it was stupid to follow along with [Teacher]’s plan to micromanage our studies.

[Teacher] got mad at me and said that if I didn’t do anything else, I would fail the final for sure, but I assured her that the watch was enough for me to do better.

A few months later, on the day of the final, I submitted a picture of a watch on my wrist as evidence of sticking with the strategy. I got a perfect grade on the final. Since my strategy for improving my grades worked, she had to give me extra credit — not before arguing that I didn’t deserve it, of course.

This is my sister’s story from back in the 1960s. While she was completing her college degree, she worked summers in the office of a summer camp where the campers and counselors lived there for the summer. She worked in the office, not with the campers.

The people in charge had the unusual practice of requiring all employees to take some standard IQ test. The purpose of this has never been clear.

As an office worker, my sister had the job of grading all of the IQ tests. There was only one version of the test, and of course, she knew all the answers from grading them. It would be reasonable to assume she was exempt from taking it, even though she, too, was an employee.

Nope. She had to take it herself, and she had to mark her own test. Of course, her score was perfect.

The fact that the people in charge were impressed by her score should tell you a lot about them.

My school has just switched up our credit recovery program, which is a computer-based option for students who have failed a class. [Old Program] was a joke; students clicked as fast as they could to get to the multiple-choice final exam, which they could retake an infinite number of times until getting the grade they wanted. After many years of this farcical nonsense, administration finally switches to a superior alternative that requires knowledge to pass.

Enter [Student], a senior.

Student: “Hey, how come I can’t click to the next lesson?”

Me: “It won’t let you advance until you answer all questions on the page correctly. Make sure you didn’t accidentally skip one.”

Student: “I had to answer those? Can’t I just do the end test? I know this stuff already. Hey, where’s the multiple choice?”

Me: “You have to type in the answer.”

Student: “And it has to be right? What the f***?! This isn’t [Old Program]!”

Me: “…”

Student: “I only failed so I could do the [Old Program] in one week! F*** this s***! I’m not wasting summer trying to learn!”