One day, during a high school sports practice, my teammates and I got on the topic of our local Major League Baseball team. Our coach overheard us.

Coach: “When I was younger, I worked the concessions stand at the ballpark. Let me tell you: don’t ever get a hot dog before the fourth inning. That’s how long it would usually take to use up the hot dogs from the previous game.”

Me: “What if it’s the first game of the season?”

Coach: *In the exact same tone as before* “Let me tell you: don’t ever get a hot dog before the fourth inning.”

A new student is doing that awkward thing where the teacher forces them to introduce themselves in front of the whole class.

New Student: “Hi, my name is [New Student], and I am from Nigeria. That is in Africa.”

Teacher: “Does anyone have any questions for [New Student]?”

About ten hands go up.

New Student: “No, I have never seen a lion outside of a zoo.”

About ten hands go down.

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.

Related:
Even Gifted Teachers Can Make Mistakes

In my senior year of high school, I lived less than a mile from the school — at least, if I cut through some woods and across a field or two. This was more than close enough for me to walk if I wished, although I usually didn’t.

We had a rare snowstorm that closed schools for about a week. We just didn’t get “heavy” snow where I lived, and they didn’t have the equipment to deal with it. Even though the school was closed, I walked to the building anyway, making sure to take a slightly different path each way that could be considered “uphill” at least part of the way.

Yes, I did that just so I could legitimately claim that I walked to school in the snow, uphill both ways! (I did wear shoes, however. We weren’t that far out in the country.)

A number of years back when my daughter was in elementary school, I got the joy of driving to drop her off and pick her up. Dropping off in the morning was fine, but the drive home after picking her up always resulted in me seeing at least one high school kid walking home from school just meander out into traffic at least once a week, sometimes more.

The high school was just a couple blocks down from the elementary school and we lived about a mile away, so the drive takes us past the high school to and from the elementary school.

By the time I pick up my daughter from the after-school care that is held in the elementary school, it is around 4:30 PM. All school levels (elementary, middle, and high) have been out of school for about two hours by now.

The road next the high school is a four-lane road with a median and the normal speed limit is 45mph (25 is the limit during school hours, seeing as the time I drive down this road is after school hours traffic is going at the posted 45mph speed limit). This means a driver, if obeying the speed limit covers the distance of 66ft in one second and it takes roughly 68ft to come to a complete stop if you slam on the brakes and you have good tires and brakes.

A lot of ground can be traveled in a short time if a driver is distracted. They look behind them, or reach down for something or looking down to change the radio station… three-to-five seconds with your eyes off the road at 45mph means you’ve traveled around 200ft to 330ft.

These high school kids that are leaving school so late are there for whatever reason (after-school sport practice or detention or after-school activities) and they just keep their eyes glued to their phones as they walk right out into the road. They never look, just step on out and keep slowly walking and they expect the people driving to just stop for them.

One day on the drive home after getting my daughter, about 100ft in front of me as I’m driving past the high school, a high school kid just stops following the sidewalk and steps right into the road without looking as he’s staring at his phone. I lock up the brakes and I stop about two feet from him. He looks like he just crapped his pants as his eyes bulge out of his head.

Regardless of my daughter only being about eight years old and in the back seat, I rolled down my window and just chewed this kid’s a** out for being so stupid and I don’t hold back.

Me: “What the f*** is wrong with you? Why would you just walk into a busy road without looking for traffic? Are you really that f****** stupid? You’re f****** lucky that I was paying attention and I wasn’t distracted otherwise you’d have just been a smear on the street. Seriously… who the f*** just walks into traffic without looking? Is your phone that f****** important that you can’t look away?!”

I made the kid cry.

He’s lucky he got to walk away crying on his own two feet and not being carried away injured on a stretcher or worse, dead. 

A handful of years later the city installed pedestrian crosswalk systems and even a stop light on that road to make it safer not only for the dumb high school kids that can’t look before going into the street, but also for the people driving.