Finally the assistant principal found me today in between classes and said he could meet me after school. He asked me to get all my papers (thank god they were in my locker and not home) and give them to him to look at before our meeting.
When I knocked on his door my English teacher was sitting there and the AP was reading one of my papers with the stack of them on his desk. I did NOT want to walk in and talk with him while she was there.
When I sat down the AP said he'd been reading my essays and thought they were definitely on grade level and that based on his understanding of the assignment should be graded anywhere from a B to an A+. Then we both looked at my English teacher like, "So .... what's up with your nutty grading system?"
She said a whole bunch of stuff that amounted to nothingness and then basically said she thought I could do better. I hate that kind of answer. If a teacher thinks someone can do better then they should talk to the student and encourage them. They shouldn't give them shitty grades and make it impossible for them to get good grades and make them think they're going crazy.
The AP asked her why, if she thought I could do better, did she just say I didn't follow the assignment? Why didn't she ask me to write a better paper? She didn't really have an answer except to say she was trying to inspire me to rise to a higher level.
I said, "You're not doing it," and the AP cut me off, told her he'd appreciate if she graded my essays from this quarter and going forward for what they are, not what she thinks I'm capable of and she said she'd be happy to review them.
Then on the way out he told me to stop by with my next essay. My English teacher heard that.
8 comments:
That assistant principal rocks. Your English teacher totally lacks any common sense!
It's so great that he said to her exactly the points you were thinking, that I was and any reasonable person would be thinking as you told what she said. I'm so glad he instructed her as he did and made firm plans with you to follow up, and within earshot of her.
I am relieved you now know you do indeed write well and weren't going crazy.
Yay for you going after the help that you needed from someone higher up and yay for the AP for properly providing it! Boo for your teacher for her ridiculous logic. Someone needs to inspire *her* to rise to a higher level!
justice at last! ;)
Awesome!
It's great when justice wins.
Can you imagine if your English teacher taught math? "Yes, Sam did get 90% of the questions correct on the trigonometry test, but I gave her a D because she should have gotten at least 95% correct."
I remember prior to high school receiving grades for effort, but those were separate from the regular grades. So a student might have achieved only a C in a class but received an A for effort, showing that he was really working as hard as he could.
But this is high school! There aren't grades for effort in high school! And if there were, the grades for effort wouldn't weight the achievement grade!
And anyway, if the student receives an A for his work but only a C for effort, so what? If the subject is easy for the student, he doesn't need to expend much effort to complete his work at 100%!
I'm happy for you!
Grades for effort are for kindergarten...and grad school.
YEHAR!!!WOOHOOO!!! Happy for you!
You're so right: grades shouldn't be used as a whip. Grade what is there, not what isn't. I'm really, really happy that the AP did the right thing. What a relief
yeah! that is awesomely great news!
sorry for not speaking up for such a long time and then blurting out like this.
i'm glad your assistant principal has some sense. and what a totally dumb idea of your english teacher to think she can inspire you to rise to a higher level by giving you bad grades. duh.
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