Long, long ago I had a high school teacher whose memory I can never seem to escape. This teacher, one loved by many students, is a person I still harbor feeling of anger and resentment towards decades later. The ramifications of the four months I spent in this woman's classroom followed me for years and I am still, to this day, bitter.
It was tenth grade Honors English, a subject I loved and excelled at, at least I excelled until this point in my academic career. We had two classes of Honors English at our school, since we had so many intelligent, driven students in our class. They decided, for whatever reason, to have us switch teachers after two quarters, so luckily, I only had to endure the first semester with this teacher. But one semester, one paper really, was all the time she needed to do irrevocable damage to my permanent record.
I fervently wish that I still had a copy of the paper she failed me on. I am sure that I would never be able to read it objectively. I am equally sure it was far from my best work. But one thing I have no doubt over - she absolutely had no right to fail me. To this day, it is the only writing assignment or project I have ever failed, and it is the only D I've ever had go on my academic record. And it wasn't in Biology, Physics, Calculus, Chemistry, French or any of the other subjects I've struggled through in my life. It was in my best and favorite subject. The one I would later major in in college and graduate Magna Cum Laude. The subject I would spend several years teaching myself.
We were assigned to write our first five paragraph essay. We had to choose a topic to argue about, research it, take a position, write a thesis and defend it. It was an assignment we worked on throughout the semester. No matter what I did, she didn't like it and was no help to me in explaining how I could deliver something she did like. I changed topics mid-way through, thinking that maybe a fresh start would help. I turned in my fact cards, thesis statement and paragraph drafts when they were due. I went to her for extra help because I knew that my progress on this paper was not meeting her approval, but I had no idea of how to do anything any differently. And while she was perfectly happy to criticize my work, she offered no constructive ideas, suggestions or anything concrete for me to do any differently.
This one paper was 75% of our grade for the quarter. We did not receive any grades on our progress on the paper, and did not receive our grades on the final paper until after we received our report cards. Going into this paper, I had a solid A average. All the tests on short stories, literary terminology, vocabulary and grammar, I aced. And, as I mentioned, I wrote the paper, met the deadlines, struggled to achieve a final product. I was shocked when I received my report card, to see I'd gotten a D in English. I knew the paper was going to bring my average down, but a D! How was that even possible? I argued with her about the grade. I asked her to let me do a re-write. I told her and had my parents tell her, that this simply was not in any way fair and her grade was not an appropriate reflection of the quality of my work that quarter. It didn't matter and she didn't care. The D went on my record.
It was the end of the semester and we were switching teachers, so I was already done with her and no longer had to sit in her presence seething every day. I handed in my first writing assignment to my new English teacher. It was an amazing weight off my shoulders not to have to be writing for her, to know that she would not be belittling and grading my papers. My new teacher was a bit perplexed by the situation. Here's a student coming in with a D average. I mean, what would you expect from a D student? Here's a girl who must be out of her league. Either she's not smart enough to keep up in the honors track through high school or she's too otherwise occupied to hand in her work. So, what would you think when the student actually turns out to be neither of those things? In fact, turns in A work, aces the tests, and participates in discussions. I don't know exactly what he thought or how much he knew about how depressed and miserable I was coming into his class. I do know he spoke to me after class when he passed back our initial writing assignments. I had earned an A. He told me I was the best writer in the class. Now mind you, this is still the exact same group of kids I just spent the previous semester with. The class of kids, out of whom, I had the lowest average. In the space of weeks, I had gone from the worst to best writer in the class. He didn't ask me about the previous semester, but I imagine he must have realized there was no way I'd earned that D.
I have had several other teachers that I have felt dealt with me less than fairly for one reason or another. I imagine we all have had at least one in our lives. But no one else still stirs in me the anger that this one woman does. I honestly feel she had it in for me for some reason I was not clued in on. I'm sure my writing for her was not stellar. I was just in the learning stages back then, and writing for her became so unpleasant, made me so miserable, that I froze every time I put the pen to paper. I have only had one other teacher, a professor, that made writing that difficult for me. But even then I managed a B-.
The D kept me out of A.P. English my senior year. It also helped keep me just outside the top ten percent of my graduating class. I do not doubt that in some ways this experience spurred me to teach English myself. What better vindication than to become master of that which you were failed at? While I did not enjoy teaching and am not sorry I left the field, I have no doubt I was twice the teacher she ever was.

Recent Comments