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So i've been thinking about this a lot recently.... and I decided to share. Beware.... this is going to be a big & long! cause life is not simple.
So first the background. :
In 6th grade I finally got tested and was shown to be dyslexic and have a mild form of broca's aphasia. In 4th grade I spent a semester at a charter school that was work at your own pace, and even though I had to work with second graders to work on my spelling and writing skills (I was bit delayed there due to the dyslexia because no word ever looked right spelled right) I ended the year working with the eighth graders on pre-algebra. This is basically to say for a long time I was WAY AHEAD OF MY CLASSMATES in math. Last part you should know is this: In 7th grade they wanted to me in the accelerated math program, but the pace with the amount of homework I had to do for it stressed me out, even if I was still above everyone else in the class, because of my difficulty writing legibly so I moved to regular level. Still bored as shit but I didn't have as much homework, homework was always the problem.
The Story:
In 8th grade I was in the early morning 8th grade math class. During the first semester I started having some discomfort and after sharp stabbing pains in my right side basically had me curled up on the floor in english class crying I was taken to the doctor. After some disbelieve on my virginity status and tests I was diagnosed with PCOS.
Now my school had a policy that you had to bring this thing called an agenda, which was basically just a day planner which would be stamped for each class, unless you where tardy (even if it was excused) or didn't bring your homework. If you didn't get that stamp you had to go to detention after school.
So one day before school my dad had to take me for blood work to check my hormone levels, which i had to fasting so i had to do it before school. They where backed up so it took longer than expected and as you can expect I was tardy to my first class, math. So I got the T for tardy and had to go to detention. However my father had to do something with meimei and the boy after school that day which would make him unavailable to pick me up after detention and I would have had to either sit on sidewalk out of school for 2 hours afterwords (campus was closed down 20 minutes after detention and no students where allowed on the grounds unless they where in a sport and had practice) or walk home which would take me about an hour and my dad was not comfortable for that. So he picked me up after school, my agenda was taken to be given to me in the morning and I would have to do lunch detention the next day.
Later that night the true wft of the story began. So I went to do my homework and I realized I had no idea what my math homework was suppose to be. See it was written in the agenda like all the homework assignments where suppose to be and since it was my first class and I was always f-ing bored in it, I didn't remember the assignment.
The next day I explain that I didn't have the homework assignment because of the lack of agenda, didn't matter I still got detention. I called my dad to let him know when I had a minute, and when he found that I got detention for not doing my homework when they took away the thing my homework information was written in by school policy he said hell no. He made it clear, he was not going to let me stay after school because they schools system made me unable to do the thing that would prevent me from getting detention.
So queue many many months of me having lunch detention. Even if I did part of my homework or questions on for the right chapter but not the right ones like 1 thru 10 instead of 1 thru 5 and 10 thru 15, he wouldn't accept it so the cycle of having the thing i had to write my homework in being taken away and then getting punished for not knowing the homework assignment would continue. While all of this is happening I can see the test scores of all the class because he posts them in a way we can't see who got what but just the grades in general. There where 25 people in the class. 2 got 98-100% on every test except maybe once but it was still a 92% (me [the 92 was when I went to school not feeling well and a period and half later I was sent home with 102 degree fever and had like strep] and the kid I'll call Lip) about 5-8 75%-85% with a few 88%s but not many, the rest of the 15-18 students usually got 45-60% maybe once or twice there was 65 or a 70 in there.
The end of the school year came and I was like 'finally no more stupid teacher and I can finally work on something that will challenge me' because I knew the average of my test scores was like 99% because I was the curve buster. I was guaranteed to be allowed to advance to algebra because to advance to the high school level courses you just had to have a 70% in your class. Then I get my report card for the year.
I had a 28% in math.
I HAD A 28% IN MATH.
I HAD A FUCKING 28% IN MATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How me and my parents wonder. They've seen my test scores. They know how well I've done. So being my grizzly bear dad and my has a degree in education mom with a sister teaching 8th grade math at another school the call a meeting with the principal and the teacher to find out what the fuck just happened here.
So during the meeting we find out the reason i got this 28% was because my teacher was grading 80% homework and 20% tests. That's right. 80% HOMEWORK 20% TESTS. Since I basically was pulling the 100%s but only turned in about 10% of my homework I got a 28%.....
Now before I continue the story a quick side bar
Quick Side-Bar
Remember how I said only two students where getting perfect scores? Me and Lip. Here's why I'm calling him Lip. See Lip is a character for the show Shameless who made money by doing schoolwork for other students because he was so brilliant that he was reading advanced physics for fun in 7th grade. So why am I calling my Lip 'Lip'? Well because my Lip would do his homework, get to school early and let the those 15-18 people who failed every test copy his home work for a dollar a pop. So yeah he would make 15 to 18 dollars a day.
Also you are probably realizing what I realized but was still to shy at the time to bring up. This meant the f-uped 80-20% system gave the 45-60% test students a guaranteed at least a 80%.
The Story Proper again
So my parents are pissed and start going into the principal and teacher about me not being able to go on to algebra because of this grading system.
The principal just kind of waves his hand and says 'Don't worry, shes being advanced'.
My parents are stunned and ask why.
The principal starts to look uncomfortable and says 'well her test scores in the course do show she understands the material despite her grade'
My dad says 'well if her grade isn't good enough why would you let her pass on.'
The principal basically glares the glare of many deaths at the teacher and sighs. 'Slicey has the highest scores on 'state standard test' in the school.'
My parents look a little confused.
The principal sighs and continues. 'In the WHOLE school. She out paces even the accelerated program on 'state standard test'. Her scores are higher than most high school seniors are getting. We are passing her on because she has demonstrated in multiple areas to not only understand the material but be able to handle more advanced work.'
The principal glares at the teacher again and says' Also you wont have to worry about your other children having 'the worst teacher ever' in the future. This is his last semester teaching, next year he starts his position as the assistant principal in charge of the math and science programs. We where very lucky to get him to fill the position.'
My parents kind of confused by every thing that just happened thank the principal for his time and we head home.
Later my little teenage drama mind is able to connect the dots.
The Dots Connected
My school was a mid-range school, not lower working class title 1 but not high expectations and money, however had a very large population do to its location and the sprawl of the civilization. For awhile according to the gossip I would over hear from my aunt the math teacher they had been vying for the funding for an additional administrator for a while to better manage the curriculum and student body. They finally got the funding before I entered the school. They couldn't find someone for the position. It wasn't until 'worst teacher ever' finished his masters that they found someone qualified willing to work for school.
However there was one problem. Most of his students that year where failing. only about 25% of his students where passing, the rest where in that 45-60% group. He was failing to educate these students basically. In perspective my ability to make any teacher love me I found out the other teacher teaching the subject had maybe 10 students each who where in the 45-60% group.
So to not have their new administrator being someone unable to actually teach the subject he would be in charge of he was allowed to fudge his grades. More students passed and where the next teachers problem and they finally got their administrator.
Enter their problem.
This fudging had to uniform.
So the student who was skewing the standardize scores to higher level and should be in the accelerated program failed. basic. 8th grade. math.
Now one of my education teachers told us something that I'm going to share. When you make an a mistake in education you have to imagine the head line for the story. (so you can figure out how to handle the damage control)
The head line here is easy to see 'Skewed grading tactics leads to High scoring student to fail'.
Enter crisis control. Whats can they do that is easy? Just pass me on, don't even change the grade and hope the parents don't sue or go to school board.
To this day my mother says if she knew then what she knows now, she would have sued or gone to the school board. Basically they passed me to cover their asses on passing students who needed additional time with the subject.
Conclusion
So I finally got to be more on the level I deserved to be (but I was still bored most of the time, math has never really challenged me) and I never trusted the administration again. I also would instead of taking higher level math like calculus take science classes like physics which i would ace accept for medical biology (dyslexia plus a class that has a high spelling requirement equals low low grades).
I'm sure I'm going to have to work on my relationship with my future administration when I teach but that's what I'm going in with.
So first the background. :
In 6th grade I finally got tested and was shown to be dyslexic and have a mild form of broca's aphasia. In 4th grade I spent a semester at a charter school that was work at your own pace, and even though I had to work with second graders to work on my spelling and writing skills (I was bit delayed there due to the dyslexia because no word ever looked right spelled right) I ended the year working with the eighth graders on pre-algebra. This is basically to say for a long time I was WAY AHEAD OF MY CLASSMATES in math. Last part you should know is this: In 7th grade they wanted to me in the accelerated math program, but the pace with the amount of homework I had to do for it stressed me out, even if I was still above everyone else in the class, because of my difficulty writing legibly so I moved to regular level. Still bored as shit but I didn't have as much homework, homework was always the problem.
The Story:
In 8th grade I was in the early morning 8th grade math class. During the first semester I started having some discomfort and after sharp stabbing pains in my right side basically had me curled up on the floor in english class crying I was taken to the doctor. After some disbelieve on my virginity status and tests I was diagnosed with PCOS.
Now my school had a policy that you had to bring this thing called an agenda, which was basically just a day planner which would be stamped for each class, unless you where tardy (even if it was excused) or didn't bring your homework. If you didn't get that stamp you had to go to detention after school.
So one day before school my dad had to take me for blood work to check my hormone levels, which i had to fasting so i had to do it before school. They where backed up so it took longer than expected and as you can expect I was tardy to my first class, math. So I got the T for tardy and had to go to detention. However my father had to do something with meimei and the boy after school that day which would make him unavailable to pick me up after detention and I would have had to either sit on sidewalk out of school for 2 hours afterwords (campus was closed down 20 minutes after detention and no students where allowed on the grounds unless they where in a sport and had practice) or walk home which would take me about an hour and my dad was not comfortable for that. So he picked me up after school, my agenda was taken to be given to me in the morning and I would have to do lunch detention the next day.
Later that night the true wft of the story began. So I went to do my homework and I realized I had no idea what my math homework was suppose to be. See it was written in the agenda like all the homework assignments where suppose to be and since it was my first class and I was always f-ing bored in it, I didn't remember the assignment.
The next day I explain that I didn't have the homework assignment because of the lack of agenda, didn't matter I still got detention. I called my dad to let him know when I had a minute, and when he found that I got detention for not doing my homework when they took away the thing my homework information was written in by school policy he said hell no. He made it clear, he was not going to let me stay after school because they schools system made me unable to do the thing that would prevent me from getting detention.
So queue many many months of me having lunch detention. Even if I did part of my homework or questions on for the right chapter but not the right ones like 1 thru 10 instead of 1 thru 5 and 10 thru 15, he wouldn't accept it so the cycle of having the thing i had to write my homework in being taken away and then getting punished for not knowing the homework assignment would continue. While all of this is happening I can see the test scores of all the class because he posts them in a way we can't see who got what but just the grades in general. There where 25 people in the class. 2 got 98-100% on every test except maybe once but it was still a 92% (me [the 92 was when I went to school not feeling well and a period and half later I was sent home with 102 degree fever and had like strep] and the kid I'll call Lip) about 5-8 75%-85% with a few 88%s but not many, the rest of the 15-18 students usually got 45-60% maybe once or twice there was 65 or a 70 in there.
The end of the school year came and I was like 'finally no more stupid teacher and I can finally work on something that will challenge me' because I knew the average of my test scores was like 99% because I was the curve buster. I was guaranteed to be allowed to advance to algebra because to advance to the high school level courses you just had to have a 70% in your class. Then I get my report card for the year.
I had a 28% in math.
I HAD A 28% IN MATH.
I HAD A FUCKING 28% IN MATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How me and my parents wonder. They've seen my test scores. They know how well I've done. So being my grizzly bear dad and my has a degree in education mom with a sister teaching 8th grade math at another school the call a meeting with the principal and the teacher to find out what the fuck just happened here.
So during the meeting we find out the reason i got this 28% was because my teacher was grading 80% homework and 20% tests. That's right. 80% HOMEWORK 20% TESTS. Since I basically was pulling the 100%s but only turned in about 10% of my homework I got a 28%.....
Now before I continue the story a quick side bar
Quick Side-Bar
Remember how I said only two students where getting perfect scores? Me and Lip. Here's why I'm calling him Lip. See Lip is a character for the show Shameless who made money by doing schoolwork for other students because he was so brilliant that he was reading advanced physics for fun in 7th grade. So why am I calling my Lip 'Lip'? Well because my Lip would do his homework, get to school early and let the those 15-18 people who failed every test copy his home work for a dollar a pop. So yeah he would make 15 to 18 dollars a day.
Also you are probably realizing what I realized but was still to shy at the time to bring up. This meant the f-uped 80-20% system gave the 45-60% test students a guaranteed at least a 80%.
The Story Proper again
So my parents are pissed and start going into the principal and teacher about me not being able to go on to algebra because of this grading system.
The principal just kind of waves his hand and says 'Don't worry, shes being advanced'.
My parents are stunned and ask why.
The principal starts to look uncomfortable and says 'well her test scores in the course do show she understands the material despite her grade'
My dad says 'well if her grade isn't good enough why would you let her pass on.'
The principal basically glares the glare of many deaths at the teacher and sighs. 'Slicey has the highest scores on 'state standard test' in the school.'
My parents look a little confused.
The principal sighs and continues. 'In the WHOLE school. She out paces even the accelerated program on 'state standard test'. Her scores are higher than most high school seniors are getting. We are passing her on because she has demonstrated in multiple areas to not only understand the material but be able to handle more advanced work.'
The principal glares at the teacher again and says' Also you wont have to worry about your other children having 'the worst teacher ever' in the future. This is his last semester teaching, next year he starts his position as the assistant principal in charge of the math and science programs. We where very lucky to get him to fill the position.'
My parents kind of confused by every thing that just happened thank the principal for his time and we head home.
Later my little teenage drama mind is able to connect the dots.
The Dots Connected
My school was a mid-range school, not lower working class title 1 but not high expectations and money, however had a very large population do to its location and the sprawl of the civilization. For awhile according to the gossip I would over hear from my aunt the math teacher they had been vying for the funding for an additional administrator for a while to better manage the curriculum and student body. They finally got the funding before I entered the school. They couldn't find someone for the position. It wasn't until 'worst teacher ever' finished his masters that they found someone qualified willing to work for school.
However there was one problem. Most of his students that year where failing. only about 25% of his students where passing, the rest where in that 45-60% group. He was failing to educate these students basically. In perspective my ability to make any teacher love me I found out the other teacher teaching the subject had maybe 10 students each who where in the 45-60% group.
So to not have their new administrator being someone unable to actually teach the subject he would be in charge of he was allowed to fudge his grades. More students passed and where the next teachers problem and they finally got their administrator.
Enter their problem.
This fudging had to uniform.
So the student who was skewing the standardize scores to higher level and should be in the accelerated program failed. basic. 8th grade. math.
Now one of my education teachers told us something that I'm going to share. When you make an a mistake in education you have to imagine the head line for the story. (so you can figure out how to handle the damage control)
The head line here is easy to see 'Skewed grading tactics leads to High scoring student to fail'.
Enter crisis control. Whats can they do that is easy? Just pass me on, don't even change the grade and hope the parents don't sue or go to school board.
To this day my mother says if she knew then what she knows now, she would have sued or gone to the school board. Basically they passed me to cover their asses on passing students who needed additional time with the subject.
Conclusion
So I finally got to be more on the level I deserved to be (but I was still bored most of the time, math has never really challenged me) and I never trusted the administration again. I also would instead of taking higher level math like calculus take science classes like physics which i would ace accept for medical biology (dyslexia plus a class that has a high spelling requirement equals low low grades).
I'm sure I'm going to have to work on my relationship with my future administration when I teach but that's what I'm going in with.
Into the quotefile you go!
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