So I’m a smart cookie. I like school. Recently I’ve had the opportunity to have one of the best math teachers I’ve ever had. I do independent study so my classes are one on one which I’m sure has helped. For the first time, I was in the running towards getting straight A’s, which I’d never had before. The one thing holding me back was the likelyhood of me getting a B for second semester (which i was finishing over the summer). The reason for this is that on a test or two i ‘wasn’t really feeling it’ and so it sunk my grade. Then i remembered i cared and got a 103 on my next test. He calculated what i would need on the final to get an A in the class and I needed a 98. I was up for the challenge. I’m sure the kind of people that subscribe to this blog would agree that this situation could be exhilirating. I procrastinated and then studied. I realized how much I didn’t know, but I still had one review session left with him (which he didn’t have to give me). He went over as much stuff as time would allow and then left it up to me to fill in the gaps. I went to the Harry Potter premiere that night… I had class at 130 the next day. I’m a perfectionist so i get frusterated VERY easily. I began correcting my mistakes with the notes he had given me. It was too much though. I just plain didn’t understand it. So instead i spent the rest of my time before class bathing and writing a genuine thank you note (relationships in I.S. are quite different than regular school) to my teacher. When I took the test he wasn’t there, which was how it was supposed to be because we had used up all of our hours together and he didn’t normally come in that day. I was ready to go into the test and hope for a grade that wouldn’t lower my final grade a significant amount. I had given up on the A. Then i took the test and it was a lot easier than i expected. I began to think that i actually had a shot at straight A’s! There were a bunch of extra credit questions to account for the ones i really didn’t know. But still this didn’t ensure a 98. I asked another math teacher that was there to help. He pulled out the answer key and showed it to me. I looked away and laughed and he said sorry. Then he proceeded to tell me which answers he ‘didn’t like’ and allowed me to alter them until ‘he did’. One problem was on limits. I had no effing idea. My teacher said i didn’t have to take that test so that i could spend more time preparing for the final. The other math teacher that was with me was trying to help as best he could and finally said “i like 3.” I laughed and said I couldn’t do that. His mom is also a teacher there and said that she would also go with 3. I argued that i didn’t have any work to show for it but in the end, wrote it on my paper.
This idea was so foreign to me. It was strange how at regular school, you could get ‘academic dishonesty’ for laughing during a test and here they were practically giving me the answers. Breaks like this probably wont come often, so should i take them when they do?
Maybe i should give a little background. Ever since entering the program in september, the teachers really came to like me. And i wasn’t just kissing ass. I liked them too. I took some writing classes and really shined. I made good relationships with all my teachers and even the ones i saw in the office but didn’t have. I felt such a huge sense of belonging.
The classes were so easy though. They had no AP or honors classes. The highest they offer is CP. And even then, if such a ‘rare jewel’ as me shows interest in the subject, they lean towards ‘giving me that one, because really you understood what it meant’. This was not to say I didn’t go above and beyond for my personal well-being. For my writing class, after my teacher had decided i didn’t need to follow the book, I just wrote stories. Some exceeding 5-10 pages. Independent study really allowed me to focus on what i wanted to put most of my time into. Yes, i got off easy on some classes with my inquisitive mind and politeness, but i really excelled with no one pushing me -but myself- in other classes.
I might not have gotten such an opportunity if i had not been on such good terms with the whole I.S. team, but does that make it okay that even after i excepted defeat i still more-or-less cheated my way to an A?
I spent 3 hours on a test that should’ve taken 2. A lot of kids in the program don’t seem to care much about education so i guess in that sense i really stuck out. But does that make it okay?
Is it less of a problem if someone seen as ‘such a good person’ does something wrong? Do they cancel eachother out? Should they?
Haley…As the Muslims say: Only Allah is perfect…They deliberately put a screw up in their work right of the bat so that they can do a good job, putting the futility of sacrilage behind them…I try to never let anyone use the P word in my house… Good enough is good enough… Now; you must be a girl because you use the word relationship which most boys cannot grasp until their units quit working… And usually math teachers are not that kind with boys… You must understand… These teachers can see that you have some ability, and that, if you were to give it the attention any study deserves, that you would ace it in spades… Some times girls think there is something unsexy about math in general, science specifically, and intelligence usually… In fact; intelligent men are drawn to intelligent women like bees to honey… Intelligence and education can make even a plain sort of girl seem beautiful in an etherial sense that does not fade so fast as the perfect pretty of youth…The girls who neglect their educations, as often they do because they are pretty, and have all the attention and affections of the boys will come to hate their mirrors, and fear the day their beauty fades because they have nothing other… Don’t be like them… Feed your head all sorts of knowledge while it is cheap and free… My education is from life and books, and while they are cheap and used, I can afford no other… You are fortunate that you can be taught… Even if you were cheating, on purpose, with a purpose; and you learn something by cheating, the object of the course would have been reached…Smile at fortune when fortune smiles at you, but smile also when fortune frowns…That is; lucky once warns the wise to prepare… We can cheat on a test, but not on life, for life is no fair teacher, and tests first to teach after…
Then all of humanity is evil because all have done evil… Rather; all are good because in spite of doing evil they try to do better, and often succeed…Life is an intelligence test and an education… No one knows it all, and no one knows enough, especially at the start… The teachers in this scene were letting go of the formal relationship, and letting the student know that they had an informal relationship, more or less, as equals… Mostly because I sucked to the max at even simple arithmatic, I have never gotten that sense from any math teacher ever, but rather, that if it were a stake, and they had a sledge hammer, that they would be pleased to drive it into my thick skull…Some times, the worst enemy any teacher has is his contempt for his student, and his frustration with his own failure… The student in question has good teachers, and they have a good student, and in dropping the formality they show that knowledge is a cooperative effort… NO one gets there alone…