Eighth Period Sadness

I try not to get to close to my students. They all have a story and it can quickly become overwhelming if I let it. The other day I didn’t do a very good job at this.

In one of the classes I co-teach a quiz was returned to the students. One of the kids had one correct out of twenty this despite the fact the quiz was both open book and open notes. This is a good kid too, participates, asks questions and always ends a sentence with sir.

I said, what’s up girl why did you do so badly. She just shrugged her shoulders. I said, come on what happened, and again she just shrugged. I rolled my eyes a little frustrated and said, okay let me see your notes, thinking she must not have been taking any. She opened her binder and there were pages and pages of notes and her handwriting was beautiful, not chicken scratches that could be hard to read. She had even taken the time to highlight the parts that were highlighted in the power points. I looked at the notes and then the questions and they matched perfectly. Every question was answered. It should have been easy and she should have made a hundred

Girl what’s the problem you have all the answers right here? Again a shrug. Seriously, I started, what’s the problem, in my head I thought wow this girl can’t be that lazy.

She paused and you could literally see sadness wash over her eyes and with a wavering voice said, I can’t read them. She was humiliated. I had just humiliated her.

I was momentarily speechless. After I composed myself, I rubbed her shoulder and said, we’ll get through this, we’ll make this right. I had broken my rule and let her in.

I hope we can get through this.