As my oldest son continues to ask for help with his homework has brought back many memories I had at school. Some good and mostly the rest. My son is great in math and has no problem in that area of development but the rest he still struggles with. Recently he has been studying the American Revolution to even this day I can still remember. Of course unlike my son, I was great at History to the point I actually got my revenge on one of my teachers.
In choosing classes for my junior year at school, I wanted to take a college level History class. Which in all my previous World Civics had maintain an A level unlike my other classes which averaged out to a C+ which the teacher teaching the class I wanted to be in felt I was not even qualified. I was forced to take the average History class that was by chance, being taught by the same teacher.
Needless to say as the school year went on, I not only had the highest grade point average in the class room but for all the classes she was teaching in. And at a few times I stood so far out even she realized her mistake. At one point everyone had to give an oral report in class on a period of history that we were learning about. Everyone gave their report and turned in to the teacher the written version for further grading. As I stood in front of the class presenting my report I did feel like the king of the world.
After I finished my report, the teacher requested my written report to which my response left her speechless. I informed her that my report was still on my desk which as I retrieved it and presented it to her leaving the whole class, as well, to realize that I had recited the whole report from memory. I did get an A for the report but the teacher did admit that I should have been placed in the college level class.
By the time the midterm exams were finished, I was given another cause to celebrate. In all of my teachers’ classes, I had the highest test score. None of the other students in the college level class came close to my score. Not only did I get all the questions correct but I also correctly answered the extra credit ones as well. It was a huge victory for me in proving my teacher wrong. And as an added celebration, I was able to hear testimony from many of those in the college level class inform me that she keeps talking about me in class.
About my oral reports without notes of any kind, the high test scores and especially my ability to recall key points in history in great detail. But the cherry on top moment came as we were getting ready to take our final exams for the year. Our teacher calculated everyone’s grade average to so the students could see what they would need to make of the final exam to pass the class. As expected a few students were doomed to repeat the class again while many others had hope. In front of the whole class she read out everyone’s grade averages as with the grade they needed to make on the final exam.
To many in the classroom it felt humiliating as to others it removed a lot of pressure in knowing they were going to pass no matter the test results. The worst student had to make over 200 with many others having to make at least a D grade to pass the class. Then she came to me. My grades were so high that I could not take the test and still have an A+ average in the class. But to prove a point I chose to take the test. And as predicted, I passed. I answered every question plus the bonus ones correctly. But the test I took was not the one everyone else in my class took.
As the teacher passed out the same test to everyone in the classroom, she instead had given me the advance level test instead. Whether to show I wasn’t that smart proving that I weren’t ready for collage level classes or to truly challenge me seeing as throughout the whole school year that I had showed that I could have taught the class just as good as she did. Either way, I proved my point. Even the students in the college level classes didn’t even come close to the grades I made or the knowledge and understanding of everything that was taught.
I did all this before computers were widely as they are today. While cable TV channels only carried movie channels, MTV and the Disney Channel were on pay per view. I read a lot of books and magazines, watched a lot of PBS programs and basically used my imagination to recreate many events and people in my thoughts so I could easily remember them later. Nowadays I watch a lot of the History Channel, Science Channel, as with other similar channels but I still take the time to simply read books. With technology the way it is today I have the pleasure of carrying many books all digitized to the size of a notebook.
I went through hell all through my school life so having something that I can claim a victory such as this is the silver lining for me. But now I can take all that knowledge and use it to teach my son to better understand his history lessons and hopefully inspire him with the love of reading and proving that one can do anything when other say you can’t.
No comments:
Post a Comment