I like to stay up late. Very late. I usually end up going to sleep at or around 3am, even on school nights. Last Monday night, I stayed up slightly later than that... which I soon found out was a terrible.
When I get really tired... or drunk... the mental wall I have in my head that prevents me from saying everything on my mind slowly fades away. This because especially prevalent when I was in math class.
For the entire semester, my math teacher has bothered me for a number of reasons. She has to have things exactly her way. She has rules for everything... it's a little ridiculous. One of her less outrageous rules is that you can do the corrections on your tests and hand them in to her for up to 5 point back. Now, before I rant about that, let me just clarify that I'm thankful for the opportunity to get points back. On that note, I think if you do test corrections, you should get a percentage back instead of a set amount of points. That way it's far more worth someone's time to redo, lets say, half the test.
So I sit down in math that fateful Tuesday and listened to the teacher announce she'd be handing back our tests at the end of class. I like to occasionally text in class so I turned off the sound and vibration on my phone so I can just set it on my desk. That way, if/when I get a txt, the screen will just light up and it won't distract everyone. I then opened my phone (which sometimes goes to "speaker" mode) so I had easy access to the keyboard. After I got settled, I groggily raised my hand. She called on me, and in a dazed/tired state, this is how the conversation went:
Me: "I just have a question. Why is it that you only give 5 points back on a test if we do the corrections? I just don't think it's very motivating for someone who got a 50 or something to do all those corrections to still not be passing. And they're the ones who need to do the work, not those people who got a 95. You should be encouraging people that need to do the corrections to do so, and to not waste their time."
Her: "Well the corrections are supposed to boost a person half a letter grade and that's what it does. A lot of teachers don't give their students an opportunity to make corrections on their test, and this also allows them to get some points back. It's not necessarily, supposed to give you a ton of points back..."
At this point in any of my teacher's discussions or lectures, she tends to talk in circles and repeat herself in a number of different ways by restating the information in a slightly new manner. So I looked down at my phone and decided it'd be a good idea to check and see if I had recieved any messages while my heart was bursting out of my chest. What I had said was finally starting to sink in. Trying to distract myself from my nerves, I went to hit the clear button on my phone just to illuminate the screen to see if I had anything, but what I didn't realize in my "sleep goggles", was I hit the voice command key instead. For those of you who don't know, this trigger's the voice command mode on your phone, which typically has a female's voice say "Please say a command!" and then beeps... which is exactly what my phone did. I frantically hit a bunch of buttons to get her to stop talking before slamming my phone shut. Thankfully, the teacher was still talking in a never ending cyclone of sentences. She didn't notice, but everyone in the surrounding desks heard it, looked at me, and laughed.
It was really embarrassing. I still feel like I got my point across though. I've had a lot of teachers in my days, and not one of them set a point limit on test corrections. It was always a percentage.
I've dropped the class since. I'm looking forward to taking the class with a teacher next semester that isn't (as) crazy.
On another note, I'm glad I've finally subscribed to some interesting people's blogs. Everyone of them that I've subscribed to is pretty awesome. I don't get around to commenting as many as I'd like to, but I definitely try to read them as often as possible. I have a survey that I have to do that I got tagged for. I'll have to do that =)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
8 comments:
Ah, the mundanity and the frequency of such problems at school is unbelievable, isn't it?
I can imagine your situation. I deleted all my ringtones so that I would never have any sound come out of my phone, even if the settings aren't set right. I sleep real late too. Hence, my precautionary measures.
Some people in my class don't take as much care, and the repercussions are... awful.
Michael.
Yeah, the worst punishment I've heard as far as cell phones go was though up by a teacher at the college I'm at now. He decided that everyone else in the class had to write a 2 page ridiculous paper about cell phone or something... and the person caught had to grade them all.
I dropped that class too lol... but for other reasons.
hahaha that's an amusing tale about your teacher, i like your writing, if i were to describe it, i'd call it, light, casual, conversational, humourous, entertaining; take your pick. (:
Mmm i sleep that late usually but i have decided i should try to break the habit.
Do you have myspace etc? I love talking to new people.
I'm the one with the emo blogs going throuh a temporary (hopefully) breakdown with 2 out of my 3 best friends, the other 1, it's not temporary. And i also blog far too much so you know... I really need to attempt to limit my mental vomit here a little... But if u can make sense out of my garble, enjoy lol.
And i so wish we got any kind of marks for test corrections... I am on 50 percent for maths at this point, hopefully i'll do well in my exam next wk and thus bring my grade up rather than down, i'd love to not fail :p
You've been tagged!
Check out the blog :))
And I've definitely had lots of teachers like that. I wonder if they realize that all the students can tell they don't know what they're talking about.
I've had friends who put their texts on silent, but leave their phone ring tones on loud. It makes for some fun lunch hours if you know whose those people are, and their numbers. :)
FYI, the only other teacher that teaches that class is worse, he doesn't answer questions and he gives you like a day to learn fifty new things.
you'd think that college professors wouldn't care so much about cell phones. I mean, after all, you're the one that's paying to be there. I guess they all have their own stupid little rules, though, that we have to follow. lame!
Wow that'd be annoying. They really don't get it sometimes.
Hello, I do not agree with the previous commentator - not so simple
Post a Comment