Those who know me know that I love pointing out mistakes. If something is wrong, you can likely count on me to point it out. The most ridiculous correction that I’ve pointed out though, although it was someone else’s mistake, actually affected me – and my grade.
Pre-Algebra was the weirdest class for me in 6th grade – for some reason, this class just made no sense to me! My teacher, Ms. T, was the nicest teacher ever, but I would always dread her class – she would always give pop quizzes. This was also my first year using the “A” through “F” grading system instead of the standards-based reporting system (“4”, “3”, “2”, “1”), so calculating your grade based on your homework and test scores was a huge deal. Anything – including pop quizzes – could raise or lower your grade.
We had a pop quiz one day, and of course, I was totally not prepared. What’s worse was there were only three questions. Great. Ms. T graded our tests by the end of the period and handed it back to us. There was a big fat D with 2/3 written on it in red. I wasn’t surprised.
My day moved on, and it wasn’t until later that day when my friends were talking about it that I pulled out my quiz and looked at what I got wrong. We compared our answers for the three questions, and that was when I noticed that I had actually gotten two questions wrong, not two questions right. Ms. T made a mistake!
There were still a few periods before the end of the day, but right when the bell rang, I went straight to Ms. T with my pop quiz in my hand. Her classroom door was locked. I peeked inside and couldn’t see her either. Thinking that she probably left already, I walked towards the school exit – and that was when I saw her leaving with her rolling briefcase through the fence.
I yelled her name and ran all the way to her, hoping that she would stop and wait for me. When I reached her, I showed her the quiz, and panting, I said, “You graded my quiz wrong. This should be one out of three instead.”
She looked at me. I can’t quite remember the exact words she said, but it was along the lines of, You ran all the way here to tell me I graded your quiz wrong? Your grade is going to drop lower.
I let out a mini sigh. I knew my grade would drop, but it just was not my real score! I wouldn’t be able to get over it if I had kept it a secret. She told me that she would correct my score on Monday, and that was when I wondered, Which was crazier? Me running after her to fix my grade or asking her to change my grade to an F?
Thinking back now, maybe she thought my math was so bad that I couldn’t calculate that my grade would drop. She did end up changing my quiz grade (no points for being honest), and I ended up with one “C” and two “B”s that school year. Since then, I’ve only gotten A’s in math until Calculus came along – what an improvement!
What would you have done if your teacher graded your test wrong?