Do Teachers Really Care?
In grade 8, social studies was really Canadian history and Canadian politics. It was taught by a man that was very active in a certain political party. It wasn't the political party that I aligned myself but I didn't recognize his bias. I remember we had to write an essay (really 1 page) on why we would vote for a certain party of our choice and I got an A and my parents were in shock. They knew his bias and couldn't believe he would give an A to an essay about a different party.
We got lots of tests. One per week. He had a rule that if you got between 50-60, you had to take your test home and have it signed my one parent. If you got under 50, you had to get both parents to sign your test. This was back in the days of two parent families.
He always passed tests out the highest mark to the lowest. So, we could kind of figure out how everyone did. I usually got my test back in the first three. One day, he didn't pass my test back and asked me to come see him after school. It didn't even cross my mind that I hadn't done well. I got 44%. We had a conversation where he asked me what happened but I don't remember any of it. All I could think of was having to get both parents to sign the test.
I had a few days to figure it out. My first thought was to forge their signatures but I didn't think I could do both. Plus, I was pretty sure he intended to call my parents to follow-up. My best plan was to approach one of my parents, have them sign, and they could come up with an excuse why the other one couldn't sign. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which was the best one to approach. Finally, the morning came when I had to hand the test back in. I still couldn't decide mostly because I didn't think I could count on either of them not to tell the other.
I just presented the test and told them they both had to sign. Both were disappointed. My dad asked me if something was going on or if this was a fluke. I said it was a fluke. My dad accepted that and signed. My mother was much more demonstrative in her disappointment. She yelled for a while and tried to think of appropriate punishments and then after she ran out of steam, my dad told her that I said it was just a fluke and they were going to accept that and she should sign the paper so I could go to school. She told me to bring social studies home every night even I didn't have homework and she was going to go over that with me.
That may have lasted one night.
It turns out, it was just a fluke. I don't know what happened but the rest of my tests were in the 90s and that one test didn't affect me getting an A overall. I took my next two tests home to show my parents it was a fluke, and then we all forgot about it. Really. We all forgot about it. Well, actually my parents forgot about it. I still remember it to this day. Not failing the test but having to get my parents to both sign. It definitely was an effective teaching strategy for me.
But, my parents really forgot about it. Until Parent/Teacher day. My mom went to her appointment to see the Social Studies teacher and he was devastated. Literally devastated. My mom said he was close to tears. He had not forgotten about that test and blamed himself. Did this mean he was a terrible teacher? Had he missed something in my body language that told me I didn't understand? Had I shown signs of illness the day of the test that he missed? He had talked many times with my other teachers to see what approach worked best with me. He had talked to me outside of class the day. He had shown me extra attention. He put up with my comments in class trashing his political party. He asked me questions after that to make sure I was understanding. He just blamed himself over and over. My mom said she ended up comforting him and assuring him it was just a fluke.
My mom said they had also blamed themselves and had gone over the previous week to see if there was anything going on that upset me that they missed. That wasn't true. They didn't blame themselves. They didn't question their actions the previous week. They didn't do anything to ensure it wasn't just a fluke. It turned out, it was just a fluke, but they didn't know that at the time.
I have to be honest. He wasn't my favorite teacher before the 44. He wasn't afterwards. I am also sure I wasn't his favorite student. But, he was a teacher. A teacher who cared.
A teacher who cared too much. He put more weight in the test than either myself of my parents did. He really cared and took my test result personally as an indictment of his teaching.
A teacher who cared too much. It turns out that wasn't just him. Teachers don't care. They care too much.
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