Finals Week

Congratulations to those of you who are graduating this year! The joyous celebration of completing your education (whether it’s from High School, College, or even Middle School) has excited people for decades. The last graduation I attended was my eighth grade graduation. I did independent study my junior and senior years of high school, and didn’t walk in the ceremony last June. My next graduation to look forward to is in two more years, hopefully, with an AA degree from a local community college.

The last obstacle we face before the glory of walking across a stage in an oversized hospital-gown-looking-garment is the dreaded Finals Week. I was lucky this semester. I had accidentally taken two short courses that ended in March, so I only had two Finals this week: Math and English.

My math final wasn’t overly stressful. The only frustrating part was the “none of these” option among the multiple choice options. Who decided that should be a thing? “We as a school want our students to doubt themselves in the smallest ways possible. How do we achieve this?” “Add a ‘none of these’ option.” “BRILLIANT.” No. Go sit in a corner and think about what you’ve done.

My English final was a cluster of anger and directionless writing. I had turned in my last essay a day early. My teacher emailed me the day it was due, saying that it didn’t meet the requirements she was looking for, and to resubmit it before midnight. We emailed back and forth that afternoon as I went through the revision process, adding, I hoped, more of what she wanted to see. I had to email her back a few times, saying that the website we use to turn in assignments wasn’t allowing me to resubmit my paper. By the time I was about to go to sleep, I sent her my essay and asked her to either grade it or give me feedback on it so I would have a clearer idea of what to do for the final (which was a similar style essay). She failed to respond until the next day, saying that to give me feedback on this new essay would be unfair to the other students. Already frustrated with the situation, but still trying to be polite, I asked which essay she would put in the grade book. She replied, “What would you like me to do?”  I responded that I wanted the essay that would give me the better grade. She told me she was going to stick with the one that was already graded. By this point, I’m red-faced and starting to grind my teeth. Had this been an in-person meeting, I might have asked her if she was joking. Instead, I asked if she would then give me feedback on the new essay before I attempted the final. She told me once she had completed grading this semester’s work that she would give me feedback on the essay. I didn’t email her back after that.

As I have just completed the final exam, I am still banging my head against the wall trying to figure out why the hell she even emailed me in the first pace. I was informed that she wanted to help me get a better grade on the paper. Did she end up too busy to grade another essay? Did she even read the damn thing after I sent it to her? Hopefully I did alright on the final. If I didn’t, I could lose my honor society benefits for my GPA being too low. I don’t know how I will handle things if that happens. I might turn into a Hulk or something.

Have you ever had a frustrating time with a teacher? What happened? Leave comments. I love hearing from you!