Re: By Popular Demand

The only real motivation for this post is Sherapova's experience with a high school literature teacher. Although I attended a Catholic High School, this bitch was the devil. After reading, you'll understand why.

My senior year hell actually began my freshman year. I was encouraged by my eighth grade guidance counselor to take Honors English; she felt that I would do well in that class and it would look good as far as colleges go. I decided to give it a try, signed up for school and HE9. Then, I got a packet in the mail for summer reading; "Summer Reading? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!!!" Any who, I underestimated the necessity to complete the novel and didn't have it finished before school started (and, I lost the book for about 2 weeks). After being busted out on having not read the book, the teacher, Miss Bacha, decided for the rest of the year she was going to make my life hell; this included:

• Sending a progress report home stating I did not complete my homework, which was not true. I ended up on punishment, and out of anger, did not complete that nights homework. That's when she stated she was referring to that incident (huh? No, shit, seriously!) and used it *later* to justify the comment.
• Proceeded to degrade me in front of the entire class for not having been taught something in my elementary education; she stated in the time that the class began the exercise and it got to me, I should've been learning it; it took all of a minute before it got to me.
• When class scheduling time came around, she looked me directly in the face (while addressing the class) and said "...if you are a B, borderline C, student in this class, I will not recommend you for HE10."
• At a P/T conference, she appealed to my mothers love of poetry to derail her before she got a chance to get to the bottom of why I was always upset over the class <--I don't totally blame Bacha for this; Annie shares equal blame.

Anyhow, fast forward to August 1998; I'd received mail from the school --it could only be one thing in such a small little envelope (well, two, but since it was summer, it wasn't a progress report, lol)-- my schedule. I happened to have been on the phone with a friend at the time and opened the schedule and searched for mistakes....

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

I couldn't control it, I couldn't change it, and it wasn't a mistake. I had the same teacher AGAIN for English 12...not Honors 12, English 12. I rushed off of the phone because my eyes had welled up. It wasn't anger and I can't quite say it was fear...it was somewhere between fear and disappointment (Yea, I did actually cry...and threw a shitstorm of a temper tantrum too). I had to take this vile bitch AGAIN and THIS TIME MY DIPLOMA AND ALL OF MY COLLEGE HOPES, DREAMS, AND ASPIRATIONS, were on the line.

Fast forward to first day of classes: We walk in and she assigns us seats --not all bad, one of my closest friends was seated right next to me and I had a few other good friends scattered around the room. One thing to note here is while we were being arranged, she said "...welcome back Mr. Mattison...surprised to *not* see you in honors...why is that" to which I responded with "...because, I didn't get a recommendation for HE10...I left it alone at that." <--those of you who *really* know me, know what tone that was in.

Any who, she handed us a syllabus, and explained how we would be graded:

1. Vocab/homework/reading assignments = 50% of our grade for the year.
2. The other 50% consisted of a paper due at the end of the year. This paper was divided into research and the actual paper, both of which had milestones at the end of the quarter.
   
1. If you fail the first milestone, the second will suffer and you'll likely fail the second, thus, you fail the semester (and the class).
   
2. If you fail the second milestone, your paper will be incorrect; thus you fail the second semester (and the class).
3. If you fail to properly site your sources, you fail the paper (and the class).
   

And she actually made the statement "...I am going to make this as hard on you all as I possibly can. I fail at least 3 people a year (looking at me) and this year I'm casting a wider net." For the record, I aced her class. And, as much as I hated her, she worked wonders for my freshman year writing classes.