Teachers have one of the hardest jobs in the world. Most of the time, that’s due to the red tape and also the parents.
Sometimes, though, you get one of those kids in your class.
Teachers, you know which kid I’m talking about.
OP’s school restructured the way grades were done, emphasizing tests.
As I started high school, a new principal took over and decided to overhaul how everything worked.
My freshman year they got rid of finals, sophomore year they turned classes 100% test based grades (also letting students retake tests 3 times since grades dropped fast), junior year they made all tests graded on a 1-5 basis instead of A-F, where class grades were still A-F. “5” was given a 95% or A, “4” was 85% or B, “3” was 75% or C, 2 was 65% or D, and “1” was 55% or F.
You could not go below a 55% since 1 was the lowest grade (and the only failing one).
My AP physics teacher my junior year was one of the people in charge of curriculum changes, and he definitely thought he was doing a good job and helping the students. After all, grades were getting better – especially for athletes.
He had helped redesign the entire curriculum, but hadn’t changed much about the way he graded his class. He intentionally made his tests on the harder side and used a flat curve for grading.
With letter grades, he marked a 70% as an A, 60% B, 50% C and so on. He decided to maintain these percentage cutoffs when he transitioned to the 1-5 scale.
If any of you have taken an advanced science class, you know lab reports are typically a big portion of the class and likely caused you many hours of work, mostly doing tedious things like formatting equations in Microsoft word. I hated doing lab reports.
So, he figured there was no point in doing the other work.
Thanks to my teachers new curriculum, lab reports could not be part of your grade without being part of your test. His solution was to make lab reports equal to 10% of your test grade, but it was graded independently also on a 1-5 basis.
The lowest score you could get was a 1, or 55%. I quickly realized that even if I turned in nothing for my lab report, I would be given a 55% instead of a 0 and would still get 5.5% of my test grade when I only needed 70% for an A.
Losing 4.5% of my test seemed like a worthy sacrifice.
Cue MC:
For the first few reports of the year I turned in nothing for my report.
He would give me a 1 and scold me but after the 2nd or 3rd time in a row, he realized I was getting As on his tests anyway and I was doing it intentionally.
He then made the requirement that test scores would be “inconclusive” until lab reports were turned in, instead of just giving us a 1 and moving on.
His teacher adjusted – so did OP.
When the next report came around, I simply turned in a piece of paper with my name and “lab report” typed on it and turn it in.
He begrudgingly gave me the 1 on the report and the A on the test since I turned in “my report.”
When the next report came around, he announced reports must have each section in them.
I’m not sure what he was expecting, but I turned in a page with my name and the title of each section, with no words under the section. Once again he gave me my A.
They danced and danced.
Next time around he announced each section must have at least a paragraph, 3-5 sentences, in each section to be considered complete. In my MC fashion, I gave him three short sentences in each paragraph that went something like “This is my introduction paragraph. It must be at least three sentences long. This is three sentences.”
Got my A.
The last time he changed the rules, he announced with a smug face while looking in my direction that there was a 5 page requirement and text had to pertain to the subject at hand.
I proceeded to google a wiki article pertaining to the experiment, copy and pasted 5 pages of text, and cited Wikipedia to not get hit with plagiarism.
I got my A and he either gave up coming up with more rules or realized he wasn’t going to win the battle.
OP won, but the school did make some more adjustments the following year.
“Fallout”:
The next year, he changed the entire schools curriculum to include a system of “obedience” scores to punish students for not completing work, even if the work isn’t graded. I have another MC story bending those rules to fit my agenda for anyone interested.
TL;DR: Teacher redid grading structure to make it harder to fail classes. I MC’d my way into an A in his class and didn’t do a single lab report all year.
I wonder if this one makes Reddit chuckle!
At least the teacher taught him something.
Other people have similar stories.
Some teachers say they love a good challenge, though.
You’ve gotta keep those teachers on their toes.
There’s just something about the path of least resistance.
Personally, this amused me.
But I am not a teacher of children.
If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.