Teachers should always try to inspire kids to do their best, not discourage them.

What would you do if you were in middle school and your teacher made you set a very low goal for a reading contest, even though you wanted to set one that was much higher?

That is what happened to the young lady in this story, so she accepted the teacher’s goal, but then worked hard and won the whole contest. When giving her acceptance speech, she called her teacher out in front of the whole school.

I think that she handled this situation perfectly, and hopefully, taught the teacher a lesson in the process. Read through the full story below and see if you agree.

You told me I wasn’t smart enough for my goal. Well get called out in front of the entire school

Ok, to start, I LOVE reading. So much so that when I was tested on my reading skills in 2nd grade I was apparently found to be on par with the highschoolers.

She is a voracious reader.

I read literally any chance I could. If I had free time I had something like Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys or any other big book.

By 5th grade I’d finish books like Harry Potter within an hour or two. I would ask to go to the library for new books at least 2-3 times a day.

Those are very popular series of books.

When I reached middle school I found the Eragon series as well as the Last Dragon Chronicles and other amazing books of magic and dragons (always been my favorite. Still are). And I read all of them.

Now, I don’t know how many others know of the AR tests where you took a test over the book you read and if you passed you got a certain number of points that was dependent on the books reading level.

Reading programs are a great incentive for many children.

From 2nd grade on I always always ALWAYS hit high numbers and was always the number one point getter at every six weeks assembly and at the end of the year.

Well, 6th grade rolls around and now we’re told we need to set goals for ourselves. My standard per 6 weeks was at minimum 90 points.

She sets large, but attainable, goals.

So, I always set my goal to over 100 and I always overshot it by a landslide.

The final 6 weeks comes up and I write my goal of 150 onto the little paper thing that we were to give to our reading teacher and hand it in. The teacher calls me up and says this:

Does this teacher even know her?

T: Sweetie your goal needs to be more realistic to your abilities.

Me: um what? I’ve hit more than that every six weeks so far. I know I can do it.

Why would the teacher try to discourage her like this?

T: You just think you can, also its really horrible of you to brag and flaunt your goal over others who don’t read as much. As such I’m setting your goal to 25 ok?

Me: No its not ok. 25? I can get double that with just one book. Set my goal at 150, please.

T: No. I’m the teacher, you’re the student. Your goal is 25 and that’s. Final.

She has every right to be upset about this.

I returned to my desk FUMING that I was being told that not only am I supposedly incapable of reaching my goal, but that somehow challenging myself at the end of the year was flaunting? Ok whatever.

With her words burning in my mind I set my plan into action. I found every single big book not just in the middle school library, but also the high school and public library and read everything I possibly could.

She’ll show the teacher.

The best part was was I was immensely enjoying myself while preparing my trap.

Every book I read was at the least worth 10-20 points. I waited until the second to last day that AR points could be earned. Then I unleashed the beast.

Talk about going above and beyond.

I lost count of how many tests I took, but they didn’t take me long to breeze through them all, maybe 2-3 hours? (Love you Ms. Librarian. You’re my hero for staying) but at the end I had somewhere between 300-500 points.

I smiled thinking of what I had planned for next weeks AR points ceremony. The ceremony came, and my name was called as the number 1 point getter.

Time for revenge.

The principal asked me to say a few words about what inspired me to work so hard. I simply smiled and spoke

“Oh, I have my teacher Ms. ______ to thank for that. When we set our goals she refused my goal of 150 saying it wasn’t within my capability and shamed me for apparently flaunting what I could do.

So thank you Ms. _______ I wouldn’t have worked so hard just to prove you wrong”.

This is just too funny.

The cafeteria was just, silent. The teacher was wide eyed, red in the face with her mouth agape. The librarian was hiding a huge smile behind her hand while stifling her giggles. The principal just stared at me.

I took my award from his hands and just walked back to my seat. After that, they just resumed the rest of the ceremony, but you could feel the tension was still there. Especially with Teacher glaring daggers at me.

Maybe the teacher will learn her lesson and not underestimate kids in the future.

Check out what the people in the comments have to say about this fun story.

Here is someone else who had the same reading program.

This does seem unrealistic.

A good teacher motivates.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who shuts down her neighbor’s construction project after her property gets damaged.

This person wishes they were in the room when it happened.

Maybe this is what the teacher had in mind.

She got her revenge and had a lot of fun doing it. It is great that she was able to do it all in front of the school, too.

One would hope that this teacher will learn from it, but that seems unlikely.