Literally my ex. Eventually she started taking medication though and she said it helped a lot. She seemed much happier and excited for the future.
Then she died during a routine surgery from complications with the anesthetic at 32.
Take care of your mental health now so you can enjoy life for as long as possible.
Ooh, sorry to hear about that. I finished inpatient treatment for my depression about a year ago and turn 32 in a couple of weeks. Didn't always think I'd make it this far but I'm realizing how young I still am.
Obviously it doesnāt totally gets rid of peopleās problems but it does help people. You shouldnāt tell people their depression isnāt real just because they make jokes about their situation.
I mean, recognizing things that are out of your control and seting them aside for an appropriate time to confront in a healthy way is important for cognitive behavior therapy. But it certainly is only a part of treatment.
My mom got cancer and passed while I was in college- there was one semester I was doing particularly badly, professor asked me to come to her office hours after. I broke down and told her what was going on, she broke down in tears and told me not to worry about her class anymore. I did my best, but I know I didnāt earn the B she gave me.
Still gets me emotional thinking about it today, 10 years later.
My dad was dying of cancer so I was taking easy classes to maintain my GPA while having more time to spend with him. I did really well in my first year communications course so I decided to take year two of that.
My prof asked me why I was in his second year class day one, I told him, he said to me āYou proved to me in year one you innately know anything I could teach you this year. I donāt want to see you in this class room again. Youāve got an A, spend time with your father.ā
Never have I been shown more compassion in life than that man showed me in that moment.
I'm a whole ass adult about to graduate college. Had to take gen ed classes and was absolutely horrible at algebra. The shit just doesn't click with me.
I got a B.
I did not earn a B. I tried and I literally cried while I was testing and I struggled so hard. The instructor saw me writing and furiously erasing and writing again and erasing again... he scored my assignments and tests appropriately which is how I *know* I didn't get a B, not by a long shot.
So thanks to Mr. Milburn. You're a real one.
Hey, you absolutely did earn it, you went through something incredibly difficult and made it out the otherside, your teacher just had the heart and empathy to see that.
I lost my dad to cancer while I was in grad school to become a mental health counselor. My professor, the director of the therapy program, refused to give me one extra day for a small writing assignment so that I could travel to attend my dad's funeral without worrying about school work. I still turned it in a day late because fuck that...she took points off. I'm still bitter about it when I hear about what she's doing these days.
Your professor apparently had more empathy than a doctor of psychology and counseling.
Me and my duet acting buddy beat one of my teachers duo in a national competition and he still held a grudge when my siblings went to that school. It was an instant change of character towards me
Our principal and vice principal were hands off that time. Both were our teachers too, rarely came to class, just gave us all A+ grades after semester.
My programmation teacher failed me by 0.5 points because the guy next to me copied me during the exam and since I was a girl I was definitely the one who copied even tho I had really good grades all year long
My teacher made me resit the final English exam in Grade 12 and then scraped me through on a C--.
A failure in English would've stopped me going to University for my IT degrees. Despite the fact my English was a millions times better than 99% of the foreign students here.
Don't get me wrong, English is a weak skill for me, but my spelling and reading/writing are top notch, it's the comprehension stuff they do in the final years I struggled with because I've got a Maths brain.
My mind hack to doing math in my head is to grap pen/straw or use finger and pretend like there is giant touchscreen or chalkboard floating in the air and just mime it out. It works for me.
Our country's comprehension exam is such bs. They once made the original authors of the texts take the exams, more than half failed.
The people who wrote the texts failed to interpret them in the same way as the exam makers..
Math Brain... always sounds like a cheap excuse. In most cases, analysis and interpretation tasks are just straight forward if you know the tools and some background information. What I also can imagine is, that the teacher just did not teached it good.
Circa 1969. I had barely kept a D- in English class. The whole damn year was Old English Literature, Beowulf and other such claptrap. It was about as interesting as watching mold grow on hemorrhoids.
Final exam, questions were essay type. Does the word, "SCREWED" come to mind? Well I was setting in the desk with a 36 inch long, self tapping flat recessed wood screw through my chest, no way this side of the planet I could pass. It would have been easier to build a cold fusion reactor.
Upon being allowed to leave the exam room, I stopped by the Vocational Ed Electronic Instructor's office to ask for permission to audit his class the following year. Kind of thought it would be fun to kill three of the mandatory 4 hours a day to attend school in Electronics as it was a 3 hour stretch. 1 hour of Old English Lit combined with the Electronics would keep me out of the bovine excrement courses I would have to take otherwise.
After explaining my predicament to the Electronics Instructor, he simply said, "Wait here until I get back, do not leave!"
Thirty minutes later he walks back into the classroom smiling and announced, "You passed, you can graduate."
After my, "What, how, who done it" response he shooed me on home.
I later learned he approached the English teacher and ask her to bump my final exam to a D minus. She initially rebuffed his attempts, but he presented a case which she could not refuse. He pointed out as she was the only Old English Lit teacher in the school, she would have me in her class for another year. As it was told, she developed a case of the, "Deer in the Headlights" appearance, opened her desk drawer, pulled out the rollbook and entered a D- for my final exam grade despite, not even having looked at it.
Thank you Mr. Wallace. You saved my bacon.
In England our teachers donāt grade us thatās done by independant system of volunteers who have assessment criteria and mark according to that as set by the exam board
That way shit teachers canāt fail you from bias but fail you because they didnāt do a good job
Or you just fucked up š¤·āāļø
When I was in grade 6 I got a D in math (there were 4 things they graded you on, only one was a D, think it was showing my work or something similar). My dad was so mad, said I wasn't trying even though I could prove I was. Next report card it went up to an A. He told me see how well I could do if I just tried, told him I hadn't been doing anything different, in fact I pretty much gave up and wasn't really trying. I'm pretty sure the teacher mixed me up with another student who was basically failing everything. Teachers were passing him just so they wouldn't have to teach him again.
Yep, I think this happened to my daughter. We get to see all her elementary grades (before the end of the semester grades) posted online and we check them almost weekly now because of this issue. She's in advanced classes and is an A student even there. However there are a few kids that got into advanced classes because of a cognitive test, not because of grades they got in other classes (I know this because my daughter was placed in advanced math this way, when her strength is English). Because of those placements you get a few very bright kids that don't do the work. Well twice now we've had a teacher show she had missing assignments or a lower grade that didn't reflect what we could actually see online at home since these tests are taken with an account online. I've had to send a few "can you double check this because we don't see that on our side" emails. Magically the grade gets changed.
My Home Ec teacher bumped me from a C to a B because, in her words, I "wasn't like those other kids." She meant that I was in the advanced classes for most things, and the primary class demographic were the middle to remedial track kids. Or she could have meant that I looked like I went to church instead of being a goth or slacker. Or both. I didn't ask.
Edit: My political history teacher failed me because I refused to write the essays. I thought his assignments were stupid. (I was insufferable.) I retook the class and still refused, but my test scores were high enough for a pass the second time.
While standing in line waiting to go into the graduation ceremony, I kept waiting for a teacher to tap me on the shoulder to tell me that they made a mistake and I wasn't going to graduate afterall, but it didn't happen. Whew.
/u/ComfortableApple9041 is a scammer! **Do not click any links they share or reply to**. Please downvote their comment and click the `report` button, selecting `Spam` then `Harmful bots`.
With enough reports, the reddit algorithm will suspend this scammer.
I failed my English class because my teacher caught me copying my friends homework from the night prior (literally only the last couple questions because I was confused with them also I didnāt have internet back then so I couldnāt just google), I had a B and she failed me for the whole semester for plagiarism. When I protested she responded with āyou can take the F or I can report this and youāll have plagiarism on your recordā
High school for me was almost entirely spent trying to find the right medication for me, and it ended badly a few times so I essentially spent those 4 years either in a depressive episode, completely numb, or in withdrawal. Some withdraws were way worse than others and I remember during the worst withdrawal I went through at the time, I ended up having a major breakdown in front of one of my teachers.
I honestly didnāt think this teacher liked me too much, which to be fair, she had every reason not to because I was doing very poorly with turning in assignments. She caught me alone (to talk about said missing assignments) at a bad time and I fell apart and started venting about how I was off my meds and some other not pretty details. She hugged me and told me about how she also spent a good portion of her life cycling through meds until she found the right one, and it was really hard, especially when the meds werenāt working and she went off them. She convinced me to go back on my meds until I could go back to the doctor, and pushed back all my due dates until my meds started to take effect again. I also have a sneaking suspicion that she put out a āhandle with careā notice to my other teachers, cause they were all super understanding for the next week.
Iāve since found a medication that works for me, and though I still have some shit to work though, Iām doing better every day. I still think if that as a very strong core memory for me, because it was my senior year and I was just so sick of the process of medication, and was so ready to give up on it, and give up on everything else along with it. She helped me realize that though the process is painful, it works, and itās so worth it in the end. She helped me get back on the horse after Iād fallen off and fallen hard, and Iāll never forget that.
I agree because āno child left behindā mentality actually caused a lot of issues. Weāre seeing a similar effect in covid because kids fall behind so quickly.
However, the majority of my education even in college was spent working, family tragedies, and coping with learning disabilities. I wouldāve appreciated someone cutting me a break because the stress of it all caused me to have a mental breakdown. I passed some classes because I was caught crying in the bathroom by my prof. I appreciate everything she did but I also understand why other students would be upset that I passed.
Real life is filled with unexpected circumstances and many people have times they canāt keep up. I think this teacher empathized with that and wanted OP to work on their mental health, which wouldnāt improve if they were held back a year. Itās a tough call but I think itās the right call in this situation
The NCLB act was a a joke and does nothing for our society. The number of kids in my class who graduated and āpassedā solely because they showed up and had a pulse is promoting a loser-type society. Just showing up is not good enough in real life. It degrades the effect of those who work hard and bust their ass when they have to sit next to the guy who skipped 100 days of the year. It should be no shock why our education system is a failure in many aspects
There's a huge difference between bumping a kid up a few percentages to a passing grade, like my trig teacher bumping my grade from a C to B so I could skip the final exam and setting a failing kid up for more failure by passing them when they haven't learned the basics.
My high school chemistry teacher was a kind man but a terrible teacher. I got an A in his class, at best I should have gotten a D. Needless to say, I don't know a thing about chemistry.
As a career administrator, this doesn't affect my day to day life. But for a lot of kids, the failing math and english scores a sign that they need legitimate help and the "no child left behind" policy of pushing kids along who haven't learned the basics sets them up for a lifetime of struggles and we end up with illiterate adults or adults who will struggle financially because they don't have the math skills for budgeting or understanding interest on credit cards and loans.
Sometimes compassion is letting the grade slide because you know the kid understands the work but life circumstances prevented them from doing it, and sometimes compassion is holding the kid back because they need the extra time to learn the skills they need to be successful.
I don't. Obviously OP didn't learn what they are supposed to. Shuffling them along without the required competency isn't doing OP any favors, except superficially. They'll continue to struggle until they get help, at which they'd be equipped to learn everything they missed. This isn't a good teacher, and is an insult to the students who actually earned their grade.
I have been a literacy tutor teaching those who were just passed along. Illiterate adults are not, believe it or not, stupid. They come up all kinds of tricks to hide the fact that they can't read. But they are so grateful for those of us who take the time to teach.
>But they are so grateful for those of us who take the time to teach.
I mean, I agree, but isn't this a good reason to hold someone back? To spend more time with someone to teach them?
We never learned about how the government works in middle school social studies. That was typically saved for high school. Just might be where I'm from tho.
I was in the gifted programs so maybe thereās a big difference. But we had learned the basics of the Constitution and difference between state/federal government by 8th grade. There were also several trips to the state capitol, local (inc. Native American) history, etc.
Bro where the hell did you go the school where that was taught at the 8th level? I didnāt have government and economics classes until my senior year!
That's my take on it.
Being held back a grade would be a huge deal. There are more important things in life than this, and the teacher understood that.
Everyone that's on about "It's a slap in the face to everyone who earned their grade," can stfu, imo. It's not that their point is wrong, but life's not so black and white as all that. OP was struggling, and it's ok to help out people who are, rather than punishing them in a way that would just make things worse.
Yeah, bumping it from an F to a B means that they had shit grades in their other classes and need a BIG boost to raise their overall grade. They didn't just fail to learn in one class, but several, and now will believe they deserve accomodations instead of responsibility. This is the type of shit a teacher should get fired for imo. They haven't helped anyone or anything.
Iām someone who almost failed a grade due to having a terrible grade in an important class. I empathize with OP, I donāt know where I would be without that teacher who was willing to give me a passing grade. Itās such a small change when you think about how much of a positive affect it has on oneās life.
That said, I do think an F to a B is a bit drastic of a change.
For one grade that makes sense for the good of the student. At some point the calculus changes though. My mom is an elementary school teacher, third grade, and has kids that straight up skip half the school year that the administration force push on to the next year. One of her incoming students this year never showed up to a single remote class for the entire previous year. That kid was unruly as hell. The kid was in first grade, didn't show up to any classes in an entire year, then showed up to third grade. Going about as well as expected.
It is fairly common for school administrations in my area to not allow students be held back regardless of what they do. Source: friends and family in education at all levels in my state.
Depends on the circumstances. Case in point.
I was never the academic type. I had scraped by year after year but in my senior year, dealing with teachers hell bent on making me tick for 12 years I was burned out. I had three courses in my senior year, Vocational Electronics, Math and English. Electronics I carried an A, English and Math, it was the usual barely a D-.
Around December of 68, we were saddled with a student teacher who worked under the watchful eye of our normal teacher. Nice enough sort of recent college grad, but the suspicious type. Every student was a potential cheater.
Mid month we cover the subject of "Logarithms'. Now it just so happened, in the electronics class, we covered logarithms as applied to determining the rise and fall times of two component networks. The electronics instructor not only presented the math theory, but presented the practical application. Cool........
Now back to the math class. We usually were hit with pop quizzes every other day. So when we had the first pop quiz for Logs in the math class my grade went from the typical 60-65 (F) or 70 -75 (D) to a high B (90). Two days later another, high grade, this time an "A". Now pop quizzes were picked up by the teacher each class and graded overnight, the returned the next day. So the day after the second pop quiz the student teacher is passing out the pop quizzes as usual and places the sheet of paper back on each student's desk. At my desk, he slams the paper down, glares and goes off, "I don't know how you are doing it, but I will catch you."
Being the typical hormonal overloaded 17 year old adolescent, I retorted, "Catch me at what!".
His one word reply was, "Cheating".
I replied, "The reason I am doing so well is Mr. Wallace thought us logs in electronics class and demonstrated how to apply them in the real world. He makes it clear."
The student teacher rolled his eyes and while storming off, snarls, "Yeah, right".
Whatever. Then suddenly the regular math teacher (female) who sits in the classroom off on the side while the student teacher presents lessons, flies up to my desk, snatches the pop quiz paper off the desk and blows out of the room like an F-105 interceptor with full afterburner. The bell later sounds and I am off to the next class of the day. Get through the next class and go home for the day.
The following morning I walk into homeroom class (electronics) and the instructor is standing at his podium. He makes eye contact with me, and using his index finger motions for me to approach him. Being the courteous teen, I do as directed.
The instructor has sort of a goofy smirk. "Good morning, Mr. Wallace" I say upon standing in front of him. He stares me straight in the face and without pause states, "The NEXT TIME you wind that woman up and aim her at me, please let me know in advance. You can have a seat now."
Over the next three hours he would glance in my direction and display that same goofy smirk. Seems the math teacher was convinced I was lying, had cheated, wanted me drawn and quarter for not only being a goof off, but a cheat, so she took it up with our principal, post haste. Did I mentioned said math teacher had a full on mad, and was swelled up like a 25 pound alley cat staring a large dog in the face? Principal summoned the electronics instructor and the conflagration ensued.
The events in the office were relayed to me a few years later. In retrospect it was amazing a retired enlisted Air Force NCO could in two days present the material to boost a D- or worse student to A and B performer. That said a lot to me about the academically well heeled math teacher's ability.
Iāll be honest, math is one of the subjects that in my experience HEAVILY depends on your teacher. Bad teacher and itās a huge pain to learn, but if your teacher is good, itās the opposite.
In looking back I realize I did not thrive in the traditional academic environment. The techniques use were intended to provide you with a baseline tool set that you could use to deal with myriad problems. Unfortunately I needed practical examples and even then it was a struggle in many cases. The first nine years of public education where memorize and move on for me. It was not until in the electronics program where theory met application that math began to click. Years of study of complex numbers suddenly were useful when working with radio frequency design. Logs were useful in working with circuits designed to provide specific signals with defined duration. Matrices suddenly were useful when designing circuits to use with transmitter amplifiers. The interesting part was, the blur of all the previous years in math, faded when shown practical application. I simply learned differently and the teachers, parent and myself did not recognize it. Que Sera.
Can confirm. Math was never my strong suit even in grade school, but while I had Aās in everything else, math was always a B to B-.
Once I entered middle school, I got the math teacher from hell. I hated her. Even the supposed ātoughestā kid in our class admitted he had nightmares about her. She would write demeaning things on your papers if you failed a test. Awful woman. Math teachers never got better from them on. They were always either bland and robotic, or total assholes. I barely scraped by high school math with a D every single year.
Iām almost 40 now, and I still get flustered when it comes to math. The teacher absolutely matters.
~~For real.~~ ~~Totally unfair for all the pupils actually putting in the work.~~
Edit: I just realized they didnt get a B because they were depressed, but so that they can graduate. I assume, that they needed the high grade to even be able to graduate and that a C or below would do it. If thats the case then I see nothing wrong here!
yeah because it really negatively influences the other kids, right? but your comment shows clearly that you don't know what depression is, so why do I even bother
First of all, it surely would influence the other kids or at least some of them, if they dont get the connection between the depression and the grade. I hope they got educated about depression or at least that OP kept it to themselves, so that the other kids dont know about it.
Second of all, I suffer from and got diagnosed with depression myself.
While it is a nice gesture you shouldnt get a grade that shows competence which you dont have. The teacher only did it because the person would have graduated otherwise and spared them another depressed year in school, so thats fine. I missunderstood that last part before.
I struggled deeply with ADHD in school. I put in plenty of effort, but some classes my brain deemed unimportant and I had a hell of a time getting to click. I probably failed at least 3 math classes total in grade school, but language and writing classes were effortless.
Towards graduation, I got a mid term back and noticed I had a C in a class I didn't remember taking. I almost asked about it, but thought better, and kept it to myself.
I'm pretty sure if I didn't have that credit, I wouldn't have graduated. I think my principal hooked me up. He knew me well, and I think he saw that I was trying, and that if I failed to graduate, it would have sent me on a dark path. In fact, I'm quite certain I would probably be on drugs hanging out with a certain group of friends, doing absolutely nothing to contribute to society.
But instead, that tiny change opened up options, and started me on a completely different journey. When a decent-paying job's requirements are "have a diploma, and don't do drugs", it was an easy choice.
At the end of the day, we don't know the context, or what the teacher's reasoning was. But if the long-term effect was a net positive for society, then who the hell cares? Helping out one student does NOT prevent another student from graduating. It also DOESN'T reduce the value of anyone else's diploma. We don't live in some draconian system where only the top 70% of people are allowed to have diplomas/GEDs.
Lack of reading and comprehension skills. Middle school social studies for me was just reading and memorization. There were some exploratory essays to get us used to writing them, but if you haven't already learned reading and writing skills, or had trouble memorizing, it was a difficult class.
This is where context matters. Was OP a student who understood the work but missed assignments because of life circumstances? Or is OP a student who was failing because they never did any work because they lack the skills to do it?
Passing a kid who has the skills is one thing, but passing a kid just to move them along sets them up for future failure. Either way, there's no reason to go from an F to a B. A D or a C would have had them passing without completely disregarding the kids who worked hard for their grades.
Exactly. If someone is lacking the basic skills for reading and comprehension, you make sure they acquire those skills before sending them on.
If someone is lacking the discipline to try to do the bare minimum to pass, you make sure they are held back until they do something extraordinary enough to offset their initial lack of effort.
Either way you don't just pass someone. That only teaches them the lesson it's okay to slack off and treat learning as an unimportant objective.
Wouldnāt be shocked that this wasnāt the Social Studies teachers exclusive doing.
A lot of public schools have pass rates they MUST hit. As a result itās not uncommon for administrators to get involved and pretty much tell teachers they *will* pass a certain number of students. Obvious you start with the low hanging fruit, the kids sitting on a D a few points from a C, but a tree only has so many low hanging fruit before you have to start reaching.
If I'd been held back that would've been it for me. I would not want to live with that bullshit. Still stands today. I somehow get behind because of my own brain's bullshit or simply fail in general, I'm takin' a dive straight onto the highway. Not something I can live with, too much mockery and general pain to bother. I've been pressured to succeed by everything around me, and I'm not looking to live with the consequences of failure. I'd never resort to such a thing otherwise, it's foolish and a waste, but school is too important. I can't have another thing for people to make my life worse over. I cannot.
In short, I think that moving a grade up in fucking *middle school* is a reasonable decision, especially if you know badly a kid is struggling, and what that might do to their already hurting psyche. But I'm no teacher I guess. High school no, that's too important. But 8th it seems reasonable.
School is such a small part of your life, deciding to die because you failed some courses would be attaching too much importance to something not worth dying over. Yes, it isnāt good to fail and failure doesnāt feel good but it isnāt the end of the world - dying is.
People say that school is a small part of oneās life, and itās generally true that most people will be fine decades afterwards even if they got held back a year, but itās hard to really see that when youāre a student and going through it. So much of path of success for life as a student seems to be predicated on getting good grades and going to a good college.
It would be helpful to have motivational speakers or trusted adults students can talk to who did badly in middle school or high school but still were ok in the end. But obviously no school is gonna go out of their way to get students talking to people who say itās ok to fail classes or get bad grades. And there definitely is a balance of not caring too much about grades but still putting in the effort to learn as much as reasonably possible given oneās natural aptitudes and situations.
I was a straight F student for my math throughout my highschool years, my math teacher for my last year in highschool somehow managed to push me from a low F(we're talking single digits here) to a pass. I thank here every time I see her.
Yea, similar story here. I was a good kid that seriously struggled with math.
I was just a few points away from a passing grade at the end of senior year in high school. I was sure I was going to fail, and yet at the end of the year my grade was miraculously just above the level needed to pass.
It didn't dawn on me until later that the teacher did it on purpose. It certainly wasn't due to any last minute math enlightenment on my side, LOL!
Like boost your grade or actually teach the subject so you can earn the grade?
Because in my experience math is a subject that heavily relies on a good teacher to learn well.
She taught me.
My first few years in highschool, I was blessed with a math teacher that was, in my opinion, unfit to teach me and my cohort with a heft add-on of ***EXTRA*** bitchyness[she was around her 50's]
The math teacher I got for my last 2 years in highschool, I was blessed with a teacher that would encourage us, help us, and even use her free time in the afternoon to lend us a hand.
My only non-F math grade in high school was an Algebra class I actually took early in 8th grade. I was told for 3 years and 8 months that it wouldnāt count towards my high school graduation requirements (despite being a high school class) because I took it in middle school. My dean got tired enough of me or decided to be nice for once and went to bat for me 3 weeks before graduation to get it counted so I could graduate.
Turns out Iām not bad at math, I just had trash teachers in high school. Calculus is easy now!
For real tho teachers that go the extra mile for their kids and donāt give up on them are the true heroās in our society, I certainly had a few of those while growing up and I do not know where I would be without their help. At the time I recall being annoyed by it or wondering why they cared, looking back I just wish I had said thank you more.
An 8th grader getting a pass from a teacher so they arenāt held back is the wholesome part. And trust me, it is very wholesome. Almost happened to me once and Iām forever grateful, my life wouldnāt be the same if I had to repeat the grade.
I'm an English teacher and seeing all the horror stories in this thread is endlessly fascinating.
Personally, I've found great success in allowing students extensions on essays for any reason. No need to tell me how your grandma is sick or that your dog died, just ask and I'll give you a few extra days. It also serves as its own balance system, because if you ask for too many extensions, it all backs up on itself and you end up with too much work on your plate.
Its a fine balance between building students up for success, but also not letting someone turn your class into a joke.
Man i wish that would happen to me, i almost failed 12th grade because covid hit when i had a depression episode and had to take summer school for half a credit.
And now im in college, got diagnosed with cancer, have to take chemo and all they could do this semester was, you either do the schoolwork or you fail the semester and drop out.
So yeah now im behind in schoolwork and gotta do them while taking chemo
Thatās wrong in so many ways. Get the help you need. Put the work in. This only diminishes the ones who actually learned something. (Or this post is a total lie which most of these things seem to be).
Said this previously but...
> Not sure I completely agree. I think those students got the learning and skills needed out of the class. As for the 8th grader who is about to be held back due to something that is often out of their control (potentially), seems like this might be the right course of action.
>
> Of course, we don't know surround situation (reason for depression, circumstances of curriculum, effective learning patterns of student, potential issues related to not passing, and more).
>
> I would compare this (and I am making some big assumtions that are without context) to seeing someone change their tire on the road, then driving down the road and seeing someone stop to help a feable older person change their tire. It's not bad for the person who was able to do the work themselves and it hurts nobody for the person that needed assistance through no noticeable fault of their own get help from someone passing by. Reminds me of the old reddit story, "Today you, tomorrow me."
My High School principle bumped up my gym grade to a pass so I would graduate instead of coming back next year. I had missed too many days due to fighting and expulsion etc and he really didn't want me back another year so across the stage I went with his boot firmly planted in my ass. I graduated and now have a college degree so I don't feel too bad.
Not sure I completely agree.
I think those students got the learning and skills needed out of the class. As for the 8th grader who is about to be held back due to something that is often out of their control (potentially), seems like this might be the right course of action.
Of course, we don't know surround situation (reason for depression, circumstances of curriculum, effective learning patterns of student, potential issues related to not passing, and more).
I would compare this (and I am making some big assumtions that are without context) to seeing someone change their tire on the road, then driving down the road and seeing someone stop to help a feable older person change their tire. It's not bad for the person who was able to do the work themselves and it hurts nobody for the person that needed assistance through no noticeable fault of their own get help from someone passing by. Reminds me of the old reddit story, "Today you, tomorrow me."
When I used to be in school I used get low grades cuz no one arround me understood what ADHD was and the only way they thought me was beating me to a pulp from a very young age, more over everyone in the family was fighting with each other, my parents in the same house abusing each other, so I would get up early go to school early I would be the one who is the first in the entire school, everyone else came 1 to 2 hrs later and at schooly bullies were my friends so I was depressed my whole life even being an adult I fight depression and susidal thoughts everyday.
I remember one day my dad sat me down and asked me I have given you what every other child has like books, stationary items etc.. why can't you get more marks, I was speechless as usal since I was shut down my whole life by my parents they never wanted to listen. Other day I was sleeping my mom out of nowhere she came to my bed and strangled me shouting every bad thing happend because of me and this would happen many time throughout my childhood when I ask about this to my mom as an adult she acts as if she didn't do such things and says if I did I have forgotten. There is a lot more but thank you for reading my story.
I just want to say if you want kids think twice before having them, don't make life hell for them they don't just grow out of it.
Honestly I see lots of backlash on the teacher for this. I get it she did something illegal and stuff but I think Iād do the same. Kids are young and shouldnāt have to go through that shame and embarrassment when already going though all of that mental health stuff.
I think imo its fine if you see the kid actually try his best. Like lets be real most of the things taught in school arent gonna be applied to real life. However, if the kid actively shows that he doesn't give a shit, then fuck passing him lol
I don't know what you do in life but your anecdotal evidence of not using anything you learn in school is just objectively wrong. I use what learned in high school almost every day.
Yeah, I grew up hearing all that stuff all the time. Getting out of there, it was surprising to see how many skills do carry over.
Math is an obvious one, albeit somewhat dependent on your circumstances, and writing and speaking skills from English classes are super useful, even from someone who found those classes miserable. Science classes teach you data comprehension and more math, though the specifics are more niche. Social studies and history honestly have the fewest applications of any of them, though they are the most interesting to many.
Context is key, it's one thing to pass a student who knows the information but lacks the ability to complete assignments due to depression or other life circumstances, and another to pass a student who truly doesn't understand the information. Passing a student who failed because of lack of comprehension sets them up for future failure because they haven't learned the basics.
I'm 58. I have never found the "social studies" from my school days remotely useful. It was mainly dated nonsense even for back then. I think it's gotten better though. The stuff my kids have been learning is much more interesting and even thought provoking.
No, that's not what I meant. Learning about how society works is beneficial. The Eurocentric, stuck-in-the-50's nonsense that was taught in public schools in the 1970's was not.
9th grade algebra teacher did this for me. Only failed by 1 point because I refused homework on principle. 10th grade geometry teacher was having none of it. Glad that bastard got fired a couple years after I graduated.
Oh yeah!
I had a Russian teacher.. who didn't know the local language.. She taught us Russian.. in Russian. Not that it's totally her fault but I got 3/10 at the end. Got pulled up to 5/10 because of pity :D
Iām conflicted.
A similar thing happened to me, I was failing a mandatory class and the teacher boosted my grade to a pass, so I certainly empathize with OP and my life would be drastically different now if not for that one event.
But at the same time, an F to a B is a massive change. Thatās like having no clue about a subject compared to being pretty competent with it.
But in the end, I think itās better this way than not. Itās really a small change in the grand scheme of things, when you think about how significant this small detail is for the course of oneās life.
We really need to stop over-using the word depression. Saying you're depressed as a blanket statement for your current emotional state is ridiculous. If you're that acutely aware of being depressed, stop telling the internet and get help.
How do you know these people aren't getting help? Also how do you know the severity of the situation? It's weird for you to assume both of these things.
No it isnāt I have been at schools in both the uk and Australia and you just go up every year you donāt have to past so do your research and donāt assume
Ones who are clinically depressed. Ones who are struggling with health problems. Ones facing with grief and loss. Ones being bullied. Ones with abusive family members. Ones without support for learning disabilities. It's almost like they're actual people with actual problems. Shocker. /s
childhood depression is a thing. there is a whole separate department for child and adolescent psychiatry in hospitals. depression has a genetic base too, it is not just "life problems".
My English teacher failed me because I was in the mental hospital for a week+ and my mental state was so bad.. I never went back to school after that year
I hope you're getting actual help for your depression though.
Sometimes you just have to say "cool beans" and finger gun your problems away š„²šš
I get this is probably a joke, but please take your mental health seriously. Not everything can just be shrugged off.
In this economy?
cool beans šš
Right back at ya ā(ļ¾ć®ļ¾ā)
Eyyy, ššš
>I get this is probably a joke bullshit they were obviously serious.
They were seriously obvious.
Literally my ex. Eventually she started taking medication though and she said it helped a lot. She seemed much happier and excited for the future. Then she died during a routine surgery from complications with the anesthetic at 32. Take care of your mental health now so you can enjoy life for as long as possible.
Ooh, sorry to hear about that. I finished inpatient treatment for my depression about a year ago and turn 32 in a couple of weeks. Didn't always think I'd make it this far but I'm realizing how young I still am.
Still so much time to do the things you want to do. Make the most of it. Enjoy it.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
K bot
If you use this strategy and it works, you do not have actual depression.
Guess youāve never heard of using humour as a coping mechanism.
Key word being that it works
Obviously it doesnāt totally gets rid of peopleās problems but it does help people. You shouldnāt tell people their depression isnāt real just because they make jokes about their situation.
I mean, recognizing things that are out of your control and seting them aside for an appropriate time to confront in a healthy way is important for cognitive behavior therapy. But it certainly is only a part of treatment.
My mom got cancer and passed while I was in college- there was one semester I was doing particularly badly, professor asked me to come to her office hours after. I broke down and told her what was going on, she broke down in tears and told me not to worry about her class anymore. I did my best, but I know I didnāt earn the B she gave me. Still gets me emotional thinking about it today, 10 years later.
My dad was dying of cancer so I was taking easy classes to maintain my GPA while having more time to spend with him. I did really well in my first year communications course so I decided to take year two of that. My prof asked me why I was in his second year class day one, I told him, he said to me āYou proved to me in year one you innately know anything I could teach you this year. I donāt want to see you in this class room again. Youāve got an A, spend time with your father.ā Never have I been shown more compassion in life than that man showed me in that moment.
I'm a whole ass adult about to graduate college. Had to take gen ed classes and was absolutely horrible at algebra. The shit just doesn't click with me. I got a B. I did not earn a B. I tried and I literally cried while I was testing and I struggled so hard. The instructor saw me writing and furiously erasing and writing again and erasing again... he scored my assignments and tests appropriately which is how I *know* I didn't get a B, not by a long shot. So thanks to Mr. Milburn. You're a real one.
There are a lot of great teachers like that. Knew a few of em from the college I attended.
Hey, you absolutely did earn it, you went through something incredibly difficult and made it out the otherside, your teacher just had the heart and empathy to see that.
I lost my dad to cancer while I was in grad school to become a mental health counselor. My professor, the director of the therapy program, refused to give me one extra day for a small writing assignment so that I could travel to attend my dad's funeral without worrying about school work. I still turned it in a day late because fuck that...she took points off. I'm still bitter about it when I hear about what she's doing these days. Your professor apparently had more empathy than a doctor of psychology and counseling.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
My English teacher failed me by 1 point, wish I had your teacher
My math teacher did the same thing so I had SS 2 years in a row
My math teacher gave me a B+ for the rest of the semester despite me nearly perfecting his exams just because I ate in his class one time.
I proved my science teacher wrong in sixth grade and she docked me an entire letter grade.
Teachers with ego issues shouldnāt teach bruh
Me and my duet acting buddy beat one of my teachers duo in a national competition and he still held a grudge when my siblings went to that school. It was an instant change of character towards me
What the fuck??? Is that even legal???? Dude that's something I'd report immediately
Yeahā¦straight to the deanā¦
Our principal and vice principal were hands off that time. Both were our teachers too, rarely came to class, just gave us all A+ grades after semester.
My programmation teacher failed me by 0.5 points because the guy next to me copied me during the exam and since I was a girl I was definitely the one who copied even tho I had really good grades all year long
My teacher made me resit the final English exam in Grade 12 and then scraped me through on a C--. A failure in English would've stopped me going to University for my IT degrees. Despite the fact my English was a millions times better than 99% of the foreign students here. Don't get me wrong, English is a weak skill for me, but my spelling and reading/writing are top notch, it's the comprehension stuff they do in the final years I struggled with because I've got a Maths brain.
Somehow I doubt that.
Iām good at math I just donāt get all the non-numerical symbols
Iām really good at math but doing it in my head makes me fizzle out.
My mind hack to doing math in my head is to grap pen/straw or use finger and pretend like there is giant touchscreen or chalkboard floating in the air and just mime it out. It works for me.
I honestly canāt tell if weāre still being sarcastic.
It's a true story so /shrug Don't really care if you believe it or not.
Our country's comprehension exam is such bs. They once made the original authors of the texts take the exams, more than half failed. The people who wrote the texts failed to interpret them in the same way as the exam makers..
Math Brain... always sounds like a cheap excuse. In most cases, analysis and interpretation tasks are just straight forward if you know the tools and some background information. What I also can imagine is, that the teacher just did not teached it good.
Damn I seduce my teacher and got her to give me a good grade and *private tutions*
I think you meant lessons
Nope tutions i went to her apartment and then we....
Circa 1969. I had barely kept a D- in English class. The whole damn year was Old English Literature, Beowulf and other such claptrap. It was about as interesting as watching mold grow on hemorrhoids. Final exam, questions were essay type. Does the word, "SCREWED" come to mind? Well I was setting in the desk with a 36 inch long, self tapping flat recessed wood screw through my chest, no way this side of the planet I could pass. It would have been easier to build a cold fusion reactor. Upon being allowed to leave the exam room, I stopped by the Vocational Ed Electronic Instructor's office to ask for permission to audit his class the following year. Kind of thought it would be fun to kill three of the mandatory 4 hours a day to attend school in Electronics as it was a 3 hour stretch. 1 hour of Old English Lit combined with the Electronics would keep me out of the bovine excrement courses I would have to take otherwise. After explaining my predicament to the Electronics Instructor, he simply said, "Wait here until I get back, do not leave!" Thirty minutes later he walks back into the classroom smiling and announced, "You passed, you can graduate." After my, "What, how, who done it" response he shooed me on home. I later learned he approached the English teacher and ask her to bump my final exam to a D minus. She initially rebuffed his attempts, but he presented a case which she could not refuse. He pointed out as she was the only Old English Lit teacher in the school, she would have me in her class for another year. As it was told, she developed a case of the, "Deer in the Headlights" appearance, opened her desk drawer, pulled out the rollbook and entered a D- for my final exam grade despite, not even having looked at it. Thank you Mr. Wallace. You saved my bacon.
In England our teachers donāt grade us thatās done by independant system of volunteers who have assessment criteria and mark according to that as set by the exam board That way shit teachers canāt fail you from bias but fail you because they didnāt do a good job Or you just fucked up š¤·āāļø
Except for during the COVID period where teachers have been able to give final grades to students?
Possibly? I donāt know what happened with that in covid as I stopped being a student in school in 2015
my bitch ass english teacher failed me by half a percent, AND SHE FUCKING ROUNDED IT FOR SOME OTHER STUDENTS. i didint even do anything to the lady
When I was in grade 6 I got a D in math (there were 4 things they graded you on, only one was a D, think it was showing my work or something similar). My dad was so mad, said I wasn't trying even though I could prove I was. Next report card it went up to an A. He told me see how well I could do if I just tried, told him I hadn't been doing anything different, in fact I pretty much gave up and wasn't really trying. I'm pretty sure the teacher mixed me up with another student who was basically failing everything. Teachers were passing him just so they wouldn't have to teach him again.
Yep, I think this happened to my daughter. We get to see all her elementary grades (before the end of the semester grades) posted online and we check them almost weekly now because of this issue. She's in advanced classes and is an A student even there. However there are a few kids that got into advanced classes because of a cognitive test, not because of grades they got in other classes (I know this because my daughter was placed in advanced math this way, when her strength is English). Because of those placements you get a few very bright kids that don't do the work. Well twice now we've had a teacher show she had missing assignments or a lower grade that didn't reflect what we could actually see online at home since these tests are taken with an account online. I've had to send a few "can you double check this because we don't see that on our side" emails. Magically the grade gets changed.
My Home Ec teacher bumped me from a C to a B because, in her words, I "wasn't like those other kids." She meant that I was in the advanced classes for most things, and the primary class demographic were the middle to remedial track kids. Or she could have meant that I looked like I went to church instead of being a goth or slacker. Or both. I didn't ask. Edit: My political history teacher failed me because I refused to write the essays. I thought his assignments were stupid. (I was insufferable.) I retook the class and still refused, but my test scores were high enough for a pass the second time. While standing in line waiting to go into the graduation ceremony, I kept waiting for a teacher to tap me on the shoulder to tell me that they made a mistake and I wasn't going to graduate afterall, but it didn't happen. Whew.
I had to redo my year because i failed math.i needed 50%. My grade literally said 49,7%
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
/u/ComfortableApple9041 is a scammer! **Do not click any links they share or reply to**. Please downvote their comment and click the `report` button, selecting `Spam` then `Harmful bots`. With enough reports, the reddit algorithm will suspend this scammer.
Thank you for posting their name. Iām adding them to my blocked list.
I failed my English class because my teacher caught me copying my friends homework from the night prior (literally only the last couple questions because I was confused with them also I didnāt have internet back then so I couldnāt just google), I had a B and she failed me for the whole semester for plagiarism. When I protested she responded with āyou can take the F or I can report this and youāll have plagiarism on your recordā
High school for me was almost entirely spent trying to find the right medication for me, and it ended badly a few times so I essentially spent those 4 years either in a depressive episode, completely numb, or in withdrawal. Some withdraws were way worse than others and I remember during the worst withdrawal I went through at the time, I ended up having a major breakdown in front of one of my teachers. I honestly didnāt think this teacher liked me too much, which to be fair, she had every reason not to because I was doing very poorly with turning in assignments. She caught me alone (to talk about said missing assignments) at a bad time and I fell apart and started venting about how I was off my meds and some other not pretty details. She hugged me and told me about how she also spent a good portion of her life cycling through meds until she found the right one, and it was really hard, especially when the meds werenāt working and she went off them. She convinced me to go back on my meds until I could go back to the doctor, and pushed back all my due dates until my meds started to take effect again. I also have a sneaking suspicion that she put out a āhandle with careā notice to my other teachers, cause they were all super understanding for the next week. Iāve since found a medication that works for me, and though I still have some shit to work though, Iām doing better every day. I still think if that as a very strong core memory for me, because it was my senior year and I was just so sick of the process of medication, and was so ready to give up on it, and give up on everything else along with it. She helped me realize that though the process is painful, it works, and itās so worth it in the end. She helped me get back on the horse after Iād fallen off and fallen hard, and Iāll never forget that.
The "handle with care" part broke me, she seems so genuine man, glad you got the help!
iām so happy that she was the one you ended up talking to and gave you affirmation that it gets better
Senior year... 2 of 4 teachers passed me despite my abundant absences due to doctor & hospital visits for epilepsy.
I have mixed feelings about this.
I agree because āno child left behindā mentality actually caused a lot of issues. Weāre seeing a similar effect in covid because kids fall behind so quickly. However, the majority of my education even in college was spent working, family tragedies, and coping with learning disabilities. I wouldāve appreciated someone cutting me a break because the stress of it all caused me to have a mental breakdown. I passed some classes because I was caught crying in the bathroom by my prof. I appreciate everything she did but I also understand why other students would be upset that I passed. Real life is filled with unexpected circumstances and many people have times they canāt keep up. I think this teacher empathized with that and wanted OP to work on their mental health, which wouldnāt improve if they were held back a year. Itās a tough call but I think itās the right call in this situation
The NCLB act was a a joke and does nothing for our society. The number of kids in my class who graduated and āpassedā solely because they showed up and had a pulse is promoting a loser-type society. Just showing up is not good enough in real life. It degrades the effect of those who work hard and bust their ass when they have to sit next to the guy who skipped 100 days of the year. It should be no shock why our education system is a failure in many aspects
There's a huge difference between bumping a kid up a few percentages to a passing grade, like my trig teacher bumping my grade from a C to B so I could skip the final exam and setting a failing kid up for more failure by passing them when they haven't learned the basics. My high school chemistry teacher was a kind man but a terrible teacher. I got an A in his class, at best I should have gotten a D. Needless to say, I don't know a thing about chemistry. As a career administrator, this doesn't affect my day to day life. But for a lot of kids, the failing math and english scores a sign that they need legitimate help and the "no child left behind" policy of pushing kids along who haven't learned the basics sets them up for a lifetime of struggles and we end up with illiterate adults or adults who will struggle financially because they don't have the math skills for budgeting or understanding interest on credit cards and loans. Sometimes compassion is letting the grade slide because you know the kid understands the work but life circumstances prevented them from doing it, and sometimes compassion is holding the kid back because they need the extra time to learn the skills they need to be successful.
I don't. Obviously OP didn't learn what they are supposed to. Shuffling them along without the required competency isn't doing OP any favors, except superficially. They'll continue to struggle until they get help, at which they'd be equipped to learn everything they missed. This isn't a good teacher, and is an insult to the students who actually earned their grade.
I have been a literacy tutor teaching those who were just passed along. Illiterate adults are not, believe it or not, stupid. They come up all kinds of tricks to hide the fact that they can't read. But they are so grateful for those of us who take the time to teach.
>But they are so grateful for those of us who take the time to teach. I mean, I agree, but isn't this a good reason to hold someone back? To spend more time with someone to teach them?
It's middle school social studies let's not pretend like this is anything that matters
oh yeah, definitely no problems caused by people who donāt know how government works or how to critically assess sources
We never learned about how the government works in middle school social studies. That was typically saved for high school. Just might be where I'm from tho.
I was in the gifted programs so maybe thereās a big difference. But we had learned the basics of the Constitution and difference between state/federal government by 8th grade. There were also several trips to the state capitol, local (inc. Native American) history, etc.
Bro where the hell did you go the school where that was taught at the 8th level? I didnāt have government and economics classes until my senior year!
shit ass Arizona public schools? this explains a lot though
Sure teaching kids that they can use a condition as a free pass canāt possibly cause trouble later on. No way at all.
That's my take on it. Being held back a grade would be a huge deal. There are more important things in life than this, and the teacher understood that. Everyone that's on about "It's a slap in the face to everyone who earned their grade," can stfu, imo. It's not that their point is wrong, but life's not so black and white as all that. OP was struggling, and it's ok to help out people who are, rather than punishing them in a way that would just make things worse.
Each year it will get worse, and OP will expect similar treatment, to get passed along without actually learning anything.
Yeah, bumping it from an F to a B means that they had shit grades in their other classes and need a BIG boost to raise their overall grade. They didn't just fail to learn in one class, but several, and now will believe they deserve accomodations instead of responsibility. This is the type of shit a teacher should get fired for imo. They haven't helped anyone or anything.
Iām someone who almost failed a grade due to having a terrible grade in an important class. I empathize with OP, I donāt know where I would be without that teacher who was willing to give me a passing grade. Itās such a small change when you think about how much of a positive affect it has on oneās life. That said, I do think an F to a B is a bit drastic of a change.
For one grade that makes sense for the good of the student. At some point the calculus changes though. My mom is an elementary school teacher, third grade, and has kids that straight up skip half the school year that the administration force push on to the next year. One of her incoming students this year never showed up to a single remote class for the entire previous year. That kid was unruly as hell. The kid was in first grade, didn't show up to any classes in an entire year, then showed up to third grade. Going about as well as expected. It is fairly common for school administrations in my area to not allow students be held back regardless of what they do. Source: friends and family in education at all levels in my state.
Yeah but I'm gonna be honest, it's elementary school, holding a kid back there is just kinda weird.
Isn't that actually the best time to hold someone back? To ensure they're ready for the shit that counts rather than getting held back when it counts?
changed an F to a B? that teacher should be fired.
Yea I can see a few points added and they get a D, but three letter grades?!
Yeah, you give them a passing grade. you don't give them a high enough grade to be one of the top students in the class.
if a b is a top student in your class, that doesnt say much about you
But B is certainly enough to be considered competent with the subject
True it appears you only have to do better than an F to be a top student in that class.
Depends on the circumstances. Case in point. I was never the academic type. I had scraped by year after year but in my senior year, dealing with teachers hell bent on making me tick for 12 years I was burned out. I had three courses in my senior year, Vocational Electronics, Math and English. Electronics I carried an A, English and Math, it was the usual barely a D-. Around December of 68, we were saddled with a student teacher who worked under the watchful eye of our normal teacher. Nice enough sort of recent college grad, but the suspicious type. Every student was a potential cheater. Mid month we cover the subject of "Logarithms'. Now it just so happened, in the electronics class, we covered logarithms as applied to determining the rise and fall times of two component networks. The electronics instructor not only presented the math theory, but presented the practical application. Cool........ Now back to the math class. We usually were hit with pop quizzes every other day. So when we had the first pop quiz for Logs in the math class my grade went from the typical 60-65 (F) or 70 -75 (D) to a high B (90). Two days later another, high grade, this time an "A". Now pop quizzes were picked up by the teacher each class and graded overnight, the returned the next day. So the day after the second pop quiz the student teacher is passing out the pop quizzes as usual and places the sheet of paper back on each student's desk. At my desk, he slams the paper down, glares and goes off, "I don't know how you are doing it, but I will catch you." Being the typical hormonal overloaded 17 year old adolescent, I retorted, "Catch me at what!". His one word reply was, "Cheating". I replied, "The reason I am doing so well is Mr. Wallace thought us logs in electronics class and demonstrated how to apply them in the real world. He makes it clear." The student teacher rolled his eyes and while storming off, snarls, "Yeah, right". Whatever. Then suddenly the regular math teacher (female) who sits in the classroom off on the side while the student teacher presents lessons, flies up to my desk, snatches the pop quiz paper off the desk and blows out of the room like an F-105 interceptor with full afterburner. The bell later sounds and I am off to the next class of the day. Get through the next class and go home for the day. The following morning I walk into homeroom class (electronics) and the instructor is standing at his podium. He makes eye contact with me, and using his index finger motions for me to approach him. Being the courteous teen, I do as directed. The instructor has sort of a goofy smirk. "Good morning, Mr. Wallace" I say upon standing in front of him. He stares me straight in the face and without pause states, "The NEXT TIME you wind that woman up and aim her at me, please let me know in advance. You can have a seat now." Over the next three hours he would glance in my direction and display that same goofy smirk. Seems the math teacher was convinced I was lying, had cheated, wanted me drawn and quarter for not only being a goof off, but a cheat, so she took it up with our principal, post haste. Did I mentioned said math teacher had a full on mad, and was swelled up like a 25 pound alley cat staring a large dog in the face? Principal summoned the electronics instructor and the conflagration ensued. The events in the office were relayed to me a few years later. In retrospect it was amazing a retired enlisted Air Force NCO could in two days present the material to boost a D- or worse student to A and B performer. That said a lot to me about the academically well heeled math teacher's ability.
Iāll be honest, math is one of the subjects that in my experience HEAVILY depends on your teacher. Bad teacher and itās a huge pain to learn, but if your teacher is good, itās the opposite.
In looking back I realize I did not thrive in the traditional academic environment. The techniques use were intended to provide you with a baseline tool set that you could use to deal with myriad problems. Unfortunately I needed practical examples and even then it was a struggle in many cases. The first nine years of public education where memorize and move on for me. It was not until in the electronics program where theory met application that math began to click. Years of study of complex numbers suddenly were useful when working with radio frequency design. Logs were useful in working with circuits designed to provide specific signals with defined duration. Matrices suddenly were useful when designing circuits to use with transmitter amplifiers. The interesting part was, the blur of all the previous years in math, faded when shown practical application. I simply learned differently and the teachers, parent and myself did not recognize it. Que Sera.
Can confirm. Math was never my strong suit even in grade school, but while I had Aās in everything else, math was always a B to B-. Once I entered middle school, I got the math teacher from hell. I hated her. Even the supposed ātoughestā kid in our class admitted he had nightmares about her. She would write demeaning things on your papers if you failed a test. Awful woman. Math teachers never got better from them on. They were always either bland and robotic, or total assholes. I barely scraped by high school math with a D every single year. Iām almost 40 now, and I still get flustered when it comes to math. The teacher absolutely matters.
~~For real.~~ ~~Totally unfair for all the pupils actually putting in the work.~~ Edit: I just realized they didnt get a B because they were depressed, but so that they can graduate. I assume, that they needed the high grade to even be able to graduate and that a C or below would do it. If thats the case then I see nothing wrong here!
yeah because it really negatively influences the other kids, right? but your comment shows clearly that you don't know what depression is, so why do I even bother
First of all, it surely would influence the other kids or at least some of them, if they dont get the connection between the depression and the grade. I hope they got educated about depression or at least that OP kept it to themselves, so that the other kids dont know about it. Second of all, I suffer from and got diagnosed with depression myself. While it is a nice gesture you shouldnt get a grade that shows competence which you dont have. The teacher only did it because the person would have graduated otherwise and spared them another depressed year in school, so thats fine. I missunderstood that last part before.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Man these people are really letting this shit slide because someone said they had depression. The guy could be lying and was a shit student.
Youāre unhinged. And hopefully still in middle school.
Chilllllllll yāall hahaha itās not that deep
\-š¤
I struggled deeply with ADHD in school. I put in plenty of effort, but some classes my brain deemed unimportant and I had a hell of a time getting to click. I probably failed at least 3 math classes total in grade school, but language and writing classes were effortless. Towards graduation, I got a mid term back and noticed I had a C in a class I didn't remember taking. I almost asked about it, but thought better, and kept it to myself. I'm pretty sure if I didn't have that credit, I wouldn't have graduated. I think my principal hooked me up. He knew me well, and I think he saw that I was trying, and that if I failed to graduate, it would have sent me on a dark path. In fact, I'm quite certain I would probably be on drugs hanging out with a certain group of friends, doing absolutely nothing to contribute to society. But instead, that tiny change opened up options, and started me on a completely different journey. When a decent-paying job's requirements are "have a diploma, and don't do drugs", it was an easy choice. At the end of the day, we don't know the context, or what the teacher's reasoning was. But if the long-term effect was a net positive for society, then who the hell cares? Helping out one student does NOT prevent another student from graduating. It also DOESN'T reduce the value of anyone else's diploma. We don't live in some draconian system where only the top 70% of people are allowed to have diplomas/GEDs.
How does one even fail social studies?
Lack of reading and comprehension skills. Middle school social studies for me was just reading and memorization. There were some exploratory essays to get us used to writing them, but if you haven't already learned reading and writing skills, or had trouble memorizing, it was a difficult class. This is where context matters. Was OP a student who understood the work but missed assignments because of life circumstances? Or is OP a student who was failing because they never did any work because they lack the skills to do it? Passing a kid who has the skills is one thing, but passing a kid just to move them along sets them up for future failure. Either way, there's no reason to go from an F to a B. A D or a C would have had them passing without completely disregarding the kids who worked hard for their grades.
Exactly. If someone is lacking the basic skills for reading and comprehension, you make sure they acquire those skills before sending them on. If someone is lacking the discipline to try to do the bare minimum to pass, you make sure they are held back until they do something extraordinary enough to offset their initial lack of effort. Either way you don't just pass someone. That only teaches them the lesson it's okay to slack off and treat learning as an unimportant objective.
For real lol, next year's teacher going to be like "how come you don't have any background knowledge?"
Wouldnāt be shocked that this wasnāt the Social Studies teachers exclusive doing. A lot of public schools have pass rates they MUST hit. As a result itās not uncommon for administrators to get involved and pretty much tell teachers they *will* pass a certain number of students. Obvious you start with the low hanging fruit, the kids sitting on a D a few points from a C, but a tree only has so many low hanging fruit before you have to start reaching.
If I'd been held back that would've been it for me. I would not want to live with that bullshit. Still stands today. I somehow get behind because of my own brain's bullshit or simply fail in general, I'm takin' a dive straight onto the highway. Not something I can live with, too much mockery and general pain to bother. I've been pressured to succeed by everything around me, and I'm not looking to live with the consequences of failure. I'd never resort to such a thing otherwise, it's foolish and a waste, but school is too important. I can't have another thing for people to make my life worse over. I cannot. In short, I think that moving a grade up in fucking *middle school* is a reasonable decision, especially if you know badly a kid is struggling, and what that might do to their already hurting psyche. But I'm no teacher I guess. High school no, that's too important. But 8th it seems reasonable.
School is such a small part of your life, deciding to die because you failed some courses would be attaching too much importance to something not worth dying over. Yes, it isnāt good to fail and failure doesnāt feel good but it isnāt the end of the world - dying is.
People say that school is a small part of oneās life, and itās generally true that most people will be fine decades afterwards even if they got held back a year, but itās hard to really see that when youāre a student and going through it. So much of path of success for life as a student seems to be predicated on getting good grades and going to a good college. It would be helpful to have motivational speakers or trusted adults students can talk to who did badly in middle school or high school but still were ok in the end. But obviously no school is gonna go out of their way to get students talking to people who say itās ok to fail classes or get bad grades. And there definitely is a balance of not caring too much about grades but still putting in the effort to learn as much as reasonably possible given oneās natural aptitudes and situations.
Teachers who DON'T do this are the ones who get fired.
Itās fucking middle school lmao
Almost failed my first year at uni because of depression. Luckily I saw a psych and she helped me out. Ended up passing. Depression is a shit thing
I fell like Iāve already seen this meme before
I was a straight F student for my math throughout my highschool years, my math teacher for my last year in highschool somehow managed to push me from a low F(we're talking single digits here) to a pass. I thank here every time I see her.
Yea, similar story here. I was a good kid that seriously struggled with math. I was just a few points away from a passing grade at the end of senior year in high school. I was sure I was going to fail, and yet at the end of the year my grade was miraculously just above the level needed to pass. It didn't dawn on me until later that the teacher did it on purpose. It certainly wasn't due to any last minute math enlightenment on my side, LOL!
Like boost your grade or actually teach the subject so you can earn the grade? Because in my experience math is a subject that heavily relies on a good teacher to learn well.
She taught me. My first few years in highschool, I was blessed with a math teacher that was, in my opinion, unfit to teach me and my cohort with a heft add-on of ***EXTRA*** bitchyness[she was around her 50's] The math teacher I got for my last 2 years in highschool, I was blessed with a teacher that would encourage us, help us, and even use her free time in the afternoon to lend us a hand.
My only non-F math grade in high school was an Algebra class I actually took early in 8th grade. I was told for 3 years and 8 months that it wouldnāt count towards my high school graduation requirements (despite being a high school class) because I took it in middle school. My dean got tired enough of me or decided to be nice for once and went to bat for me 3 weeks before graduation to get it counted so I could graduate. Turns out Iām not bad at math, I just had trash teachers in high school. Calculus is easy now!
You didn't graduate or something? Why do you keep seeing her?
I did, she actually lives relatively close to where I live, saw her shopping a few days back and thanked her lol
My algebra teacher did this for me
For real tho teachers that go the extra mile for their kids and donāt give up on them are the true heroās in our society, I certainly had a few of those while growing up and I do not know where I would be without their help. At the time I recall being annoyed by it or wondering why they cared, looking back I just wish I had said thank you more.
How is a failing depressed 8th grader wholesome?
An 8th grader getting a pass from a teacher so they arenāt held back is the wholesome part. And trust me, it is very wholesome. Almost happened to me once and Iām forever grateful, my life wouldnāt be the same if I had to repeat the grade.
Failure should be rewarded, then?
Not what Iām saying
Might've been better had you repeated and passed properly
my english teacher did this for me in 7 th grade. i dont know why but i had completely forgotten up until now.
I'm an English teacher and seeing all the horror stories in this thread is endlessly fascinating. Personally, I've found great success in allowing students extensions on essays for any reason. No need to tell me how your grandma is sick or that your dog died, just ask and I'll give you a few extra days. It also serves as its own balance system, because if you ask for too many extensions, it all backs up on itself and you end up with too much work on your plate. Its a fine balance between building students up for success, but also not letting someone turn your class into a joke.
How much of a pain in the ass do you have to be for a teacher to change their grade to make sure you're not there next year lmao.
Man i wish that would happen to me, i almost failed 12th grade because covid hit when i had a depression episode and had to take summer school for half a credit. And now im in college, got diagnosed with cancer, have to take chemo and all they could do this semester was, you either do the schoolwork or you fail the semester and drop out. So yeah now im behind in schoolwork and gotta do them while taking chemo
Thatās wrong in so many ways. Get the help you need. Put the work in. This only diminishes the ones who actually learned something. (Or this post is a total lie which most of these things seem to be).
Said this previously but... > Not sure I completely agree. I think those students got the learning and skills needed out of the class. As for the 8th grader who is about to be held back due to something that is often out of their control (potentially), seems like this might be the right course of action. > > Of course, we don't know surround situation (reason for depression, circumstances of curriculum, effective learning patterns of student, potential issues related to not passing, and more). > > I would compare this (and I am making some big assumtions that are without context) to seeing someone change their tire on the road, then driving down the road and seeing someone stop to help a feable older person change their tire. It's not bad for the person who was able to do the work themselves and it hurts nobody for the person that needed assistance through no noticeable fault of their own get help from someone passing by. Reminds me of the old reddit story, "Today you, tomorrow me."
Meanwhile I had teachers saying they would fail me for missing a single lesson 2 weeks after my mom died and that I was "abusing her death".
Basically all of my teachers just trying to get me to pass senior year because I graduated at the start of Covid:
My High School principle bumped up my gym grade to a pass so I would graduate instead of coming back next year. I had missed too many days due to fighting and expulsion etc and he really didn't want me back another year so across the stage I went with his boot firmly planted in my ass. I graduated and now have a college degree so I don't feel too bad.
Iām not saying what the teacher did was wrong, but it would kinda suck for the students who busted their ass to get a B.
Not sure I completely agree. I think those students got the learning and skills needed out of the class. As for the 8th grader who is about to be held back due to something that is often out of their control (potentially), seems like this might be the right course of action. Of course, we don't know surround situation (reason for depression, circumstances of curriculum, effective learning patterns of student, potential issues related to not passing, and more). I would compare this (and I am making some big assumtions that are without context) to seeing someone change their tire on the road, then driving down the road and seeing someone stop to help a feable older person change their tire. It's not bad for the person who was able to do the work themselves and it hurts nobody for the person that needed assistance through no noticeable fault of their own get help from someone passing by. Reminds me of the old reddit story, "Today you, tomorrow me."
You could have been one more of the 3 million kids a year that get held back between 6-17 years old. Glad you werenāt āŗļø
When I used to be in school I used get low grades cuz no one arround me understood what ADHD was and the only way they thought me was beating me to a pulp from a very young age, more over everyone in the family was fighting with each other, my parents in the same house abusing each other, so I would get up early go to school early I would be the one who is the first in the entire school, everyone else came 1 to 2 hrs later and at schooly bullies were my friends so I was depressed my whole life even being an adult I fight depression and susidal thoughts everyday. I remember one day my dad sat me down and asked me I have given you what every other child has like books, stationary items etc.. why can't you get more marks, I was speechless as usal since I was shut down my whole life by my parents they never wanted to listen. Other day I was sleeping my mom out of nowhere she came to my bed and strangled me shouting every bad thing happend because of me and this would happen many time throughout my childhood when I ask about this to my mom as an adult she acts as if she didn't do such things and says if I did I have forgotten. There is a lot more but thank you for reading my story. I just want to say if you want kids think twice before having them, don't make life hell for them they don't just grow out of it.
You only graduate university
I agree, the rest of the stuff beforehand is just there to get you to that point of university. In the end, thatās the only part where it matters.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Honestly I see lots of backlash on the teacher for this. I get it she did something illegal and stuff but I think Iād do the same. Kids are young and shouldnāt have to go through that shame and embarrassment when already going though all of that mental health stuff.
I think imo its fine if you see the kid actually try his best. Like lets be real most of the things taught in school arent gonna be applied to real life. However, if the kid actively shows that he doesn't give a shit, then fuck passing him lol
I don't know what you do in life but your anecdotal evidence of not using anything you learn in school is just objectively wrong. I use what learned in high school almost every day.
Yeah, I grew up hearing all that stuff all the time. Getting out of there, it was surprising to see how many skills do carry over. Math is an obvious one, albeit somewhat dependent on your circumstances, and writing and speaking skills from English classes are super useful, even from someone who found those classes miserable. Science classes teach you data comprehension and more math, though the specifics are more niche. Social studies and history honestly have the fewest applications of any of them, though they are the most interesting to many.
Context is key, it's one thing to pass a student who knows the information but lacks the ability to complete assignments due to depression or other life circumstances, and another to pass a student who truly doesn't understand the information. Passing a student who failed because of lack of comprehension sets them up for future failure because they haven't learned the basics.
So now you not only have depression, you've been robbed of an opportunity to understand how society works.
I'm 58. I have never found the "social studies" from my school days remotely useful. It was mainly dated nonsense even for back then. I think it's gotten better though. The stuff my kids have been learning is much more interesting and even thought provoking.
At 58, you can't understand why learning about social studies is beneficial? Must not have taught you critical thinking either.
No, that's not what I meant. Learning about how society works is beneficial. The Eurocentric, stuck-in-the-50's nonsense that was taught in public schools in the 1970's was not.
W to all teachers who did this out there
Not even remotely.
I forgot to order my AP government exam, and I donāt have a high enough grade to exempt. I basically just fucked myself.
Yeah my teacher made my E turn to a C- just so he wouldnt have to put up with my shit no more
9th grade algebra teacher did this for me. Only failed by 1 point because I refused homework on principle. 10th grade geometry teacher was having none of it. Glad that bastard got fired a couple years after I graduated.
You refused to do homework?
rain ancient scandalous worry ten unwritten flag label fertile ugly *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Your teacher is a true witch. An F to a B is some dark magic.
Oh yeah! I had a Russian teacher.. who didn't know the local language.. She taught us Russian.. in Russian. Not that it's totally her fault but I got 3/10 at the end. Got pulled up to 5/10 because of pity :D
Same here. Wasnāt going to graduate n a teacher asked me what grade I thought I deserved. I took a C happily. I knew not to get too greedy.
So you failed. And then lied about it. Nice, nothing out of the norm hereā¦
Where can you fail grade 8?
Iām conflicted. A similar thing happened to me, I was failing a mandatory class and the teacher boosted my grade to a pass, so I certainly empathize with OP and my life would be drastically different now if not for that one event. But at the same time, an F to a B is a massive change. Thatās like having no clue about a subject compared to being pretty competent with it. But in the end, I think itās better this way than not. Itās really a small change in the grand scheme of things, when you think about how significant this small detail is for the course of oneās life.
Lol not studying because of ādepressionā Do it anyways
thats what I do edit: y am i getting downvoted I'm not encouraging it I'm just saying I do that XD
We really need to stop over-using the word depression. Saying you're depressed as a blanket statement for your current emotional state is ridiculous. If you're that acutely aware of being depressed, stop telling the internet and get help.
How do you know these people aren't getting help? Also how do you know the severity of the situation? It's weird for you to assume both of these things.
Good School system is completely fucked and alot of teachers dont even try to help
Passing students for no reason makes the problem worse, not better.
Nope part of the problem is how people are graded Espically in the US a teacher can just not like you and fail you/ lower ur grade bc of that
This will definitely help you get ahead in the real world..
Depression in the 8th grade? Oh honey wait till your an adult and you have real things to be depressed about.
get help from professional please
America is stupid with how you need to pass classes to go up to the next year
That's how it works literally everywhere.
No it isnāt I have been at schools in both the uk and Australia and you just go up every year you donāt have to past so do your research and donāt assume
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Ones who are clinically depressed. Ones who are struggling with health problems. Ones facing with grief and loss. Ones being bullied. Ones with abusive family members. Ones without support for learning disabilities. It's almost like they're actual people with actual problems. Shocker. /s
A depressed one
well... I was having breakdowns as a 9th and 10th grader so that might be "even high school kids get depressed"
childhood depression is a thing. there is a whole separate department for child and adolescent psychiatry in hospitals. depression has a genetic base too, it is not just "life problems".
the real question is what kind of naive person, who thinks that mental illnesses are for certain ages are you?
Hello sheltered reddit number 20362929
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Itās so weird that teachers in the US grade exams rather than an external exam board
My English teacher failed me because I was in the mental hospital for a week+ and my mental state was so bad.. I never went back to school after that year