I know I've mentioned my teacher from this class, Ms. H, before. Let me just reminisce a little bit. I remember, on multiple occasions, she would make me throw my school-issued breakfast in the garbage. "I don't allow food in my classroom." Despite my highly logical and well thought out argument that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and will allow me to think better and, given my current grade, being able to think better is clearly necessary for my success, I still had to dispose of my breakfast. Just think about how unfair that is - I didn't have time for breakfast at my house, so I got breakfast at school - I paid for breakfast at school - and she makes me throw it away. Now I'm under nourished and don't have the brain capacity to understand Calculus, especially when taught by a sub-par teacher. Ms. H also loved to not let me go get a drink of water. Denying me the most essential facet of human life? And she wouldn't deny everyone - just me. I remember one particular instance my mouth was dry. I mean really dry - like the Sahara desert or something. I told Ms. H this and asked if I could go get a drink. "No," was the answer. I asked why and she gave me some lame reason like, "I don't want people in the hallway" or something. I noticed there was a sink in the classroom. "Ms. H, can I get a drink from the sink? That's not in the hallway, and it gives water. Everybody wins." Again, the answer was no. Now, the sequence that followed was when Michelle showed how evil she is. I can almost guarantee that she wasn't even thirsty, but she went up to Ms. H and said, "Ms. H, we have matching pencils! ...Can I get a drink?" Ms. H said yes to that! I wasn't going to stand for that! "Ms. H, are you kidding me right now?! I'm back here dying of thirst and you don't let me get a drink, but Michelle has the same pencil as you, and she gets to get a drink? I bet she's not even thirsty!" Ms. H just laughed. So did Michelle. When Michelle came back, I was still angry. And still thirsty. "Seriously, Joe, you should just get a drink from the sink. Ms. H is busy right now - she won't even notice!" This is what Michelle said to me. She was right - Ms. H was busy. I got up, sneakily, and went over to the sink. I turned on the cold water and started to drink from the faucet when I hear, "Pssst! Ms. H! Look what Joe's doing!" You know who said that? You know who ratted me out? Michelle. Yep. She planned that! I got in trouble for trying to survive. Michelle got a drink and the satisfaction of seeing me get in trouble. It was ridiculous. That's not all, though. Michelle got to keep a plant in Ms. H's classroom. I mean, seriously? A plant? You know what I got to keep in Ms. H's classroom? My D letter grade, and not my breakfast. Michelle gets a plant, and I get to throw my breakfast in the garbage. I don't...I can't even...
Not all memories are bad, though. One time, Ms. H wasn't in class, and Damian (my friend and college roommate my freshman year) texted her. I have no idea how, when, or why he got her number, but he did. He, Mark, Freddy (more friends), and I were wondering where something was. Or something. I don't remember. Anyway, Damian texted Ms. H, and she replied with, "No texting in class! ;)" Yes, that is a winking face. An important note: Damian had this really creepy pretend-crush (sometimes I was pretty sure it wasn't pretend) on Ms. H, and everybody in the class knew it. Ms. H favored Damian because she didn't know it may have been pretend. So, Damian got the winky-face text and showed everyone in the class. When Ms. H came back, she never heard the end of it, and it was fantastic. One day we were doing something with magazines where we had to cut them up and glue something...I don't remember. I have no idea how it pertained to Calculus, but someone found an article about how the winky-face is very flirty/sexual and gave it to Ms. H. Phenomenal.
That's one good memory. The vast majority are bad memories, such as the AP Calc exam. I know for a fact that I've written about this before, but for the sake of relevance, I will revisit this subject. The AP exam was to determine whether or not I had wasted the year taking AP Calc by giving me college credits if I scored at least a 3 out of 5 (or 6, maybe - I don't really know. I focused mainly on the 3 because I knew whatever was the potential high score was out of my range). The weeks prior to the exam, all we did in class was review. Or, in my case, give one last attempt to learn the material. I grasped a couple of concepts, and I felt mildly confident that I could, with a lot of luck, manage to get a 3. "Mildly" as in "35%." Well, the day of the AP exam came, and I had no chance. I left at least half of the multiple choice questions blank (you're supposed to leave them blank if you don't know because you lose points for wrong answers, but lose nothing (and gain nothing) from leaving answers blank). Then came the free response section. I think I answered half of the questions in the calculator free response section, and I left all of the answers blank in the no calculator free response section. Instead, on the last question, I wrote this letter:
To whom it may concern,
As you may have noticed, I have not answered, attempted to answer, or even written anything down for any of the questions in this section. But do not think that I didn't try, or don't care, because I did, and for the most part, do. To be honest, I have no idea how to do any part of any of the questions in the no calculator free response section of the 2009 AP Calculus AB Exam. I do not even know how to pretend to know how to answer these questions. Normally, in a situation like the one I find myself in now, I would make up work, or B.S. my way through this, but I don't know what work for these problems is supposed to look like. In all honesty, I don't even consider Calculus to be a form of Mathematics. It deals too much with symbols and letters (aka variables), even more so than numbers in some cases, to be considered math.
While writing this, I decided to go back to question number 4 and label my nonexistent answers, because on the problems we did in preparation for this exam, I got points for that. Unfortunately, that is the closest I can come to giving an answer to any of the questions in this section. I consider this a failure of epic proportions. Please do not think less of me for it.
-Joe Russell (Calculus Master)
That is verbatim what I wrote. It took me about ten minutes to realize I wouldn't be able to answer any of the questions, and that gave me about 50 minutes to write that letter. So I wrote it, and then wrote it on a scrap piece of paper so I could keep it. I got a 1 on that exam, and no response to my letter, which was a pretty fitting end to that class.
Also, I just want to say that the reason I did so poorly in this class was not lack of effort. I mean, it kind of was. I started out with pretty decent effort, but Ms. H is a bad teacher. Anyone who has had her before will vouch for that. Sitting through a lecture in which she tried to teach a concept was just sad. She didn't know what she was talking about and, consequently, I had no idea how to do the homework, which lead to poor scores on quizzes and tests. She'd say, "Well, if you don't understand it, come in before class or after school and I'll help you." Firstly, there's no way she could've helped. She didn't know the material, either. Secondly, I tried to come in before school multiple times and was not helped. After doing poorly on the first few quizzes and tests, I realized that no matter how much effort I put forth, I was not going to succeed, which is simultaneously the most depressing and the most relieving feeling one will ever experience. So I decided to stop giving my best effort. My grade pretty much stayed the same, and I wasn't really sad about it anymore. That's about as close to a win-win as you can get with Calculus.
Also, I just want to say that the reason I did so poorly in this class was not lack of effort. I mean, it kind of was. I started out with pretty decent effort, but Ms. H is a bad teacher. Anyone who has had her before will vouch for that. Sitting through a lecture in which she tried to teach a concept was just sad. She didn't know what she was talking about and, consequently, I had no idea how to do the homework, which lead to poor scores on quizzes and tests. She'd say, "Well, if you don't understand it, come in before class or after school and I'll help you." Firstly, there's no way she could've helped. She didn't know the material, either. Secondly, I tried to come in before school multiple times and was not helped. After doing poorly on the first few quizzes and tests, I realized that no matter how much effort I put forth, I was not going to succeed, which is simultaneously the most depressing and the most relieving feeling one will ever experience. So I decided to stop giving my best effort. My grade pretty much stayed the same, and I wasn't really sad about it anymore. That's about as close to a win-win as you can get with Calculus.
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