I
may have mentioned that I was an irresponsible slacker who cut class
and didn't repent. If for some reason I omitted these facts then that
is another thing I screwed up. I had known the whole time that
wrestling, debate and my seat on student council were at stake but I
felt like I could just slack off and then at the last possible moment
swing in and repair the damage in a flurry of charm and hard work
like I had done hundreds of times before in my educational career. It
would be touch and go but I would make it work. This time though I
had burned the bridge past the tipping point and I was unable to
rebuild. The first day back from the holiday break I ran into my
wrestling coach who asked if I would be at practice after school. I
told him I would be, he said he hadn't been sure because he just
picked up a list of ineligible students and I was on it. My stomach
twiddled and rippled as my body went cold and my mind raced. He told
me he hoped that I could work it out because I had shown so much
promise and had improved so much in such a little time that he hoped
I would be ready to participate in the regional tournament in a
couple of weeks. I told him I would get it straitened out and I went
to my locker and then right back to the office to see what the story
was. I knew that I had received several 'U' for unsatisfactory grades
in citizenship based on my roughly 50% attendance in school. Those
were no big deal I could work them off in detention or by paying a
fine. What I hadn't counted on was that I was on the ineligible list
because I had failed a class. I wasn't aware that I had failed AP
English because I had turned in every essay on time and then the
essays as a packet at the end of the semester. The grade should have
been a 'B' or so. I went to talk to my AP English teacher who didn't
like me much because we had argued about her qualifications to render
judgment about what symbolism in stories represented. I went to her
class that was about to start and I asked why she had failed me and
she said it was because I had not turned in my essays at the end of
term. I absolutely had. What was worse was that she had individually
graded each essay and then required the whole portfolio to be
submitted at once at midterm and then at the end of the semester to
receive our final grades. I pointed out that I had turned it in and
she said she hadn’t seen it. I reminded her of all of the
individual essays of mine she had graded and she said that without
the portfolio she couldn't remember and she had given me a 0 and now
it was too late to find it and turn it in because the semester was
over. I knew she had the authority to change the grade because the
vice-principle had just told me that was the only way I could be
reinstated to all of my extra curricular activities. She told me I
had to leave because class was starting and she needed to teach. I
ran back to my ocker and looked through my stuff and found the essays
in the portfolio and felt relived that it had her mark on every essay
and on the outside of the folder so I would just show her that and
she would fix it up. I went into her class as she was heading out for
lunch and showed her the folder with the finished and graded
assignments that would save my bacon and she said that I should have
turned it in on time that now it was too late and unfair to give me a
passing grade for late work. I lost my cool and yelled at her that it
was not late work that she must have made a mistake that she had
written scores on every on time essay in the bunch and that I had
received the portfolio back from her. She said she never received it
and walked out. I sat down in her classroom and cried because she
could save me, and justly so the work was there and graded by her,
but she wanted to watch me burn. I cried at all my lost opportunities
and I cried because if I would have come to class and towed the line
and followed up she would have been left without recourse and I would
have passed and would still do morning announcements, and wrestled,
and debated, and counseled the students. I wallowed there in self
pity and blind teenage angst hating that woman more than I had ever
hated anyone. I waited for a lull in hallway traffic and because her
classroom was right near an outside entrance I made my way undetected
out the doors and around the corner and snuck to my car without
anyone mentioning my tear stained and puffy face.
