Another not fun story about correcting an injustice. I had a horrible teacher in high school who taught both chemistry and physics – badly. I even wrote a poem for an English assignment mocking his mannerisms and his face. My English teacher was curious enough about my poem to ask me who it was but I decided not to get her involved by confirming that it was him.

Anyway, every day in the chemistry or physics class was a joke, with him not teaching anything and playing around with the other students in the class like it was some kind of comedy show. So when the time for Advanced Placement tests for college credit came around, I decided that I wouldn’t take either the AP tests for chemistry or physics because I knew I would score poorly due to not learning a thing.

I think he asked for a show of hands in class as to who was taking the tests and of course I didn’t raise my hand. When he questioned me and I told him I didn’t think I was prepared enough, this idiot made some generalized threat of consequences to me if I didn’t take the test – in front of the whole class. Probably something like “well, you’d better take the test if you know what’s good for you”. The whole class went “Ooooo,” as if this was some kind of sick burn. I couldn’t believe how completely stupid my classmates were – being complete toadies over the idiot teacher like he was some kind of comedic genius. But of course, my teacher was the bigger idiot.

Looking back, maybe prior classes had given them a heads up or they just understood that the class was in fact a joke and that as long as you went along with it, you would get an easy A. But the time for an easy A was past for me. I didn’t know what to do so I ended up asking my history teacher who I fully respected for his advice. He was kind enough to get involved and tell me to go to the principal if I felt uncomfortable but unfortunately, I was too stupid myself to not mention my history teacher when I did go to the principal.

The principal was receptive to my concerns about taking the tests and reassured me that it was fine for me not to take them. So when word got back to the idiot teacher, he acted like it was all just a misunderstanding and addressed me in class saying, “well, if you felt uncomfortable about taking the tests, you should have just told me”. I didn’t bother responding and just rolled my eyes.

I ended up getting Bs in the classes. Probably the lowest grades that he could probably get away with giving me without me complaining about retaliatory grading, but I was just glad to be done with him. I think my history teacher kept his distance from me because I had probably created some conflict between them all but hopefully it wasn’t too bad.

Anyway, it’s kind of sad that this is a story about a goal of not doing something, rather than achieving a goal. But that’s all that comes to mind. That might be it for high school.

Another trend – it seems like one of my hobbies of going up against authority in these stories…. Maybe that’s the “fun” part lol.