Zach and I started doing our adult school assignments with one mentality. We knew we didn't have to try too hard to get full credit on our assignments. Our motto in there was pretty much "This is Garfield Adult School... Not Rocha's advanced comp class!!"
I didn't forget my mentality, but I didn't think I would actually have to dumb down my assignments in order to make it believable that I'm a high school student.
(for those of you non Garfield students... Adult School is just and after school thing where you can make up classes you've failed and stuff. It's called that b/c it was originally intended for adults who didn't go to or finish high school, but now anyone can sign up)
Anyway... something really stupid happened today, and I'd like to share the story:
So I turned in an essay for adult school today and had it checked by the teachers, or whatever they like to call themselves. (They seem more like chaperons than anything.) I go up to one of the ladies and ask if I can have my grade. Then she tells me that she had talked with another teacher, they both read my essay, and decided that I didn't write it. I was like WTF kind of bullshit is that? They said it was too advanced for high school and wouldn't believe I wrote it no matter what I'd tell them. The smartass lady was all like "Well, then... if you're such a good writer... you wouldn't have failed that class and you wouldn't have to be making it up right now." Then I let them know how Mr. Rocha (the teacher whose class I was making up) is. I told them he was a hard grader, and that the class was actually Advanced Composition, not regular Expository Composition. They still thought it was bullshit. (Seriously, why would I make that up?) That one smartass lady even asked me what some of the words in my essay meant ("derogatory" being the hardest one) to prove that there wasn't anything in it that I didn't know. Then they told me to consult the assistant principal of Adult School to see what could be done. So I went to his office and he came down to the classroom like twenty minutes later. He read over my essay and said "You're right. This is too advanced for a high school student." I couldn't believe it. Then he asked for other samples of my writing, which they didn't have at hand, so he told me to write out my complaint in my normal writing style. This is what I wrote:
I am writing this right now because apparently the instructors and assistant principal of the Garfield Community Adult School refused to believe that I wrote an essay I had turned in. They claim that it is too advanced for a high school student. I beg to differ. Maybe it's too advanced for your average GARFIELD student. I find it rather pathetic that a great number of them cannot even pass the CAHSEE. It's pretty much the easiest standard test they'll ever take (no wonder our API score is so low!). I find it pretty ironic how they think my essay is too advanced, yet one of my teachers did not let me join his AP class in 11th grade because he didn't think I was up for the challenge. On the other hand, this is also a positive thing because I'm doing a research paper for my English class on discrimination within the school system. Real-life experience will definitely help me prove my thesis!
The two ladies looked at it, and so did the assistant principal. They were still skeptical about it, but ten minutes later decided to give me credit for the essay.
The funny thing is... they thought my essay was brilliant (and I DID write it). But..... I didn't even read the story that the promt was written out of. hahaha.
Seriously, why couldn't they just give me full credit when they read it the first time? I think it's bullshit that I had to go through that whole process to get credit for my assignment. What does that say about Garfield High School and its students?
No comments:
Post a Comment