Story 2

         Once upon a time, there was a child who was not very good at math. In fact, his math skills were so poor that he was consistently getting F-graded work over a long period of time. The student knew, however, that the teachers at the school didn’t report bad grades to parents, and only brought it up for final exams and report cards. The student thought that as long as he could ace the two tests before his final exam, his teacher would consider his math skills improved enough to leave the subject alone.

            However, this student had forgotten the one academic report policy the school did have: mid-trimester reports. A mid-trimester report was a report sent home to parents about a student’s grade, as well as any other comments the teacher might have. Usually, as long as a student is keeping a B- average or higher in a class, the teachers don’t consider it an issue and doesn’t send one. However, this particular student was earning a much lower grade that trimester. He knew his parents would kill him if they saw that grade, and he didn’t want that to happen. So he began to devise a plan.

            The student estimated that the mid-trimester grade for the end of the year would come in some day in March. Furthermore, he remembered that in the 7^th grade, he didn’t receive his first day orientation forms until roughly four days after his peers. He knew some of his friends had also struggled in their third trimester courses, and so he waited for them to talk about their reports and consequent punishments. Once they came in complaining about the grades, he knew that it would only be a matter of time before his would be arriving.

            So the day finally came that his friends received their mid-trimester reports. The student then decided to take a rather large chance and fake sick one day, in hopes his estimates would be correct and that he could intercept the mail before his parents got home from their jobs. Four days after his friends got their reports, he went up to his parents’ room at roughly midnight, telling them he had just been throwing up in the toilet. This was, of course, completely untrue, but he was able to portray sickness convincingly enough that his parents allowed him to stay home.

            Once the mail arrived at noon, he was ecstatic to find that his calculations had been correct, and that the reports had come in. He then needed to figure out the best way to dispose of the letter. At first, he cut up the letter into very small pieces, thinking that his parents wouldn’t rifle through the garbage. But, just to play it safe, he then flushed those pieces down the toilet. The student felt very pleased, and thought that his troubles would be over.

            Unfortunately, this was not the case. The teacher in question must have asked to arrange a meeting with this student’s parents, for he called the parents later, asking about how they wanted to approach the situation. The parents were horrified to hear that their son had done this, and the teacher was appalled that the student would have such little regard for his academic future. The student was then forced to meet with this teacher every day for two weeks before the final exam, which he then barely passed. So while the student may have thought he was incredibly clever, he turned out to be even dumber then what his math grades communicated.