My ridiculous history exam

The BBQ Pit
1

Much to my great joy, school will be over for the year tomorrow after my last 2 exams. However, I first have to get through those tests.

English, I’m not worried about. The problem, however, is VA/US History. It’s not that I don’t know the subject well, because I do. The problem is that the teacher is so incredibly ditzy (she would get along GREAT with Jessica Simpson) that she is often unable to get across what she’s asking.

For example, awhile ago she gave us a list of 154 terms to define. A good portion of these terms did not even exist. Although I was able to figure some of them out (i.e., when she said “bloody Kansas” she meant “bleeding Kansas,”) others were completely mind boggling. So I’m worried that there’s going to be the same problems of comprehension.

Now, today, I found out that our exam will be making a colored, illustrated outline. (Did I mention we’d been coloring in class ever since we got this new teacher? I feel like I’m back in preschool.) Also, even better, we aren’t even allowed to use stick figures. Although I’m sure this will be fairly easy for the artistic type, I do NOT fall into that category. I can’t draw anything recognizable.

I don’t have a problem with the outline, so long as I can figure out what the hell the terms she gives us really are, but this whole illustrated idea is way over the top. This is not an art class. Making us draw pretty little pictures does not in any way test our knowledge of the subject, and this knowledge can be determined from the rest of the outline, anyway. And if we have to color, wouldn’t it have been nice to give us a bit of a warning so we could at least bring something to color with?

If my grade suffers because of lack of artisic skill, I am going to be very pissed off. Who the fuck could possibly even think that this could possibly be a good idea, anyway? :mad:

Since I only swore 2 times in the above complaint, let me throw in a few more expletives to make this pit-worthy:
damn
shit
fuck
bitch
cunt

2

Such language, young lady! :wink:

Honestly, school sucks, and here’s what I wish someone had told me when I was in high school.

No, it’s not fair. And no, teachers don’t have any right to make it not fair. And no, you shouldn’t just put up with it.

You’ve got to choose your battles, sure, and maybe this bint isn’t worth fighting: maybe you’ll be happier to get her out of your life once and for all. But some battles ARE worth fighting, and there’s no better time than high school to figure out the difference.

Good luck, and look forward to the day you’re out of there. The corporate world may have as many asshole bosses as high school has asshole teachers, but in the corporate world, you can always get a new job. Look forward to your graduation!

Daniel

3

If you get a good grade, it’s probably not worth worryin about. I mean, what could you do? But if you get a bad grade, raise holy hell. There’s nothing worse than the teacher who decides that, since he was forced into whatever box he feels he was forced into in school, he’s gonna free the students’ creativity by forcing them into whatever box fits him. These people are like this because they don’t have the insight to recognize that not everyone is the same as they are, and as much as he’d like to draw little pictures of the United States’ westward expansion, and make little cartoons to explain manifest destiny, a lot of us simply do not have the capacity to create pictures that would pass muster. (God knows I couldn’t. Give me an essay test, though, and I’m waxing poetic with the best of 'em.)

It’s great that there’s emphasis on different learning styles, and harnessing creativity (when it doesn’t take shape in kindergarten-level art projects. My writing is a wonderful outlet for my creativity, thank you!) but when it’s just silly, reactionary contrarianism, it’s not gonna create any positive change.

If you have serious concerns, you probably should talk with the woman, outside class time - explain clearly why you probably won’t be able to do as well as you could at this test. Sound rational and calm - don’t say that you can’t draw (because idiots like this see these statements as signals that they need to release your inner creativity, which they can’t see unless you express it in exactly the same way they do.) Tell her with the fluffiest, most psychobabbly language you can that you’re not right-brained, that you aren’t a visual thinker, whatever. And if that doesn’t work, see if you can’t get your parents to yell at the principal. This is grade school, right? I’ve never seen a college professor quite this mush-brained. Better professors, better pot, and more booze - that’s really why college is great.

4

US/VA History teacher (thereby implying that you live in Virginia)? Giving grades for coloring in class? Inability to effectively communicate? Strange tendency to alter terms to suit her own bizzarre definitions?

You don’t by any chance have Mrs. Ross, do you?

5

Dare I ask what “bleeding Kansas” means?

6

No, it’s not internal bleeding of the U.S…

7

Just remember…

The Battle of the Ironclads was fought between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia.
NOT the Monitor and the Merrimac.

8

I think it would be cool to have a course called Ridiculous History.

Just a course about the stupidest things people have done throughout time.

9

Also, it was the First and Second Battles of Manassas.

Sorry, that’s all I can come up with off the top of my head for the Confederate names of battles.

10

Sharpsburg – Antietim
Pittsburg Landing – Shiloh

11

Or 1st and 2nd Bull run as the North called it.
The South named their battles and armies after local towns and states
eg The Army of Northern Virgina And the battle of Manassas

The North named them by bodies of water such the army of the Potomac and Bull Run (run being a river)

12

The North won. :wink:

13

So… how’d it go?

14

And the Battle of Stones River was in what state?

Tennessee…

That’s in the South.