The morning of November 9, 2010 I got my policy paper back with an A grade, and I was so excited. At 4pm I went to my Human Behavior class. I had finished my HB paper on time, which was the October 24 at midnight. I think I did outstanding job in the HB paper. I believe I will get good grades. Anyways, with these thoughts I went to the class, and got my graded paper. I noticed I got 88 which is B+...WTF???? How come 88? What did I do so wrong that I lost 12 points, no way, must be some mistake!!!
I looked at my answers tried to match them with the given grades and didn’t find any HUGE mistake, not worth losing 12 points. Well, it didn’t make any sense. I still kept cool and kept trying to find my mistakes worth 12 points. Suddenly a classmate pointed out that professor has crossed page 11 and have taken 5 points out. We all asked professor and he told that we were supposed to finish the whole paper in 11 pages and whoever wrote extra page, he took their points out. When we informed him that the extra page is not page 12, it is page 12 with the cover page...and without the cover page we were in the given page limit of 11 pages. He apologized and promised to give everyone's points back. I felt relief because I will get 5 points back which means 93 points and it is an A+. Phew!
After giving points back to everyone, he came to me and wrote my points back on my paper. I was glad to be in A+ with 93. I said thank you to professor and asked him why did he took 7 points out from my one of the questions, he went back to my paper and opened the question where he had taken 7 points out, and marked 12 points instead of 7. I was confused and looked at him with questions in my eyes. He looked at me as if nothing has happened and said, you don't deserve 93, so I took your points out. This means I was back to 88, which is B+. What just happened? What is going on? I was lost and confused. I asked him the reason for taking my recently given points back and he said I don't deserve these points because he was already very generous but he doesn't need to be generous anymore...I was like what the hell!!!!
I tried to speak with him but he refused. I even told him to give me only 2 or 3 points which will put me in to A, and I will be okay with an A instead of an A+ which I DO deserve, but he didn’t listen and walked away. I was standing by my seat, lost, confused and frustrated…I still didn’t understand what had happened and how it all happened. Anyone who knows me could have looked at me and figure out that something was wrong with me…Yes, something was wrong with me, I was mad, I was furious, I was frustrated and I was lost with the happenings happening around me...I tried to speak with my professor again, but he said I am not behaving “appropriately” and I didn’t get that part in him either. He just told me that I didn’t deserve the grades I deserved and now I wasn’t being appropriate? WHAT THE HECK!!!
With rage and anger, I sat still in the class so he doesn’t take any notice of me, so he do not cut any more points from my paper, so I don’t fail the class. Of course he is THE PROFESSOR, and he has the power…He surely did and he showed it off very well in front of everyone in the class, but so quietly that no one notices it. I am not sure how I finished the rest of the class but I still finished until the end and finished as if I wasn’t there... :-(.
I was lost, confused and frustrated, and wanted to cry out loud; I wanted to scream that it is unfair...I tried to think of everything which could have make me lose my points but I couldn’t find any reason. I knew I didn’t do the paper this awful not this terrible that I get B+ and on top of that my professor said I don’t deserve the A...NO F***ING WAY!!! After paying so close attention to the reasons, I could think of just one and only thing and that made me feel lower than what I was feeling. Oh so sad…I believe my professor didn’t want me to get an A grade. He purposely chose to give me 88 points and not 90 or above, and when I got 93 after we pointed out his mistake, then he took those 5 points again so I don’t reach to 93 which is an A+... Oh My God, so he was trying to be unfair to me? Or was he mad at me because I always speak blunt in the class without sugar coating anything. Or was he being discriminative? Or what??? What? I don't know what...
I was ready to go to the Dean and put my issue out and fight for justice...I was angry to the extend but I didn’t go to the dean, because I knew who has the power here and I knew finals are in two weeks...I called my friends, told my roommate and tried to calm myself down that night but it was a hard night and I couldn’t sleep well...I couldn’t, not even after I had alcohol…I didn’t sleep. I wrote an email to the professor who I thought would understand me and asked him if I can meet with him to discuss something related to academic…and I did meet my professor two days later…Will write that later!
The practical sad truth is that I am studying social work because I believe in social justice, and I want to fight for the rights of others as well as my rights in this country and this world...but what I am supposed to do when I am treated unfairly in the school of Social Work? And when I am not given the response for my question of not given equal rights? I don’t want to sit quietly but I am concerned for my success in the school…The dilemma started…and guess never ended, nope not until now!!!
More later!
Trojan
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