i thought i would never see these grades again...

I am terrible at math. TERRIBLE. And science. And anything left brain oriented, really. Math and science teachers in high school liked me because I was polite, but were generally irritated by my inability to understand concepts. Pre-Calculus was a nightmare and even Nutrition Science, a blow-off Senior year elective, required lab experiments and reports that effected more academic stress than Advanced Placement English Literature with T.B.

It is exam week at the school where I tutor and teach, and last week I tried to help one of my students study for her Pre-Calculus mid-term. She had this big packet with graphs, equations, logarithms, strange runes and cuneiform I swear I have never seen before. We sort of plodded through, consulting Google for help several times, all the while me spouting out fragments of apologies for my great inability to be any help AT ALL.

"Do you have to take math in college?" she asked me suddenly. She wants to be a writer. That's my girl.

I frowned. "Yes. Well, I did. One course. I took Elementary Statistics with S.G. It was a requirement to take one Math course, and Elem. Stat. was reported to be the easiest."

I continued to tell her how I not only took this course, but I came darn close to failing. I used to drag my butt out of bed freshman year, when I still thought I should major in Communications (BAH! That's a laugh) to traipse up the hill by the lake and over to the math building, where I would stop at the vending machine for strawberry pop tarts and then rest my head in my hands, elbows on the desk, and LITERALLY hold my eyelids open with my fingers. Shamelessly.

It is a gift of grace that I passed that course, and in relating this story to C. I decided to e-mail S.G., five years later.

Here is the e-mail I sent:


Dear Mr. G., (Insert: I obviously started out wrong by not referring to him as "Professor Extrordinaire")

You won't remember me, but I took your 8 am Tuesday/Thursday Elementary Statistics course my sophomore year at JMU, in 2005. I struggled MASSIVELY in that course, recieved test scores of 27% and 48% or something awful like that. I was an English Literature major with a concentration in Creative Writing and it was such a struggle for me to understand math.

You passed me in that course with a "C," a grade that I probably (or most definitely) did not deserve. I wanted to say THANK YOU for having grace on me. I am a writer now, working on my second fictional novel, and I most certainly NEVER use math. I also work at a high school teaching and tutoring mostly English and Writing, but occasionally a student will ask for help studying for a Pre-Calc test or something, and I tell them about you and your class and how I bawled when I got that 27%.

It's all in the past, but I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciated you, what a great teacher you are in spite of my idiocy, and that I'll never forget you-

Have a great holiday,

Ginny Evans. (used to be Ginny Ficker)




Later, I recieved this reply:




Hi Ginny,
Thanks for your kind message. Using ecampus I was able to find your photo, although this service for showing photos was not available back in 2004. I almost vaguely recognize you, after seeing your photo. I retrieved your old grades, and your final score was a 72.2%. You had only one absence (9/23/2004), and I slightly bumped your grade up to a 72.5%, which rounds to a 73%, a "C"! Below are your grades, which may remind you of "auto-grade," which I still use in addition to "auto-attendance" and (my new one) "auto-cell-phone" (for keeping records of students who brandish a cell phone during class).


HW1 Ex1 HW2 Ex2 HW3 HW4 Ex3 HW5 HW6 FEx
Maximum 10 100 10 100 10 10 100 10 10 100
Ficker Ginny 7 80 9 80 10 9 46 10 10 69


I looks as though your one bad grade was a 46, but I've seen much worse, and I'm sure you have too. It was good hearing from you, and I hope everything is going well for you.


Best wishes,
S.G.

It made my day. First of all, the fact that he found my entire profile in his gradebook catacombs is historic. Furthermore, the fact that he RECOGNIZED the fuzzy picture is even more hilarious. Yes, probably because I was the kook holding my eyes open. (Sorry, S.G.) Then, add on this sweet, encouraging word. Made me want to e-mail every teacher I have ever known and tell them to follow my blog! Look me up on facebook! LET'S BE FRIENDS NOW THAT I'M AN "ADULT!"


If you have a similar story, I recommend e-mailing. You never know what you're gonna get....