She cost me my grade and now I’m being called dramatic for not talking to her.
Throwaway bc dont normally use Reddit but I do love watching Charlotte on YT. This might not be that big of a deal but I definitely feel like im being made out to be the villain in this story.
I (17f) am in high school. I’m doing my last year then I’m off to uni. About 2-3 weeks ago, our teacher gave us an english assignment. It had to be done over the weekend and submitted first thing on Monday as she has the first two lessons that day (as she does every Monday). As every teenager does, I procrastinated but completed it on Sunday night and was ready to had it in the next morning.
The assignment was typical English stuff where we had to write an essay and answer a few questions on the book we were reading in class and one other transactional texts. For the transactional text, we had to write two diary entries that would count for 20 marks out of the 100 mark assignment.
Now the instructions for the diary entry were unclear— they didn’t have a word count. The copies of the question paper we got were badly printed and most of the questions were faded. Our class president asked the teacher for a clearer version to which he sent on the English class group chat. But the word count on the diary entry was still not communicated so I cad to ask CP what it was.
He told me it was between 80-100 words. Nothing else.
So I went and wrote the assignment and had 100 for each entry, making the entries 200 words combined. The teacher hadn’t said anything to anyone atp— she’d only been communicating with CP.
When we have to submit the assignments the following day, a friend of mine (let’s call her Simone, 17f), was discussing some of the complicated questions with our other friend, “Lisa”. I pitched in the conversation and told them how I answered the last question to which Simone asked to see my answer sheet so she can compare answers. (its very common in my country to write assignments on lined paper rather than doing them digitally and uploading them online— im not sure how other countries do it but yeah)
While she was holding my sheet, she stopped talking and looked up at me and said “your diary entries are wrong”. And I’m like what? She continues to tell me that the word count was supposed to he 80-100 for both entries combined. She then told me to rewrite the whole thing.
I told her I’m not going to do that because the teacher would enter in less than two minutes and start the lesson. I continues talking to Lisa about some other suff while Simone compared answers. When i looked back at her, she was holding a pen and was staring at Lisa and said “blink twice if I should scratch everything on her sheet and have her restart this whole thing”. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and just stared at her for a moment before asking her to hand back my page.
Lisa told her she doesn’t wanna be part of whatever Simone was planning and that she should just let it go. While she still had the paper in her hand, I tried grabbing it while telling her that its too much work to restart and I’m not gonna put myself through that after I already did last night. She had a tight grip on the page and I was afraid that if I yanked at it any more than I already was, the oage was gonna tip and then I’d really have to refo the whole thing.
While I kept on begging her to hand it back, I looked up to find that the teacher was already there. When I looked back at Simone, she had already drawn two big lined across the first entry and was doing the same to the second entry.
She then handed it back with a smile and says “here. Now redo the whole thing so you can get good grades”.
At that moment, I felt defeated. I wasn’t angry or anything, I just felt overwhelmingly exhausted and had no fight in me whatsoever.
I just looked at her for a long moment before I turned away. Lisa and I sit at the very front of the class with Simone and our other friend sitting right behind us.
The teacher asked for her assignments so she can start grading them immediately while we continue reading the book we were reading in class.
I turned to Simone and told her she has to rewrite the scratched out entries before the end of the lesson so she can continue grading them.
Simone just rolled her eyes and said “FINE. I’ll rewrite it exactly as you have but not fix it for you” (as in she’ll rewrite the entries the exact way I wrote them and not reduce them to fit the word count) i was like that’s fine but do it before the lesson ends because she wont want to take it after class is over.
Halfway through the lesson, the teacher says that she’s only received about 15 answer sheets from the whole class and that everyone who has not submitted should keep their work because she will no longer be accepting them.
I quickly panicked and went up to her and told her why I haven’t submitted. I told her that a classmate of mine has tampered with my work and that they’re rewriting it right now so she’ll have it soon. She looked shocked and asked who did it and why. I told her that who did it no longer matters (respectfully ofc) and asked her to please accept my paper when I hand it in.
She asked to see the ruined copy so I handed it do her. I asked her to please grade the ruined copy while I rewrite it and give her the new one. Simone was already done rewriting the parts she’d scratched out but she has an ugly handwriting and I didnt want that going on my school file in the off chance that the department of education would choose my file to moderate. Plus I wanted the work in my handwriting so it doesn’t look like I don’t do my own school work.
The teacher said she’d accept the paper if I told her who messes up my work. she looked concerned and ready to pass out detention slips. When I told her it was Simone, her expression went from concerned to angry. Not angry at Simone, but angry at me.
Well, I probably should’ve mentioned is that Simone is an absolute teacher’s pet. She pretends not to be but she totally is. Most if us don’t care because it doesn’t affect us and she’s not the annoying kind. That, and she’s also the top student in the whole school. She singlehandedly got all 90s for all our subjects last semester. She’s always first in everything. Every test, every assignment, and everything that in between. She even got a 98 for her AP maths class. Because of that, all her teachers ADORE her. And so do most of our classmates.
The teacher asked why on earth Simone would do such a thing that’s so unlike her. I told her that she thought my work was incorrect and took it upon herself to scratch it out and have me redo it.
She stared at me for an uncomfortable moment before handed me back my work and told me to sit down and continue reading the book. I asked her multiple times which she preferred— having me rewrite the work while she grades the ruined paper, or have me rewrite it and hand it in after school. She said she no longer wants my work and that I should leave her desk because my work was wrong and I shouldve done the right thing if I wanted to avoid this situation.
That’s when I started feeling something other than irritation at Simone. I felt hurt. Humiliated. Stupid.
At the end of the lesson, Simone and the others went up to the teacher and asked her to accept their work while the rest of us left for math. I immediately texted my mom what happened and asked for her advice because the teacher didn’t want my work anymore. She went in on me and told me that it was my fault that Simone ruined my work because she always told me to keep to myself and never do anything that would put me in situations like this. she told me to report this to another teacher so it would at least be on record and that she couldnt do anything about this. That wasn’t the exact advice I was looking for nor was it the support that I needed. I didn’t expect this from her so I just chose to forget about her until the end of the day.
By lunch time, I’d finished rewriting the ruined part of my work and needed to find a stapler to connect the new diary entry page with the page with the essay and other questions. Lisa accompanied me to the first teacher’s staffroom where my SexEd teachers were and asked for a stapler. Our homeroom teacher shares the same staffroom and she asked if I’d submitted the English yet, but when I said no, the two teachers asked why and I told them what happened. That’s when I started balling my eyes out. (SexEd teacher is aslo my mom’s cousin so she immediately comforted me). I quickly left because I didn’t want to cry any more than I already have in the past in that office, plus I still needed a stapler.
I went to the Economics teacher (who my mom said I should report this to) and told her what happened while she got me the stapler. I was still crying unstoppably atp. She told me that I did the right thing by rewriting the work because I had no choice but to beg the english teacher to take my work. So I wouldn’t fail the assignment.
Somewhere in my search for a stapler, one of my classmates said that the ET (english teacher) said she would be accepting our papers but only after 4pm… school dismissed at 2pm. She wanted is to stay behind two hrs after school just so we couldn’t fail her class.
After, I went to ET’s staffroom where she was conversing with other teachers. I went up to her and asked her to accept my work. She looked at me with those uncaring eyes and yelled at me in front of all the other teachers. She said that I’m being disrespectful towards her, I’m demanding special treatment because I expect her to dismiss her rules for me and accept my paper before 4pm. I explained to her, as I started to tear up again, that I always hand in my work on time and this is a first for me. I LITERALLY begged her to accept my work and promised her that this would never happen again. Her main argument was that I only thought of handing in my paper after she said she wouldn’t be accepting them. She says I should’ve went up to her before she even asked for the work and now I’m panicking because I’m going to fail her class. I profusely apologised and asked her one last time to take my work. After boring into me that cold look in her eyes, she accepted my paper. I was this close 🤏🏽 to crying all over again
As I was walking out, the other teachers were staring me down and some of them were even sniggering at me like a bunch of kids. And yes I did some cry afterwards. I’m a crybaby sue me.
SexEd teacher said she wanted to talk to Simone about this. Back in class I asked Sinone to apologise to me bc what she did was wrong and I didn’t like it. Yes my wrong but she had no right to scratch it out. That’s the teachers job, not hers. She treated it like it was no big deal and kept on making excuses and joking about the whole thing because to her, i did write the entries in the end which was what I should have done in the first place. Whats she said i must do. I knew that that was all I was going to get and should stop wasting oxygen on her because it’d go nowhere.
Two days ago, SexEd teacher said that I should’ve apologies to her for upsetting her because the day she spoke with her about this whole thing, she started crying as well. Apparently, Simone was unaware that this would potentially cost me my grade. she thought that because I wasn’t gonna get the full 20 marks, she was doing the right thing by making me restart. SexEd teacher went on to say that I sgould try rekindling our friendship because I cant affory to lose someone as smart as her. (Which I took offence to because I’m not the smartest girl you’ll ever meet but I’m definitely not dumb)
Simone never said any of this to me.
I haven’t spoken to her since that day. I’m hot mad at her, I’m just disappointed and hurt. Why would she do that to me? Especially when I thought we were friends.
All I could think about was how I was there for her when she got her academic awards. I was the loudest at the venue. Took so many pictures you’d swear I was the one receiving them. I was exited for her. Just like I always am. I’ve always been there for her through boy problems, bad tests, when she needs help with uni applications. I’d say I was a solid 9/10 friend for her. I just don’t get why she would do this.
Lisa and my cousin Ella think that it’s been long enough and that I should just talk to her and stop being dramatic. Especially since ET took my paper and has probably graded it. They’re saying Simone meant well and was only looking out for me. But I I don’t feel that way.
I forgot to mention that I was so pressed about this paper bc it counted 30% of our term mark and the exam would count for 50%, and the other 20% would come from class tests.
I’m sorry if this was a long read but I think I concluded most of the important stuff. So please let me know if I’m actually in the wrong here bc everyone is telling me that I am. If there are any questions I’m happy to clear everything up.