Finals are over and I have my grades for both Trig and Brit Lit. My Trig grade is right where I expected it to be - an A. Even though we rushed the last week, we left quite a bit out, which made the final easier.
Brit Lit, however, was a different story. After the final yesterday, I received my grade - a B. Looking back over my grades, I could not figure out how my grades came to a B. I averaged them several different ways and still couldn't come up with a B. I had a 92, 94, 100, and 83 for my test grades and an A, A, A, and a B for equally weighted essays. There were no other grades.
I asked the teacher how she graded but she gave me a vague answer, saying that's the way she has graded for ten years. She told me that a B was still a good grade for a college course. I replied that it may be good but it was not what I was aiming for., what I deserved, or what other schools want to see when considering my application. Too bad; it's not getting changed. It just does not seem like fair grading to me.
Final exams are coming next week and we are nowhere near where we need to be in Trigonometry. In order to get where we need to be, The teacher decided to cover one chapter each day of class - crazy pace for this kind of math.I see most of the trig problems as puzzles to be solved and I don't think it will be easy to fly through all the puzzles I need to be able to understand. I don't think we will be able to cover the important stuff that is packed into the last chapter.I hope that none of my future educational outlets read this because, if they do, they will probably be disappointed by the disparity between the classes I say that I took and the things I actually learned in class.
Our scores from the trigonometry test were finally given to us today. I very unexpectedly got a 110. How in the world did that happen when I didn't even finish the test?
It turns out that the teacher made all the graphing questions into bonus questions. I had finished everything except one of the graphing problems. All the other graphs were correct so that gave me a nice bonus.
The classes this semester are so different from those I've taken over the past five years. It's as if the teachers don't expect much from us because of our situation and continually lower their standards to make them fit us. How does that prepare us for a life outside? Many of the guys are here because they lowered their standards. It seems to me that, by lowering the educational standards to their (the inmates') level, the educators are merely encouraging the guys to stay the same. I know it's not true, but wouldn't it help more to maintain their (the teachers') original standards and require us to reach them?
Today was the first Trig class since our test. Our Tuesday class was canceled because the teacher was sick. I've been wondering how I did on the test since I didn't actually finish. I thought today would be the day to find out. I was wrong.
The teacher did not grade the tests at all. Over the weekend she heard that a guard found a cheat sheet in one of the desks in her classroom. She doesn't know who cheated and she was too angry to grade fairly, so she just let it be.
She was in a much better mood today. We barely got asked about the cheating because she said she was already pretty sure who had cheated and the suspect is not in our class. Instead we moved on to our new material. I'm still wondering how those tests turned out.
This is it -judgment day. Time to see if being in class actually helps when taking a test. I did get a practice test from a classmate yesterday, and spent two and a half hours going over it and referring to the book. Going into this morning's class I felt like I would do well, though I had to run back to the dorm to pick up my calculator. Oops.
I sat down, looked at the test in front of me, and saw that the problems before me were far more complex that what I had done last night. Most of the test was drawing translated sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant and cosecant graphs. The problems last night had two digit changes to the equation, while today's had four and five.
I slowly - very slowly - worked through the graphs until the teacher said we should be halfway finished. I had barely worked the first page, so I skipped the rest of the graphs and tore through the quicker stuff. I came back to the graphs with about twenty minutes left. I had the last problem mostly complete when we were told to stop.
I did take everything slowly and checked my work, so except for that last graph, I think I did well. I'm just going to have to wait till Thursday to see what the actual judgment is. As the saying goes: the writing is the hardest part.
Today I missed my Trig class completely. I woke up with a tap on my bunk from Tavo, the guy in the bunk next to me.
" Hey. It's 9:20, man. We missed class." Very matter-of-fact.
"I don't think they are going to call us out now," I said, "so I'm gonna go back to sleep."
"We won't get cases?"
"We shouldn't. They didn't even try to wake us up. I don't see how it could be our fault for missing class." I rolled over and drifted off.
This is the second day total that I've missed (two half-days last week) due to oversleeping. I can't afford to miss this much school in a college course, even if it is a review so far. I have a test Thursday that I felt good about, but now I'm not so sure. Hopefully, someone picked up a review/practice test for me.
I missed half my Trigonometry class on Tuesday because of the move and today I missed another half of class due to sleep. I had asked the two guys who bunk on either side of me and have school at the same time to wake me up when classes are called out. My class started at 8:30 AM.
I woke up at 9:00, looked to my sides and saw both guys were gone. They left me behind. I asked Rabbit, who was awake and writing, if they had tried to waken me or if a guard called me for class. Nope. At this point I figured that class was canceled because the guards usually call out all the bunk numbers for whoever goes to class. I rolled over and drifted off again.
In about five minutes I was wakened by Rabbit and a guard at the door yelling for me to get up and out to class. I guess I did have class after all. I hurried to get dressed and out the door. I made it just before count started, which would have delayed me even further.
This new dorm is wreaking havoc on my sleep. I've only had four or five hours of sleep per day since arriving here, often waking up to loud banging on the walls. I think the noise drowned out the call for school this morning, which is not good. I can't afford to miss much class, even if I am comfortable in class. I hope we get moved back south soon.
My first set of exams for this term ended today.
The first one, a Brit Lit exam over Beowulf and old English, was yesterday. I honestly believe the test I took in high school over the same material was harder, much harder. I don't remember doing any "matching" sections in the high school class, and the chronological ordering of the story that had to be sorted in high school was quotes from the text, not an outline of the plot. I haven't gotten my grade yet but I feel pretty good about it.
The Trig test was more challenging, but I feel pretty good about it, too. There 
were a couple problems that gave me trouble, but I was able to figure out my math - I'm not very careful with numbers and often get ahead of myself when working problems. I've learned to double- and triple-check myself so I don't turn in bad work. Now I get to wait through spring break - no vacation here, though - until I receive my grades.
I've been to both my classes - Trigonometry and British Literature - and here are my first impressions of each. though they are similar impressions for each.
British Literature was yesterday and I was forewarned about the teacher. Everything I heard was correct - she loves to talk and goes off topic all the time. Nearly every time she begins to get into the material, she begins to talk about her family or how it relates to something in her past. She is a short, yet large, woman who loves both British writers and her over sized sunglasses.
The material for both classes is at least 3/4 stuff that I've covered in high school, even readings for British Lit. I will probably be able to coast through nearly everything and still maintain A's in both classes.
The Trigonometry teacher has wild red hair - think Mrs. Frizzle from The Magic Schoolbus - and also like to drift off topic. Like me, she understands the math well, but has a hard time getting other people to understand it the same way. I feel sorry for a few of the other guys who were confused today. The math is not going to get any easier for them.
I'm happy to be getting these classes out of the way. After these, I only have two more classes I need for an Associates degree. I really hope they'll have the ones that I need for the next term. I've been working towards a BAchelors degree for four years now and am only halfway there.
