In my life I had experienced a single story of me in my school life. It was my 12th grade math teacher. He was tough on me but also had a soft spot. He would grade me on my work and say I wasn’t trying enough, or wasn’t paying attention in class. But I always try my best to understand the work and try to pass. I was always bad at math and never understood it. My math grade level is low from my actual grade. His single story of me was different from my single story of myself. In his single story he thinks I don’t study enough, I’m not participating, and I won’t pass due to always having a f. He never told me this in my face but he noted it on my grades. I would sit in the front of the class, give him eye contact and listen to what he was explaining. I would write notes, he would expect us to write notes. And he will grade us on our notebook. We would do this online website called apex. So he would show the apex work on the board and then he would explain the topic and we would do the questions that were on the apex then at the ending of class we would do the test for that lesson on the apex. I would end up going slower than the other students because I would have to go back and do the lesson over again to try to understand it better. I would get behind most of the time, when he would show the apex process he would call out the kids who were behind. He would say “Starleen you need to catch up. You’re one unit behind”
How did I handle this, well I would go to math tutoring and I would do my apex afterschool. And if I didn’t understand the homework my math tutor, who was not my math teacher, would explain the math questions to me. I would do a whole bunch of work in 2 or 3 days if I was behind. I never understood why I would fail because I was doing the right steps and I would still fail. I ended up talking to my math teacher and told him “ how can I pass, he simply just told me to do the work and study. I started feeling like I wasn’t doing enough. He ended up doing his own torturing and he said he will give extra credit if you go. So I took the opportunity to go and get the extra credit. And that helped me bring my grade up. But I still passed with a C like I wanted. I end up passing with a D. I took many steps. I went to tutoring for an hour everyday. I took notes and listened to what he said. My math teacher knew I was smart and he knew how great of a student I was. This was a soft side of him. Telling me he knows I can be something in life. At the end of day I passed. And he changed his single story.
