At our High school there is a certain teacher with particular ineptitudes. She also happens to be, coincidentally, our AP language and composition teacher. She frustratingly oblivious that fact that she is not qualified to be teaching the AP class and we students have been painstakingly aware of that for some time. Now she is adamant on reading the Listening portion of our Regents exam next Thursday and to be perfectly honest her abilities are such that there are those who believe that having her read the exam could even put their grades in jeopardy. I will not go into details but to give you some perspective, this woman can butcher Eliot like the is no tomorrow and make you cringe at a recitation of Prufrock…
To make this matter worse when a close friend of mine tried to (at the suggestion of other teachers) bring this matter to the attention of the principal she was reprimanded and treated with outward condescension. It frustrates me personally that the principal could act In such a way. Of course, the reading is an issue but it also bothers me that a student should be treated in such a manner by any member of the faculty let alone the very principal. The faculty of a school, like a government, exists to meet the need of its people, in this case the student body, and to think that any individual would act without regard to this fact is maddening to me as a student. Faculty should be obliging to meet to whatever they can to foster the most conducive learning environment possible and should surely be bending over backwards when it comes to a State Regents Exam It began as a simple request and now because of the way it was met we are forced to petition for something that really should not require such and I feel ridiculously embarrassed, not for myself and the other petitioners, but that we should be forced to go to such means over such a plain matter.
