How many classes did you fail in school?

[DC Tom]

For context, I was a less nerdy version, IMO, of Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club and that gym teacher was my elephant lamp with the effed up trunk-switch... except that I repeatedly shot the flare gun at the elephant lamp at every opportunity, and yet they never gave me Saturday detention.

 

That is a rather tortured analogy.

[Chef Jim]

Only thing I ever failed was a quarter of gym class my senior year. By no means did I give 2 sh!ts about the class, but there was nothing to warrant failing. Was so indignant that, as a 17 year old, I stormed into the phys-ed offices and proceeded to launch into a, completely out of character, 10 minute expletive laced tirade at this 40-50 something year old teacher in front of his colleagues... without a single repercussion. He looked so castratated by the berating that the other gym teachers started laughing at him while I was ranting at him.

 

As a result of failing the class, I had to take gym class daily with him for the next quarter. First day, I blasted him in the back of the head with a basketball without any attempt to hide the fact it was me... or that it was 100% intentional. When he turned around to see who did it I glared at him as if to say Which one of us do you think made the mistake.

 

I was no better the rest of the quarter, or the rest of the year for that matter, but apparently the cost of the point he was trying to make wasnt worth it to him as I passed the rest of the year without so much as a sideways glance, despite actively working to make his life miserable at every opportunity.

 

For context, I was a less nerdy version, IMO, of Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club and that gym teacher was my elephant lamp with the effed up trunk-switch... except that I repeatedly shot the flare gun at the elephant lamp at every opportunity, and yet they never gave me Saturday detention.

 

Geez. Nice kid you were.

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

Only thing I ever failed was a quarter of gym class my senior year. By no means did I give 2 sh!ts about the class, but there was nothing to warrant failing. Was so indignant that, as a 17 year old, I stormed into the phys-ed offices and proceeded to launch into a, completely out of character, 10 minute expletive laced tirade at this 40-50 something year old teacher in front of his colleagues... without a single repercussion. He looked so castratated by the berating that the other gym teachers started laughing at him while I was ranting at him.

 

As a result of failing the class, I had to take gym class daily with him for the next quarter. First day, I blasted him in the back of the head with a basketball without any attempt to hide the fact it was me... or that it was 100% intentional. When he turned around to see who did it I glared at him as if to say Which one of us do you think made the mistake.

 

I was no better the rest of the quarter, or the rest of the year for that matter, but apparently the cost of the point he was trying to make wasnt worth it to him as I passed the rest of the year without so much as a sideways glance, despite actively working to make his life miserable at every opportunity.

 

For context, I was a less nerdy version, IMO, of Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club and that gym teacher was my elephant lamp with the effed up trunk-switch... except that I repeatedly shot the flare gun at the elephant lamp at every opportunity, and yet they never gave me Saturday detention.

I guess someone didn't want to go swimming naked.

[Gordio]

_{I failed a bunch of my classes my first semester in College. I think I had under a 1 GPA. My stats teacher gave me back my mid term that first semester & I did so bad on it she stapled a drop slip onto my exam for me to drop the class & told me "college isn't for everybody" when she handed it back. When my dad saw my first semester report during Christmas break he slumped into his recliner, put his hands over his head & said "good god, I never heard of a kid getting this low of a GPA." The dean called me in right before the winter semester was going to start & said " I am not going to sugarcoat his, you need a 3.0 this semester or we are going to kick you out." He looked at my schedule & I thought he was going to give me some profound words of wisdom. He looked at me, put his hand out for me to shake & said "good luck." I got a 3.10 that semester my highest GPA in my 4 years of undergrad. I ended up graduating with a 2.38 GPA, right in that meaty part of the curve, where I am not showing off. My dad was in tears the day I graduated, said he never thought he would see me graduate in his lifetime.}

Edited October 26, 2017 by Gordio

[billsfanmiami(oh)]

Failed Calc in college. Inexplicably didn't take it early on so had a pretty big time gap between taking that type of math in HS and picking it back up in college. I did ok in pre-calc but then the following semester kinda got buried about 1/3 of the way into it and never recovered. I meant to drop it and missed the deadline. They wouldn't relent and let me withdraw so just quit going. Not the smartest thing I've ever done!

[boyst]

Nothing. Straight under achieving bored jock. I'd walk out of classes or leave school in the day passing the parking person or principal knowing I was leaving and they'd ask about whatever game I had coming up. Somehow I always had my last two periods as study hall and **** from my sophomore year on

[Augie]

Just one.

I only got a B+ in it. But when your IQ is in the 170 range, that's failure.

I have a brother in law with a 168 IQ. I know because his family tells me all the time. He’s an idiot.

 

 

 

My son was tested to get into a school for the “gifted” where you needed at least a 130 IQ. The first time he took the test the guy came out and told me my son has a learning disability. I told the guy he’d never had less than an A, so how could that be? He responded “well, that’s how he copes with it”. WTF? THAT GUY is an idiot!

 

He took the test with a competent person and blew through the required number. I know they have some value, but I put little faith in one test telling you how “smart” you are.

[Marv's Neighbor]

I'm not even sure I have my diploma. I was drunk on graduation day.

Flounder??

[Augie]

Flounder??

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

 

 

 

But it’s worked pretty good for me so far...

[Saxum]

I have a brother in law with a 168 IQ. I know because his family tells me all the time. He’s an idiot.

 

My son was tested to get into a school for the “gifted” where you needed at least a 130 IQ. The first time he took the test the guy came out and told me my son has a learning disability. I told the guy he’d never had less than an A, so how could that be? He responded “well, that’s how he copes with it”. WTF? THAT GUY is an idiot!

 

He took the test with a competent person and blew through the required number. I know they have some value, but I put little faith in one test telling you how “smart” you are.

 

I was a troubled kid and was acting up in school because the subject was so easy so school put me in school for "gifted" children labeling me as borderline mentally retarded. First day of new school in 3rd grade I was told by my teacher "each student will go at his or her pace. When you finish your basket of work you can go to gym and play dodge ball." and before noon I was in gym playing.

 

Teacher came, brought me back to classroom and told me "It appears you do not understand, I need you to finish all of the work first not just one workbook.". I told her 'I finished ALL of the work' and she then picked up my basket and took to her desk. She went thru and graded it and then told assistant to take class while I was taken to principal office. She told principal "I have a child who has been seriously mis-classified." and he responded "Again?".

 

The next day I was tested by a school psychologist and a meeting was held with my mother and me. "We has some bad news and some good news. Your child is not developmental delayed as we thought but it appears the teacher's treatment of your child in previous school resulted in some issues." "Developmental delayed?" she asked? He has been reading since 3 and has completed a set of encyclopedias. "Yes said psychologist, we measured his IQ and it is 164 with extremely high marks in spatial math, reading and logic. We are going to split schools for him letting him go to regular school half day and this school to correct what happened by teacher who could not see your child's skill level was making him act up."

 

So I am very aware of poor diagnose ability of schools.

[DC Tom]

 

I was a troubled kid and was acting up in school because the subject was so easy so school put me in school for "gifted" children labeling me as borderline mentally retarded. First day of new school in 3rd grade I was told by my teacher "each student will go at his or her pace. When you finish your basket of work you can go to gym and play dodge ball." and before noon I was in gym playing.

 

Teacher came, brought me back to classroom and told me "It appears you do not understand, I need you to finish all of the work first not just one workbook.". I told her 'I finished ALL of the work' and she then picked up my basket and took to her desk. She went thru and graded it and then told assistant to take class while I was taken to principal office. She told principal "I have a child who has been seriously mis-classified." and he responded "Again?".

 

The next day I was tested by a school psychologist and a meeting was held with my mother and me. "We has some bad news and some good news. Your child is not developmental delayed as we thought but it appears the teacher's treatment of your child in previous school resulted in some issues." "Developmental delayed?" she asked? He has been reading since 3 and has completed a set of encyclopedias. "Yes said psychologist, we measured his IQ and it is 164 with extremely high marks in spatial math, reading and logic. We are going to split schools for him letting him go to regular school half day and this school to correct what happened by teacher who could not see your child's skill level was making him act up."

 

So I am very aware of poor diagnose ability of schools.

 

You know, I've had just the opposite all my life. I was tested for early entry to kindergarten at 3, and they came back and said "He's ready for second grade. In a school for the gifted." When I finally understood what that meant, I stopped taking intelligence testing and standardized tests seriously - in the canonical definition, my measured IQ at 3 would have been in the 200-250 range, which is patently ridiculous. That's between seven and ten sigmas in a normal distribution, which would have made me one of the five smartest people on the planet at worst - at best, I would have been one of the ten smartest people in history. I'm not even one of the five smartest people I know.

 

And to a much larger degree than people realize, "intelligence" isn't something you just have. No one who knows me doubts I'm extremely intelligent...but all that really is, is a prodigious ability to absorb, synthesize, relate, and recall information that I've had to put serious effort in to developing and maintaining. Intelligence is like any other skill: native "talent" counts for something, but hard work counts for far more.

[/dev/null]

I failed Healz and Buffz but was an above average Tank and an exceptional Melee DPS and top of the class Nuker

[Koko78]

I failed Healz and Buffz but was an above average Tank and an exceptional Melee DPS and top of the class Nuker

 

Yet you won't move out of the !@#$ing fire!

[Augie]

You know, I've had just the opposite all my life. I was tested for early entry to kindergarten at 3, and they came back and said "He's ready for second grade. In a school for the gifted." When I finally understood what that meant, I stopped taking intelligence testing and standardized tests seriously - in the canonical definition, my measured IQ at 3 would have been in the 200-250 range, which is patently ridiculous. That's between seven and ten sigmas in a normal distribution, which would have made me one of the five smartest people on the planet at worst - at best, I would have been one of the ten smartest people in history. I'm not even one of the five smartest people I know.

 

And to a much larger degree than people realize, "intelligence" isn't something you just have. No one who knows me doubts I'm extremely intelligent...but all that really is, is a prodigious ability to absorb, synthesize, relate, and recall information that I've had to put serious effort in to developing and maintaining. Intelligence is like any other skill: native "talent" counts for something, but hard work counts for far more.

I was going to joke about some of the earlier stuff, but the bold at the end is so true! I’ve said for decades that I’d rather have a hard worker than a genius. My son will probably never register a 170+ IQ, but he got up at 5:30am to get gym time before two a days for football. He’s barely phased by 75 hour weeks as a CPA in audit season. AND, he can relate to people. He’s a little on the quiet side, but that’s good because he really listens. It’s like a trifecta. Those three things rarely come together so I worry much less about him down the road.

[DC Tom]

I have a brother in law with a 168 IQ. I know because his family tells me all the time. He’s an idiot.

 

 

My son was tested to get into a school for the “gifted” where you needed at least a 130 IQ. The first time he took the test the guy came out and told me my son has a learning disability. I told the guy he’d never had less than an A, so how could that be? He responded “well, that’s how he copes with it”. WTF? THAT GUY is an idiot!

 

I'm smarter than your brother-in-law, simply based on the fact I know that's meaningless.

 

I've had teachers like the guy that tested your son. It's frequent that some of them ascribe to such a narrow definition of the process of learning that anything that deviates from it is a "disability." (It's a particular feature of most Common Core implementations - I actually know an eighth grader who's considered "slow" in math because on her own she's gone so far beyond where Common Core says she's supposed to be that she considers Common Core wrong and ignores it.) One of the best things that ever happened to me as a kid was in seventh grade, when I was doing poorly in math, and we had a parent-teacher conference where the teacher and principal just said to me straight-out "Look, we know you're doing poorly because you're bored out of your mind. We know you're far beyond what we're teaching. But this is the best we can do right now, and if you don't do the work we'll have to hold you back. So please, work with us so we can put you in advanced math next year."

 

But most teachers are not that perceptive, I've found. Most are more along the lines of "I have a degree in education, and you're not acting like my degree says you're supposed to, so there's something wrong with you." I made quite a few high school math and science teachers really angry by being able to demonstrate that I was perfectly fine, and there was something wrong with their degree.

[The Dean]

Never failed any class. In HS my biology teacher made us to this mind-numbingly stupid homework. The other bio teacher used to exempt any student with an 85 average, or more, from homework--but not this shrew. To make matters worse, she required you write out the questions as well as the answers. There was no way in the world I was going to do that nonsense. So I usually just did the homework in study hall, or at lunch. Just writing down the letter (for multiple choice questions) or answers for the others. She told me, even though I scored 100 (actually higher, due to bonus questions) on every test, she would not give me a grade over 95 on my report card, if I didn't do the homework the right way. "That's fine", I said. I never cared about the grade all that much.

 

In college there were a couple courses that were either too early, or too boring (or both), to attend. I always managed to get an "Incomplete" for those courses. The worst was an 8AM Comparative Religion class I took to refill a requirement. What was I thinking? The teacher, and nearly all the other students were REALLY into Eastern religions. I think I went once, or twice for the first couple months. But I figured I'd take the first test. Did some skimming from the books the night before, and showed up to class, pretty hungover. I'm not sure I understood most of the words in the questions asked. Mostly sanskrit stuff. I left the page blank, and turned it in. "My Zen response", I said as I walked out. First time I ever saw the teacher laugh. He gave me an Incomplete, fortunately.

[Augie]

I'm smarter than your brother-in-law, simply based on the fact I know that's meaningless.

 

I've had teachers like the guy that tested your son. It's frequent that some of them ascribe to such a narrow definition of the process of learning that anything that deviates from it is a "disability." (It's a particular feature of most Common Core implementations - I actually know an eighth grader who's considered "slow" in math because on her own she's gone so far beyond where Common Core says she's supposed to be that she considers Common Core wrong and ignores it.) One of the best things that ever happened to me as a kid was in seventh grade, when I was doing poorly in math, and we had a parent-teacher conference where the teacher and principal just said to me straight-out "Look, we know you're doing poorly because you're bored out of your mind. We know you're far beyond what we're teaching. But this is the best we can do right now, and if you don't do the work we'll have to hold you back. So please, work with us so we can put you in advanced math next year."

 

But most teachers are not that perceptive, I've found. Most are more along the lines of "I have a degree in education, and you're not acting like my degree says you're supposed to, so there's something wrong with you." I made quite a few high school math and science teachers really angry by being able to demonstrate that I was perfectly fine, and there was something wrong with their degree.

There are so many aspects to “intelligence”. My B-I-L is a chemical engineeer and a friggin’ genius at looking and a spread sheet and seeing the anomaly. (I know, because they tell me. ). We have a nephew who has similar skills, and we suspect there is some form of autism involved. Basic social relationships are at times painfully awkward. My “gifted” CPA son is doing great, but making FAR less than the “messed up” son was making (before returning to school to finish) because most messed up people learn how to sell any situation. It’s a different kind of intelligence. Street smarts and sales.

 

“Smart” comes in all different packages, but hard working is a keeper!

[Nervous Guy]

In HS I didn't really try and did enough to get by...Did the same thing in college, came late to class, walked out of class early, ended up on academic probation after the first two years, nearly kicked out. It was then that I had an epiphany "damn, I better get my **** together and actually give this a shot, I don't want to have to work full time". My last 2 years I was on the Deans list, taking up to 18 credits...kind of surprised myself. In graduate school, I hated my advisor who was a real dick and taught neuroanatomy, I would come in and turn on my tape recorder and tune out...I failed that class. I still remember him summoning me to his office and telling me "you know Mark, grad school and research isn't for everyone"...damn, took that class over, aced it and nailed my comprehensive exams in the same semester, spent the last 30 years doing research in academic and the pharmaceutical industry.

[row_33]

Well done Gordio

 

My last semester I handed in a total piece of garbage essay on Rawls (not Lou) and pornography in a free society, in the early 90s.

 

The marker gave me a C- and wrote that he doubted I even read what I handed in (yup) and he would raise it to a B+ if I had the guts to see him and argue I had a point in the first place.

 

I just wanted the blank out of school and declined that invitation.

 

 

I came down with a debilitating illness after junior year and took a year off and 3 years to finish my undergrad. I was a total mess those years and went to all the profs the first day of a class and they told me they wouldnt fail me if I showed up and gave a decent effort, which was very painfully accomplished. It doesnt matter what your grades are if they arent in the top or bottom 10 percentile.

[Another Fan]

^{There were a number of classes I dropped due to fear of failing out. The website Rate My Professors had just started when I was in college. My favorite review on it was regarding a Mr. P a real nightmare of a professor I had. The review stated the devil took Mr. P's class and dropped it because he thought Mr. P was more evil. Lol}

 

^{I was always sort of a number nerd till I got to college. Failed upper level Calc. classes, Game Theory, Theory of Probability, and something else. Just couldn't hack that stuff}

Edited October 28, 2017 by Another Fan