Randomly remembered the one time I went to my guidance counselor in high school and how shook I was by the response to my request to transfer to a different math class.
It was my sophomore year and I went to private school for K3-8th grade. I was very sheltered, still very new to secular life outside of church, school, and the same couple of hundred people I had grown up around. Frankly, I fell through the cracks in hs and was perfectly fine with my invisibility cause it meant no teachers were trying to send me to camp to improve my character (conversion therapy? Who can say?) but I digress. I wouldn't find my voice for at least another decade.
When I transferred, math was one of my weakest subjects because I had a rigid teacher in middle school who taught one way and didn't care if you got that way or not, he would absolutely not adjust. And he assigned a mountain of homework literally every night. Nah. The only reason I didn't fail completely is another math teacher who worked magic to get me to a C.
Fast forward to my first (and only? can't remember) meeting days into my second year in the new-for-me public school with hundreds of students in my grade alone (vs between 20 and 30 depending on enrollment at the last school prior for context) where I was asking to transfer to a class taught by the same math teacher I had freshman year who was magnificent and made everything make sense.
I cannot even remember if this person was a man or a woman but I will never forget the response.
They asked why and I explained that I had done well and her teaching style worked for me and that was really important to me because math was something I struggled in previously.
The so-called "guidance counselor" responded with "Good. If you said you had a problem with the new teacher, I wouldn't have approved it."
I know what I would say now.
If you find yourself in a position of power, don't make things harder to teach people a lesson or whatever bullshit hardship overcoming nonsense I almost found myself in. If a student/child/person comes to you asking for a reasonable thing that will make something easier at no cost to anyone, it shouldn't take a secret combination to unlock approval.
If I hadn't said the arbitrarily "right" thing in a way that was pleasing to this person who held so much power over my days for a short period but also my future, I have no idea where I would be but I would have struggled even more than I already was.
And for what? To teach me the worst lesson about ego and fairness? To be a barrier to the education I was trying to advocate for because I didn't have the right words? I probably have undiagnosed AuDHD. Figuring that out could have been a better use of everyone's time.
Anyway, the US school system also needs a major overhaul. And that was over 20 years ago.
