One early crisp morning Robbie woke up to the sound of his mother’s voice screaming at him. “What the heck is this?” She exclaimed, holding a computer with the screen lit up brightly. Robbie had just opened his eyes and it took a couple seconds for his eyes to adjust.
He squinted and frustratedly replied, “Ma it’s that teacher Mr. Crew again, calm down.”
His mom’s tone changed, “Robbie, next week school is out. You need to ask what you can do to raise your grade back to an A,” she said in an understanding voice.
“Don’t worry Ma I’ll talk to him today.
Robbie arrived to Mr. Crew’s class a couple minutes early that day. He had that class right after lunch, so he was able to spare a couple minutes. When Mr. Crew saw Robbie, he frowned with no effort in trying to hide it. His wrinkly face and glasses hid all happiness he might have within. He had thin white hair and what seemed to be a permanent frown. Robbie just tried to smile, then asked, “I was just wondering why my grade is so low?”
Mr. Crew replied impolitely, “Why do you think? Maybe because you are always talking in class and distracting others?” This was completely untrue, whenever Robbie was talking in class he was helping other students with their work.
Robbie tried to stay calm and asked him, “Can you please ask the other students what we talk about before making assumptions?” Mr. Crew being such a stubborn man does not listen to him and told him to have a seat. Before he sat down he asked if he could do any extra work or redo anything to get his grade up, but Mr. Crew just shook his head and pointed to Robbie’s desk.
The next day all of Robbie’s teacher could tell he was upset. Every period they would ask what was wrong, but Robbie didn’t want to throw him under the bus. He would shrug it off and tell them everything was alright. He walked into Mr. Crew’s class that day, with all assignments redone, above regular expectations. Mr. Crew took them and just threw them in a bin with many other papers he would never look at. Robbie was fed up with Mr. Crew and whined, “Are you kidding me?” Mr. Crew just sat there still looking at the papers on his desk, and pointed at Robbie’s seat.
The door slammed open when Robbie arrived home. He was so frustrated with school, and his mother could tell. She told him, “All you need to do is redo your work and your teacher will raise your grade for you.”
He sulked for a few seconds and said he already has, but his teacher just wouldn’t do it. He exclaimed, “I have even gone over and above Mr. Crew’s expectations and he just threw it to the side!” His mom also now very frustrated called the school to set up a meeting with all of his teachers and the principle to talk about this. She told Robbie that they would figure it out and that she wasn’t mad at him and how proud she was with the effort and how hard he was working to fix his grade.
Robbie arrived to school the next day still a little upset. However, every teacher now understood why. Each period they took him aside and told him they would try to support him. As the day went on he became more confident that it would turn out alright. All of his teachers had his back except for Mr. Crew. Even the principle pulled him aside when he was walking through the halls and told him that he was going to try and help him as much as he possibly could within his power. All of his teachers besides Mr. Crew, acknowledged how good of a kid and hard of a worker he was.
The end of the day finally came. One by one Robbie’s teachers piled into the meeting room with a large oval table. There was a lot of tension building as Robbie’s mother and Mr. Crew argued about Robbie’s grades. Eventually one of Robbie’s female teachers snapped. She asked, “Why do you have to be so stubborn, Robbie is a great kid and tries as hard as he can all the time. You just are upset that he still has fun being a kid.”
The whole room was stunned by the teachers sudden outburst, especially Mr. Crew. “He replied quietly, “ I’m sorry, you’re right I just don’t like seeing him have as much fun as he is having.” He continued, “I’ll raise your grade Robbie, I’m sorry that I have been acting this way.”
Robbie still stunned couldn’t be upset with the way he was acting. He said, “It’s okay I forgive you and thank you for changing your mind.”