Today started at 7:00am as I got up a little later than usual since I wasn’t teaching- just giving my final exam. I puttered around my kitchen, pulling out of the fridge the meal I’d prepped the night before, plugging in the crockpot before walking the 100 meters down to my classroom to get things lined up for our year-end final exam.

Ten seniors had taken it last Friday, so I’d already cut seven questions and made ten others easier since the exam was clearly too long. Nineteen, Nineteen, Twenty-Two. I counted out the stacks and separated them for each of my different proctors. Bouncing back and forth between the three classrooms, I answered questions, grabbed a cup of coffee from the cafo, and wandered the halls in case I was needed, waiting for the exam to end. I watched closely to see how far along students were, prompting them to finish the multiple choice section and move into the calculations with enough time to finish.

It looked like we were going to make it! The first students started finishing after an hour (always a few speedy gonzolas), the rest slowly trickling out after them. A few went past the bell, and a few more stuck around another ten minutes. I stopped the last two students who had not yet finished when we were about fifteen minutes past time, but overall felt like the exam was fair.

Stacks in hand, I headed home and popped in a movie as I began to grade: A A B D A E C D B… and so it went. We don’t have fancy scantron machines here, and the online document scanner versions I’ve tried haven’t been accurate, so I went through the answer sheets by hand. Sixty tests, eighty multiple choice questions each and two movies later, the fire was roaring and I started into the calculations with my friend joining on the other couch to grade her social studies exams.

By 4 pm I was tallying scores and realized there was quite the wide discrepancy between scores. Students who did really well- students who did not so hot. I talked it through with my friend, trying to decide what, if anything should be done about the poor eleven souls who had scored below the passing line. The average was ok- but eleven failed? That felt like a lot. My mind not yet made up, I entered the exam scores into the gradebook and went to work making gravy for the pot roast I’d had cooking and had been smelling since 7:30am.

Alexis and I piled potatoes, carrots and meat onto our plates, and were just taking our first bite as I saw one of my lanky 6′ 2″ guys from first period walking up the steps to my front porch.

“He must’ve smelled dinner.” was all I could think-why else would he show up on my doorstep at 6pm? I stood up to answer the door as I watched three more guys follow him onto my porch.

“Miss Galloway,” he announced, “we’re here to complain about the exam.” I laughed. Two of these guys were habitual visitors to my classroom on test day to complain about the tests after school. Often times, it’s lead to some really fun, and sometimes deeper conversations. Not having been in my classroom this afternoon for their routine complaining, it was fitting they had found me at my house.

“We’re not all here. I need to call them.” the partner in crime added, followed by a loud “CA-CAW!” By the time I processed the ridiculousness of his ca-caw, there were ten teenage boys circling my front door, eyes wide as they pled their cause.

“Kevin! What are you doing here?! You’re not even in chem!!!! You took physics this year!” I laughed incredulously.

The answer: Moral support.

“Miss Galloway. It was impossible. We ALL failed! Everyone. You can’t do this to us, not on the last day.” They spoke almost as one.

“Please take them out of the gradebook. PLEASE.”

“It wasn’t so bad- I can tell you the grade spread. We actually had a lot of people do pretty well.” I tried to encourage them.

“No Miss Galloway! That must’ve been all the sophomores. They’re all the smart kids! Nobody here scored higher than a 70!” I went to my stacks of paper and pulled out the form where I’d tallied up the class scores. There were exactly 16 that scored less than a 70- half of them were standing on my front porch. The other 44 students actually did quite well.

We went back and forth discussing the possibilities, the implications, the injustice of the entire situation (please feel their dramatic flair when I say that).

“Miss Galloway- you owe me, after everyday in chem where I get thrown under the bus.” He’s not wrong- somehow, the sweetest kid in their whole grade became the 7th period scapegoat.

“Oh hey! Someone got the same score as me!” Another kid says as he points to the second “50%” written near the bottom of the page.

“What if I do a backflip? Will you give us better grades if I do a backflip?” I haven’t even answered and he’s already flipping in the grass.

“Will you make us cookies for tomorrow?” I literally just made them cookies on Tuesday.

“This one is the outlier. It sounds like you guys all make up the fourth quartile.” This one from my AP Chem student who had responded to the ca-caw without really even knowing why he was there.

“We studied for hours! I was up until 5am!” Well there’s your problem! Should have gone to bed my friend.

“We ran out of time- we couldn’t even answer the extra credit questions!” Well- maybe this actually has some merit.

“Please Miss Galloway… PLEASEEEEEE.” They begged.

The whole triste was really quite entertaining. Except I’d been smelling potroast for 7 hours, and now it was cold on my plate.

“Y’all can stand here as long as you’d like to complain. I’m totally fine with that, but I’m going to eat my pot roast in front of you.” I decided as I picked up my plate off the table and stood in the doorway, fork in hand.

They hung their heads in disappointment, first that I had made pot roast for dinner and they weren’t getting any, second, that their query still hadn’t been answered. Slowly the crowd moved away, as if by one mind, still begging and whining as they left. I held my prized dinner and yelled after them, continuing the banter as they slowly walked away.

Stone cold now, I microwaved my pot roast to reheat the yummy goodness, and I was struck by three things:

1. I must be doing something right, if 10 teenage guys feel comfortable walking up to my house to knock on my door- even if it is just to spend a few minutes complaining on my front porch
2. Something had to be done about the exam as my heart burst with love for these guys and didn’t want them all to be ending chem with a failing exam grade
3. I would be spending my evening making them more cookies. I think tonight, no-bakes would do the job 🙂

Prayer Points:

• Pray for my guys! They’re wonderful. Pray they would encourage each other and point each other to Christ as they do life together.
• Pray for the end of term! This weekend students depart. Pray for safe travels, healthy transitions, and sweet reunions with families they haven’t seen in 10 weeks.
• Pray for me! I have a couple of things to wrap up (including now figuring out this exam debacle) then I’ll be flying home next week for a quick trip for a friends wedding and to spend some time with family ❤ I’m hoping to see lots of friends, but am not fully sure what the schedule will look like yet and what I’ll actually have time for.