I is For Ignotism

I’m a little behind with the A-Z Challenge – my classes were at the make-or-break point with grades, last day to withdraw without impacting next semester’s financial aid, so I had about 75 essays to grade.

And pretty much nothing else gets done when I have essays to grade.

Which, ironically, leads me to my word for I: ignotism.

Ignotism- noun. a mistake made from ignorance.

As a teacher this is a word I desperately need to know as I am dedicated to eradicating ignorance whenever it rears its uneducated head.

And why may not have known the actual word think I can say with 100% certainty that I am more than familiar with the application.

I see mistakes made from ignorance every day most of these are just pretty common everyday mistakes that I'm there to correct.

Some of them make me sad like a few years ago when I asked the question on a test to define simile and give an example. And one girl wrote "A simile is an expression you make when you're happy.  If I won the lottery, I would simile."

This after a week of lessons on similes and metaphors.

Other examples just make me shake my head. Like when we were writing about Jane Eyre and a student wrote "Rochester tried to blame Bertha for his problems but she was really just his escape goat."

And I had this vision of Rochester riding a goat off across the Moors.

Some examples of ignotism now make me laugh out loud. Like when I was teaching basic writing and I had the kids create a movie review for the movie The Princess Bride. One of my students, for whom English was a second language, was describing the scene when Buttercup was being captured by the pirates/kidnappers and she wrote the following:

"Buttercup was very scared when she saw the rubbers.  She knew the rubbers were dangerous and she just wanted to get away from the rubbers.  But the rubbers were all around her; there was no escaping the rubbers."

Best example of ignotism ever, I laughed until I cried.

Passing?

I'm not in school anymore but I am a teacher and that usually means maximum drama because, let's face it, kids are funny.

Especially college kids who think they're smarter than the average professor.

Like last week when I had a conversation with a girl who is concurrently enrolled in high school and my college class.

Which is usually the sign of an above average student

Usually but not always.

And definitely not this girl. As evidenced when she approached me and told me that she needed that she have this form that needed to be signed saying she was passing my class so she would be continued to be eligible for high school activities.

And actually she was supposed to turn them in every week and had just forgotten but never fear she had enough for the rest of the semester so if I would just go ahead and sign them in advance and I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

To be honest, I hadn't been worried...largely because I hadn't known about the existence of the form until that exact moment.

Her brilliant plan, though, did worry me.

"I can't sign a whole semester's worth of forms in advance," I told her. "I can't see the future; I've no idea if you'll be passing six weeks from now."

Judging by the look on her face, this might be the most confusing thing anyone had ever said to her.

"I just have to have the form signed," she said in a slow, careful voice,

"I just have to tell the truth on it," I said.

And she stared me like she honestly couldn't figure out what my problem was.

Since I am a teacher, I decided to use this as an educational moment.

"Look," I told her, "if I sign that I'm saying that you're passing the class.  What if you stop coming? What if you're not passing? I can't sign a form that says you're passing six weeks from today's date when I have no idea what your situation will be then."

And she just kept staring at me like I'm the one who wasn't making any sense.

"I just have to have a form that says I'm passing." She explained one more time.

"But you're not even passing NOW," I told her.

And she stormed away in a fury.

I still can't figure out if I should be insulted that she thinks I'm dumb enough to fall for this or if I should be horrified that she honestly can't see the flaw in her plan.

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