It’s just a week into the new school year and your U.S. History teacher is ALREADY testing your class. You’ve done all the reading and taken great notes, so you aren’t too worried. It’s just the principle behind it all – who assigns a test only a week after the first day of school?? You’re still marveling over the injustice of this as you sit down at your desk. Everyone slowly filters in and slouches into their seats – it’s so obviously not a good day for a test! It’s the second Monday morning of the school year, and the strain of getting up so early is showing on everyone’s face.

Your teacher, the infamous Mr. Davidson, goes around the room passing out the tests. He’s got to be like 70 years old. His gray hair is crazy and sticks out at funny angles from his head. And not only is he wearing bright red checked pants, but he’s also got on a truly heinous tie – little fish swimming all over its blue background. Where did this man come from? And who bought him that tie??

You turn over your test and start working your way through the questions. It’s multiple choice at least…You half expected it to be some old school essay test. After about two or three questions, you realize that every correct answer is indented!! It’s SO obvious! You breeze through the rest of the test and hand it in. Then you start wondering if anyone else noticed that the test was messed up. The bell rings and you immediately ask your friend what was up with the test. He’s got it all figured out – it looks like Mr. Davidson just photocopied the sample quizzes from the teacher’s manual and used white-out so that the little asterisks by the right answers wouldn’t show. He was apparently too clueless to realize that the right answers were still indented!!

It’s SO hilarious, everyone’s joking about it for the rest of the day. All your friends agree not to tell the teacher about it – why ruin a good thing? This way next time there’s a test no one will have to study. You’re a little mad that everyone’s getting a good grade now, especially after you actually studied for the test. But at least in the future you’ll know not to worry too much about it!

Does this sound like YOUR teacher? Every clueless teacher is oblivious in his or her own way, but some basic “symptoms” in your teacher might be things like an inability to relate to students or a complete lack of knowledge about what’s going on in the world. Don’t worry or think yours is the only school that has to deal with teachers like this; you are not alone! Want help dealing with your teacher’s specific kind of crazy? Check out “Defined” to figure out what sort of teacher you’re dealing with, and then get info. under “How To” for how to deal. It’s important to get the best education you can.