Defending My Daughter
My daughter, Tina, locked herself in her room, crying so hard her body shook.
I pried the door open and saw that she was clutching a test paper that was torn to shreds and pieced back together.
It was a math Olympiad selection test. She should have gotten a perfect score, but was given a score of zero instead.
"Mom," she sobbed, "the teacher said 3x5 is not equal to 5x3; that it's taking shortcuts. She tore my paper up in front of everyone, revoked my eligibility for the competition, and told the whole class not to talk to me…"
I looked at the deep red scratch marks on my daughter's wrist and immediately picked up the phone to call the principal.
"What good does it do for your school's