Mrs. Chance was my fifth grade English teacher. One of her first assignments was to write a short research paper. Pick a topic, look it up in at least three different sources, then write a couple pages summarizing what you had learned.
She had a list of topics, but you could pick your own if you wanted. I wanted. I had read one theory about how the solar system formed, I knew there were more, and I went looking for simple explanations of them. I used five references, wrote nearly as many pages, and was very proud of my paper when I turned it in.
I got it back with an "F". Beneath the grade was red pencil saying it was an obvious plagiarism. I was crushed. Humiliated. I didn’t say anything to Mrs. Chance. I went home and sobbed on Mom.
My writings contain many unhappy things about Mom, but those of you who have been tracking for a while know this is the kind of situation she handled well. Battle stations! She made an appointment with Mrs. Chance, got out my sources and my paper, and spent hours matching what I’d said to my reference books.
There were a couple places where my phrasing was close and I think there was one sentence that was nearly identical, but the resemblance’s were spread out across my sources. It was evident that I had not outright copied from any of them.
Mom slapped all that stuff down on Mrs. Chance’s desk and went through my paper nearly line by line while I sat looking at my feet. I hadn’t wanted this battle. I was sure no good would come of it. Mrs. Chance would just hate me that much more for having had Mom snarl at her, and English class would be hell the rest of the year.
When Mom was done, Mrs. Chance got up from her desk, came around to kneel beside my chair, and coaxed me to look at her. Then she gave me one of the most complete and sincere apologies I’ve ever heard.
I don’t remember the words very well. I do remember her face. She was open as glass, and shockingly direct.
She said she had failed as a teacher by not talking to me first. She said she had radically and unfairly misjudged me. She said she would try hard to be more worthy of trust in the future. Then she stood and thanked Mom for having shown her how wrong she was.
I was stunned. I still am, when I look back on it. This was a full adult-to-adult style apology, made to a ten year old child. No whining, no justifications, and no demand placed on me to "forgive and forget" -- she said plainly that she’d done wrong and that she was going to do her best to make up for it.
I forgave her on the spot. When she knelt beside me with her face like that, my resentment evaporated.
What’s more, she carried through. A lesser person would have treated me with humiliated deference or covert aggression. Instead, she demanded much. I had proven what I could do as a student and she set out to prove what she could do as a teacher.
Mrs. Chance has been my paradigm ever since for the right way to do it when you’ve blown it.
EPILOGUE TO MRS. CHANCE Wanna guess how my mother took that apology? I’ve spoken about Mrs. Chance to her a number of times since, and Mom snarls about that evil woman who accused her daughter of plagiarism. No memory that the woman apologized. Surprised looks every time I say that Mrs. Chance was one of the best teachers I ever had. Sigh.