Last week I had the challenging task of teaching the mm kid that the omission of the truth can be the same as lying.

It reminded me of my last year of university. A requirement of my program was a second year statistics course that was known to kill everyone’s average and so you avoided it until your last year. It consisted of one grade…your final. I struggled the whole class (even hiring a tutor to help), but it was just not my jam. The final came and I barely answered half of the questions. I left the exam with tears in my eyes knowing I failed the class and hence would not be graduating that Spring.

Then something seemingly miraculous happened. I received my mark via email and it was 83%!

Even with a strong bell-curve this seemed IMPOSSIBLE. I attended my Professor’s office hours to see my exam (the curiosity was killing me). He handed me my exam and said “I guess I will be seeing you over the summer,” I looked down to a grade of 38%. Confused, I slipped the exam back into the pile of other failures and left his office. After a few pints commiserating with friends, it hit me…this was a clerical error! Whoever input the marks into the computer system clearly inverted the grade. I sat on pins and needles for weeks until I got the letter outlining the procedure for graduation and figured I was in the clear.

Now let’s be honest, there was NO WAY I was going to admit this error to the school and be forced to forgo graduation and take and PAY for the class again. But, was I wrong? Or just lucky 🙂

xo mm