For years, she graded their papers with a red pen, circling every mistake and scribbling corrections in the margins. It was routine — she was the authority, the one who knew better.
But one semester, everything changed.
It started with a single essay. Instead of the usual nervous handwriting, she found her own notes corrected in red ink. “Teacher, you spelled this wrong.” “This is a fragment, not a sentence.” At first she thought it was a prank, but more essays followed — each one with her spelling slips marked, grammar circled, and even her comments rewritten for “clarity.”
Within weeks, her desk was piled with papers where students had graded her feedback. Some even gave her a score: “B–. Needs improvement.”
The final straw came during a spelling test. She wrote a word on the board, only for the entire class to hold up red pens and cross it out in unison.
The next morning, she handed in her resignation letter. When asked why she was quitting, she scribbled two words at the bottom of the page:
“See corrections.”
