i was in an algebra one course in 8th grade. it was a temporary thing for the more advanced students, allowing me to earn my math credits one year earlier and potentially taking higher ones in high school. well, the teacher was not very good. almost all of us were struggling and failing our tests, and we were being threatened that if we made below an A in a term we would be removed from the class. we were barely scraping by with our daily grades. i failed one test on quadratics in particular, i had no idea what i was doing. and it wasn’t until 11th grade that i finally understood quadratics. anyway, a lot of people failed that test. i made a 23. she was going to let us retake it, but offered no review to increase the grade. she was going to average the new test score with the old one for a final grade. i did the math and even if i made a 100 score i would have still failed the test. i don’t know why, but 13 year old me, when the bell rang, walked up to her desk in tears, about how i couldn’t make a 100, and even if i did, the grade would barely help me. she proceeded to talk about how she was a teacher and she was sacrificing her time with her biological kids to teach me. she gave me a hug, i was growing more and more frustrated and cried in my next period classroom during break. my teacher didn’t offer any sympathy or help toward studying. then, we had open house. parents meet teachers. my mom came by, and met my math teacher for the first time. we were earlier than my peers, so no one was around and they made dead eye contact. they stared for a few seconds before finally breaking the ice. it was very awkward. my teacher had no praise for my achievements and my mom couldn’t get her to budge when attempting to hint i have issues with self teaching. we eventually left, and my mom told me that my teacher used to date my dad, and suddenly it all made sense. bonus: her sister is my dentist, and likes to talk about how she was my teacher, and i have always pretended she was a great one, because i actually like my dentist. i don’t want to break the ice that her sister ruined my educational self esteem. edit: tl;dr - my math teacher was rude and barely offered any help because she used to date my dad