I had an assignment to write a short story when I was 11. Since I'd been reading too much Stephen King I decided to make it a horror story about a possessed doll in a family's attic. My teacher marked me down because it was "tense and disturbing", as if that wasn't what I was trying to achieve.

I learned english as a second language and often knew of a word but not all meanings of it. I struggled with tests until I started reading other students notes about context of what we were to learn, otherwise I'd get docked despite being technically right.

I get teaching is a hard job, but man, the standards are low sometimes.