Where's Superman?

What do you do when you feel helpless?
Cry?
Yell at... the person next to you or the innocent TV?
Sleep till you don't hear the sound of the rooster?
Secretly waiting for Superman to come for a rescue?
Well, when I feel helpless I stare at the ceiling wishing that I had a superpower to teleport--to transport across space and distance instantly (said a dictionary)

This morning I woke up just to see a message from a former student of mine crying out for help because she failed one of her exams which happened to be of the subject that I taught. Had this message been from students I don't know, I probably would care less, but this is from a student who is smart, responsible and cares for her academic performance. I immediately sense that something was wrong...

And everything went downhill from there...


This student explained her frustration and disappointment because she felt that she was not being assessed properly by the teacher:
"I dont understand the question!"
"She never taught us how to answer the question!"
"It's not fair that she gave us questions that she never taught before!"
and the list continues...

Since I was partially curious about the "quality of the exam," I asked the student to email some questions to me and... "Well no wonder this kid got lost!" I thought.

At that point I still managed to stay calm and tried to be wise:
"Have you talked to the teacher?"
"Why don't you ask her to go through the questions again so that you can understand them better?"
"I'm sure she'll understand and be more than willing to help you"

I didn't expect the student to immediately agree with me, but I didn't expect THIS student to be extremely upset that she blurt out things that made me wish for an ability to teleport myself back to where she is and give her a hug while saying, "It's ok! We'll try harder next time and let me show you how..."

"She said that she took the questions from Cambridge exam. So what? They are hard and we need help!"
"She just went "bla bla bla" when we asked her to explain."
"I bet those questions arent from Cambridge coz they are written so poorly, like the grammar and all..."
"I need help!"
"I'm sorry to bother you miss... but I'm desperate!"

Now what do you do when you hear a student crying out for our help?
Don't you wish you could just run to her and tell her that things will be OK?
Don't you wish you could just take out a pen and paper and teach her?
Don't you wish you could 'confront' the teacher AND whoever "VET" the exam paper to see for yourself the quality of the exam?

Well, if only I had that superpower of teleporting, I would have done all those by now... Unfortunately, what can I do but write this piece to you and hoping for Superman...