by Gilthanass
I had an english teacher in grade 11 that was... quite creative with his teaching method (though not so much that work didn't matter/marks didn't count/etc). Anyway, we read "the little prince" for one of our book studies (is that what they're called? I don't remember). After we had read it, he gave us a quiz on what happened in it (what planet is he from, etc).
When we finished the quiz, he collected the tests, looked at them, and declared that no one had obviously understood the point of the story (it's about matters of consequence and such, so the minutia of the quiz was contrary to the book). After that we were given a week to write an assignment about the book, it could be anything we wanted, a poem, a story, an essay, just some writing about the story.
The day it was due, I was at lunch and realized I hadn't started yet. Being the little prick I was, I decided to take a piece of paper and write "This assignment isn't a matter of consequence to me" on it and be done with it. I handed it in, and waited smugly to get it back, preparing my arguments over why I should get a good mark, knowing that if he gave me a failing grade, I could give him a compelling case about how HE obviously didn't understand the story.
Well, the next week the assignments were all handed back, and lo and behold, I didn't even get mine back. It was then I realized my assignment had turned into "Schrodinger's paper". Let me explain. If I went up to him and asked him what I got, he would have been able to fail me because obviously my paper was a ploy, and the assignment DID matter to me. So, my mark existed in a state of A and F at the same time, and would only truly become an F if I observed it.
To this day, 15 years later, I have no idea what I got on that assignment.
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