"I suppose the one about someone else accidentally taking my homework? I don't think I could have helped that and any reasonable teacher might have given me half credit."
If I were your teacher and you told me that story you would be lucky if I didn't accuse you of academic dishonesty on the spot and filed the relevant paperwork. In the absolute best case scenario, assuming your total honesty, it's yet another lame variation on "my dog ate my homework". You are responsible for your work, nobody else.
The Units (that's what they're called) are passed back to our tables the schoolday before we turn them in (she makes us turn them in 3 days before that so she can spot check them in for some reason). I was talking to her while they were being passed back and by the time I get back, it's nowhere to be found and 5 minutes later, class ends. Turns out that my friend had grabbed hers to take home but accidentally grabbed both mine and hers. Monday comes and I don't have anything to turn in and when my friend gets back on Tuesday (she was sick), she apologizes to me profusely and proceeds to explain everything to the teacher who SMILES and says "too bad". So no, it's not a lame variation of "my dog ate my homework" because my friend admitted her mistake and begged the teacher to give me more than a zero.
No, shit doesn't just happen. If you get sued for copyright infringement cause someone else broke into your network and downloaded Harry Potter and you LOSE, well, "shit happens... deal with that" right? NO, when the world isn't fair, you don't roll over and say "Shit happens". You change it and make the world a little bit better. Isn't that the goal of all entrepreneurs? And isn't that the goal of HN then? We want the world to improve and leaving an incompetent teacher in the classroom goes against every thread about Khan Academy or improving the educational system. You want me to be wrong so bad that you've forgotten the principles that HN is about. Entrepreneurship is about making the world BETTER while making some money off of it (or am I naive? I suppose maybe I'm too optimistic) and rolling over is not the right thing to do.
P.S. I dealt with it the best I could. I signed up for summer school then had a talk with the head of the science department who then investigated it. It was revealed to us that the physics teacher would be fired, but then because we couldn't find any replacement for her on short notice and because the science head was about to take maternity leave, the matter was dropped.
If I were your teacher and you told me that story you would be lucky if I didn't accuse you of academic dishonesty on the spot and filed the relevant paperwork. In the absolute best case scenario, assuming your total honesty, it's yet another lame variation on "my dog ate my homework". You are responsible for your work, nobody else.