Students were completing a very brief “bell work” assignment in which they were to write a one or two sentence response to a prompt. They were given three minutes to complete the assignment, and then they would move on to other things.
A student asked me,
“Mr. Karabekian, if I do this assignment will my grade go to an ‘A’?”
Some context: the student had previously asked me to write his grade down on a sheet of paper. His grade was 13%.
Middle School Proverbs 
That’s when you smile and say, “Don’t worry, my math skills were never that great, either.”