Students who failed her class still stop by. They bring her apples. She throws the apples into the compost. "Fruit rots," she says. "But a good argument lasts forever."
How did one teacher earn the moniker "tricky" when most educators strive for "nice" or "easy"? Let’s break down the mechanics of Mary Top’s classroom, the topography of her tricks, and why students today still pay $200 for a PDF of her old final exams. Mary Top started teaching in 1982. Back then, she was just "Miss Top." But by 1985, the students had added the adjective. Why? Because Mary refused to do what every other teacher did: hand out A’s for participation. tricky old teacher mary top
The class cheered.
She was tricky. She was old. She was Mary Top. And if you ever meet her, don’t bother saying hello. Just look her in the eye and say, "I found the echo." Students who failed her class still stop by
By: Eleanor Vance, Guest Columnist
That was her code. The echo meant you had just repeated a logical fallacy. You had to figure out which fallacy, in real time, while 30 classmates stared at you. It was terrifying. It was brilliant. It was tricky . This is the trick that became legendary on Reddit’s r/Teachers forum. Once a semester, Mary Top offered a deal: "You may wager 10% of your final grade on a single question. If you answer correctly, you keep the points. If you answer incorrectly, you lose them and also have to write a 500-word apology to the philosopher whose work you misunderstood." "Fruit rots," she says
But mostly, you’ll see it in the lives of her former students—lawyers who question the prosecution’s narrative, doctors who listen for the symptom the patient isn’t describing, parents who read the fine print on a permission slip.