Exhaustion

Today, one of my most difficult students stayed after class to chat about his progress in class, his hopes for the future, and his behavior in the past. It would have been an unalloyed delight, if only he hadn't been procrastinating on going to English class by initiating the conversation.

This afternoon, I had a brief moment of wondering exactly why I wanted to get into this profession in the first place. My honors class was not the usual bright light in my day, because they were upset about a newly implemented policy of hall sweeps and did not want to hear about the positive effects of having the halls free of wandering students, and my college prep class continues to exhaust me. Not only did they insist on talking over my attempts to lead a class discussion (and formative assessment) on tides, but this evening, when I graded the tests they took on Tuesday, I discovered that most of them think mass is a synonym for volume and that a number of them cheated. How do I teach them physics if they won't listen to a word I say? I write the names of the offenders on the board, but I wouldn't have room to write anything else...