The first unit of teaching has come to a close, but moving on is difficult when so many students are failing. I'm trying to reserve judgment, but I just can't comprehend why these students can't make it to school so often. They are doing a raffle at school for all the students who haven't missed a day of school yet - only 60 out of 2000. And I ask these kids why they weren't at school when they come asking what the missed, and I can tell that they are lying to me when they say they were at the doctor. I don't know what past teachers these students had, but I get the feeling that these students don't actually think that I will give them an F. One of my kids said to me on Friday, "Aren't you proud that I came to school today?" On a bad day, I just want to reply, "No Andres, you actually make it harder for me to teach the rest of the class when you are here."
That's the most upsetting thing I've found is that while there are students here that truly want to learn as much as possible and are committed to it, there are also students that pretty much do anything and everything to detract from that classroom commitment. Case in point - I gave my Algebra class pretty much an entire class period to correct their poor quiz grades for additional points, but a handful of students just didn't want to do the work and instead distracted others. When grades and points are no longer effective motivators, what do you do? Why do these kids come to class? I know there must be things that I can do to remedy this, but I feel like I don't have time for these trial and error games!
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