17/03/10

I gave my second test today and most of my students did quite badly. I suppose there is nothing more crushing as a teacher than thinking you are teaching really well and your kids are really learning, and then realizing that they have learned nothing.
I caught my first student cheating today. It’s such a disappointment because she was using a multiplication table, why didn’t she just memorize it? We have been practicing the times tables during class. And even if she didn’t get a single multiplication correct, she probably would have still gotten better than a zero, which is what I said I would give anyone caught cheating. But I think I was sadder about catching her than she was about getting caught, and of course that is that problem.
One of my students wrote “good luck [his name]!” on the bottom of his test, I laughed out loud. Another left me instructions: “turn page” at the bottom of one page and “end” at the end, quite thoughtful.