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Diamonds in the Rough

This week, I felt off. I was completely exhausted and my colleagues actually noticed, which was strange because I'm generally good at keeping up appearances. Superman would've been disappointed in me. I fell asleep during my favorite TV shows at home. That rarely happens. I haven't gone running all week. I've been snoozing through my alarms instead of waking up. I've made several mistakes in my PowerPoints. I just haven't been...sharp. 

Luckily, there were a few diamonds in the rough this week that helped make the work days better.

Emily, a student of mine who barely came last year has been working her ass off this year in both my classes (personal wealth management and algebra). Here's a text message exchange from Wednesday night:
"19%... move the decimal twice to the right?" asks Emily.
"That would make it 1900..." I reply.
"Oh yeah... left! I knew that. Thanks!"
Emily was doing her algebra homework (exponential decay). I am so proud of her this year. She has a lot of shit going on at home and yet, she comes in everyday eager to make the most of what she has. When she's leaving early, she stops by my class to pick up the work. She checks the website to see if there are any assignments she's missing. And she checks to see if I've entered her grades in correctly. Awesome much?

It seems this year the number of students who are here to take their classes seriously outnumbers those who are wasting their time. And it's making the knuckleheads look really bad. Another student in my finance class said this to me:
"Mista, I feel bad missing your class. Like, sometimes I don't wanna wake up til later, but then I think about what I'm going to miss. And since your damn class is 1st period, I might as well stay the whole day. You purposely made this class 1st period, didn't you?"
I played it off, but that made me smile. It was an interesting feeling, but I was reminded of when my mother would boast about me all day to her friends. I felt awkward, but in a good way. And yes, it's 1st period on purpose. I don't want to teach you finance if you don't want to be there.
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Comments

Anonymous said…
Wow.
October 22, 2010 at 7:25 PM
Alpha Za said…
haha, i think you are in the running for teacher of the year awards.

Well done good sir.

Hold the class afterschool and offer no credit and see how many kids show up...or better yet, before school!
October 23, 2010 at 4:40 PM
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