Frustrations

Its 9am and I'm waiting outside my classroom for the other professor to finish her class and shuffle out her students and I can't help but wish passing time wasn't a foreign concept here. I finally push my way through the crowd of students and into the classroom where I begin to set up for the class I prepared back on Monday.

This class is already way behind where they should be for their midterm and I'm having to plan extra carefully to see what activities I can gloss over without sacrificing the students' understanding of the concepts. But the funny part of teaching is that it doesn't matter how much planning or energy you put into class - the students have to meet you halfway. And the first step on their part is caring enough showing up to class.

So its 9:15 and I'm pretty agitated because the room is still empty. They have a quiz next class, and a Midterm in a week, and we still have over a unit to cover in class. My first and only student out of a class of 8 strolls in at 9:18 and I scold him for being late, knowing that it won't even matter. How can I show him that its important to be on time when no one else in class respects their education or my class enough to even show up? The administrators tell me they deal with this by starting class on time regardless of how many students are there, and that works in my other class, but it won't work when you have no students. You can't start teaching to empty desks and expect that to do anyone any good. And getting frustrated, calling people out, and explaining that class starts at 9, not 9:15 or 9:30 will only get you so far, not to mention it doesn't even work on the students who don't show up. My only hope is that when they see their failing grades due to lack of attendance that they'll make a bigger effort the rest of the semester.

End result: I gave up. I didn't teach any new material - how could I? Instead, I practically gave him what was going to be on the quiz next class.