different people!

A friend sent me an email and she said, "A thought: A couple of your blog posts recently read as though your students share a single mind. I think that you might feel more positively towards them if you remembered their differences." She is a brilliant person with wonderful advice. I was kind of lumping them last weekend. It was wrong of me.

When I found plagiarism in their papers (yea, only 2 for sure), I freaked. I became paranoid and decided all of my students didn't care about learning and they hated me. It was a bad place. I'm known for caring too much and being too passionate. It is true! And because I care so much, I often get hurt. I often over react. I need to work on this. It is a weakness.

Anyway, I am grading their midterms. They didn't cheat on them. Some of them did exceedingly well! Some of them flunked in BIG HORRIBLE ways. (And what do you know, the students that plagiarized did WORSE on the midterm.) Some of them gave me some new insights into both the way I teach and new ways to help them better understand the content. Some of them LIKE what we're doing. They are all individuals. I know this. Last weekend, was just a bad weekend and I apologize for my behavior. It is getting better. I am feeling better. About 5 of my students wrote with such insight on their tests that I nearly cried with joy. One of them told me I was teaching in a progressive way.

I know you can't please all of the people all of the time, but I felt like no one liked anything I was doing. I don't feel that way now. It will be much easier to continue to do what I'm doing and continue to work really hard at it.