Thursday, March 26, 2009

Respectful and Moral

(Note I found on board when I walked into class. It made my night)

My college algebra class meets for two and a quarter hours twice a week, from 6:00 to 8:15. Everyone is exhausted by 7:45 but I push on. They tell me other teachers give them a break in the middle, other teachers let them leave early. They tell me I am cruel.

I tell them I am respectful of them. They are paying good money to take the course and they are entitled to get their moneys worth. I respect their intelligence and their ability to learn and I respect them too much to cheat them out of their valuable education time. I tell them that I am a moral person and it would be immoral of me to take a paycheck that I did not earn.

I know that many of them worked all day. I tell them that I worked all day as well. I taught six high school classes, tutored a period in the library and a period on the floor outside the teachers' cafe. I'm old while they are young. They should have more energy than I have, but I am still raring to go.

I think they are starting to believe me. They worked until 8:15 tonight and I even had one stay for my office hour after class. I'm beat but I feel good.

2 comments:

CaliforniaTeacherGuy said...

How did we live without digital cameras? Your has captured a message that will cheer your heart for years to come, long after the message is erased from the board.

Pissedoffteacher said...

I don't bring my camera at night. Luckily my cell phone has one and my good husband bought me a memory card so I can download those pictures to my computer.