Students are human, too!

Obviously. But really, encountering a wide spectrum of personalities is one of the fascinating aspects of teaching!

Two examples from today --

1) Honesty -- One student approached me because he thought he should have received one point less. I used to be like about points when I was a student, too!! Wow!

-- After school today, I helped and chatted with another student. One question she asked me was about a sentence she wrote for another class. She was supposed to have written a compound sentence, so she was supposed to rewrite the sentence she wrote. I think her concern was not knowing what else to write about to expand the sentence because she'd already written about all the pets in her home in America, I think.

2) Passionate Frustration -- So today in class a student was frustrated about a question on the quiz. He was also frustrated about a particular section (he only underlined the part he thought was the mistake; he didn't change the mistakes like he was supposed to). I addressed his question for awhile before moving on, and after the class it seemed as if his passionate frustration had subsided or disappeared.

3) Concern -- As I mentioned in #1, I met with a student after school today. She seems sweet and bubbly, but also she seems to have her share of difficulties with her life here (ie. transportation, not speaking English at lunchtime). I am glad she shared those concerns with me.

I like the relational aspect of teaching! And even #2 had a benefit -- seeing how wait time can truly seem to heal or subdue 'trauma' (even if it's seemingly very minor to most people).