They were happy for a bit, then I told them what had really happened and they didn’t seem as happy.

The students in the class I teach two evenings a week got a present of sorts from me when I declared that today was the last day they’d have to write journal entries. Since class started last November they’ve been required to write a 150+ word journal entry on any topic they like. Occasionally I will give them a topic but they are mostly on their own to come up with topics, leading a couple to “improvise” a questionable solution. If my math is correct, and they wrote every day, they should have written over 10,800 words.

Hearing that today was the last journal entry brought a lot of smiles but then I revealed that the reason I’d stopped the journals is so that they’d have time to do research for the their next writing assignment. Their research can include conducting a survey if they feel so inclined.

The smiles went away and now we’ll see what happens.

Some are young men; some are still boys. Those that are still boys will be young men by the end of summer.

Third term at the school where I work is odd. There are entrance exams; some classes meet only three times whilst others meet seven times; different grades finish at different times and everyone sees themselves as a grade older than they are because in a couple months they will be a grade older.

My first year at the school was the first year it accepted junior high school students. This created a funny contrast between the taller more mature high school students and the tiny seventh grade kids in over-sized blazers. Every year those tiny seventh grade kids got taller and the blazers smaller whilst a new batch of tiny kids in over-sized blazers entered every year.

Now, in third term, some tiny kids have hit their first growth spurt and abandoned their jackets and others still can’t quite fill out the jackets.

What I find the most fascinating is the change in temperament. The biggest change is the first year students. The third year students will be gone next week (more or less) and the second years already see themselves as upperclassmen. The first years, even though there is actually no one below them, also see themselves as upperclassmen.  This means they have a casual attitude about classwork and there really aren’t that many threats I can make. That said, with the end of the school year approaching, there aren’t that many threats I want to make.

Today, in my worst class, they got some work done, but my worst student spent time lying on the floor again and another student did nothing at all, but copy the work of others. In his defense, that is an improvement.

Next year, they’ll be worse, which is a tradition for second year junior high school students (eighth graders). They’ve figured out the scam (they can’t fail) and, after the summer, they will be unrecognizable as the last of them hit their growth spurts.

Luckily, at least after summer, I’ll still be interested in making their lives miserable. Then it will all change again.

One student couldn’t stop laughing. Another pretended he was dead for half the class. Otherwise it wasn’t that bad of a day, all things considered.

My voice this morning was two parts Yoda, one part Chewbacca and three parts the sound your expensive new sneakers make when you drag them on concrete to stop your bicycle. (There were also traces of the shriek your mother makes soon after witnessing the latter.)

I, of course, opened with my worst class. They snickered at my voice. One student stared at me in stunned amusement as if he was waiting for a punchline. They were pretty good, though, as most of them did the work, with a little prodding. My worst student, though, thought it would be fun to feign death by lying down on the floor. Since that actually quieted him down, I let him stay there. Also, since the floors in the school get dirty rather quickly because the janitors clean at odd hours, he was lying in several hours worth of dust and crud, which might, in fact, hasten his death.

My next class went well, as did my third class. However, one student in that class burst out laughing every time I spoke as if I was delivering the punchline the student in my first class had been waiting for. Although I’ve been at this job for over a millennium (I started teaching in the second millennium AD and it is now the third millennium AD–do the math) it is still disconcerting to have someone laugh at me when I’m trying to give instruction.

My evening class went well as my voice has begun to recover. Also, I gave them lots of reading and writing to do, which helped quiet them down a lot.

Today was unusual because I met students I’m only going to see three times. I also got mad at students I wish I was only seeing three times.

One of the quirks of scheduling at the school where I work is that during the winter term, different grades finish at different times. We are marking and passing back exams whilst still teaching other classes. There are also long periods of “self-study” when the school is locked down for entrance exams.

This term, my Friday third year junior high school classes get entrance exams and the marathon. (Note: this latter can be cancelled because of weather so four classes is possible.) I’ll see them this week and next week and then a month later for their final class before the exam.

Both of my third year classes were good. The problem was the one I’ll see the most. They are a first year junior high school class that has started to become rowdy. Granted, they can’t help it. They’ve just received a dose of chemicals that has scrambled their brains and will render them unteachable for at lest the next seventeen years (aka puberty).

That said, it is unusual for them to be bad the first day back. One student seemed to think he could sleep and was annoyed when I woke him up. He then served as the ring leader for the problem students.

All this means they will have new seats next class. And homework. Lots of homework.

Today was the first day of actual work after the winter holiday and it was a nasty one.

It all started first period, with one of my worst classes. Luckily, they didn’t turn out to be so bad. Then I had a good class and then a bad class. Somewhere in there a student questioned his grade from last term. I showed him how he earned the score and how he could do better.

Then I had to stay for high school club which involved an interesting discussion, in English, of whether or not English should be the official language of the club. (Long, long story involving the club meeting on different days with different teachers.)

Then it was the mad rush to my evening class where I found myself slowly grinding to a halt. As it turned out, I ground down less slowly than some of my students, which was good, because I ended the class by giving them some pretty rough homework, and that required some extra time be spent explaining/justifying it.

Then, to top it all off, the train home was delayed.

If there had been chocolate waiting for me, perhaps what happened might not have happened. Well, actually, it would have happened, but at least I’ve some chocolate right now.

Today was the last class before the new year’s holiday for my evening class. Because they won’t have class until 2017, I gave them a few homework assignments: write a speech; do some grammar homework; speed read a couple short essays; write 150 words of personal journal each day.

The more I wrote, the less happy they became. When I said “Merry Christmas” and gestured the writing on the board, they insisted on pointing out that what I was doing was not, in fact, that merry.

It doesn’t matter to me though. As I pointed out, it’s 2016 now, but their homework isn’t due until 2017. That gives them an entire year to finish it.

Now I’m on vacation. Sort of. (More on that in a future post.)

It started with an excuse, then some panic. Then another student smirked when I told he just failed the term. I’m not sure what he’s thinking, but he seems to have been having a term long teenage moment so perhaps he’s not thinking at all.

Either way, I suspect I’ll have a rather lonely make-up test day unless he realizes I’m not bluffing.

My last class of the term started with a student admitting he was stupid because he’d forgot the pictures he needed for his final project. He thought he’d be able to do the speaking part without the pictures. I told him that was impossible and gave him and his partner some paper and instructions to draw some pictures. In the end they did their presentation and will pass, albeit with a lower score than they could have earned.

A second group did their presentations, but one member hadn’t done the two previous speeches. I told him a bad speech was better than no speech and he grunted a response.

Several minutes later I saw him playing with his phone and told him to come up and do his speeches. (In my world “playing with your phone” equals “I’ve finished my assignment and have nothing else to do”.) He had nothing ready and dismissed me with a smile. I told him he’d just failed with the lowest possible score (alas, I can’t give zeroes) and he smirked as if he thought I was joking.

On Friday he’ll discover I wasn’t joking. Then, next year in early January I’ll be waiting for him at the make-up exam. I doubt I’ll see him though. I may end up just standing in the room by myself.

Not the first time, won’t be the last.