You can lead a horse to water but you cant make it drink.

Today I wanted to test whether the students in my 11th grade math class are real live humans or just a group of despicable monsters.  Humans are capable of learning (so are dogs, monkeys, even cats); little monsters who spent their whole lives being spoiled, not so much.

I told my 11-2 math class over a week ago and gave them plenty of reminders that there would be a quiz today.  Partly out of concern for their morale and mostly out of laziness, the quiz was questions copied straight from their homework and review packet.

Chapter 7 is radical functions and rational exponents.  WOW chapter 7 you sure are moving a long fast!  FALSE.  They did chapter 1-6 last year and after pitifully attempting to review what they learned last year (a quiz average of 20%).  I decided to start new and review when necessary.

I changed one question for my own personal benefit. There was a homework problem on converting Chinese RMB to Mexican pesos and when you know RMB to USD and USD to pesos. I could have given them the same question but instead, I looked up the USD to Japanese yen rate and asked them to convert RMB into yen.  This was purely out of personal interest since I am in the process of planning a trip to Japan  (SUSAN I AM ON MY WAY!).

So yea, function and rational exponents can get pretty heavy but in a months work I thought I had taught them what they should know.

The day of the quiz a girl can't tell me the square root of 4.  In my opinion, I think she should have told me this a month ago when we started this chapter and I explained what a square root means.  It would be a lot easier to detect these students who don't quite get it if they would (a) ask questions or (b) stop copying someone else's homework.

I am not the only one who hit the wall.  My fellow math teacher told her students that they suck.  True story.  She crushed their Ivy League dreams by telling them they are failing math. For a school where ONLY 40% of seniors go to college, they sure have a lot of students applying to the Ivies.  Despite all of my fieldwork, this school apparently has quite a reputation?  I'm in disbelief but my students think they can compensate for terrible grades because they went to this prestigious school.  BULL

Whatev.  I still want to borrow a uniform for Halloween.... and misbehave in so many ways I tarnish the school's reputation forever.