can’t wait until the Christmas break, either. Which may partially explain your day.

Not every day teaching is stellar, and some days are lousy. You can’t reach every kid every time and some kids you can’t reach, period.

But you have to hold in mind the ones you do reach. Chemistry can be a tough subject (I taught English, which can be also but for different reasons).

The biggest thing with us (teachers) is that most of us go into teaching something because of our own passion for that subject…and we forget all the kids in our classes who had no passion, and the subjects we took for which we had no passion. It’s hard to stand in front of a class, full of your own fascination with the way things work or the way language goes together, and face 25 or 30 or 50 kids who are just there because they have to be. But not all of them will have passion for this. Some will hate every minute, some will just squeak by, many will do what they have to for the grade but show little enthusiasm. Some will have a latent interest that won’t really wake up for years—like me with history, which I hated in high school. Some will find their passions in other teachers’ classes, and that’s okay.

Most of them will grow up, and when they do, they will look back and feel differently about you and the subject you worked hard to teach them.

Try to keep your sense of humor until the holiday. The breather may do you and all of your students some good. Not that they’ll turn into model scholars overnight or anything, but try not to get discouraged. Remember, it’s sometimes called “compulsory education,” and these kids are at the age where they just hate to be compelled.

Edited because I had to say—Year 10s corresponds to sophomores, and how well I remember. Sophomores are hard, they really are, so full of themselves and so very very hard to teach. “Sophomore” means “wise idiot,” and there’s a reason those Year 10s are called Sophomores here in the States. They think they are smart but they act like idiots! :::g:::

Edited again to beg pardon of all sophomores who read this…I didn’t mean YOU specifically. :^ ) Really.