Rainy and cold and muddy.
It's true what's said about bad weather - you only enjoy it when you can defeat it. If I didn't have warm clothes and a roof with 4 solid walls, I'd probably be quite uncomfortable.
And just walking is an adventure - finding the right path so you don't end up knee-deep in who-knows-what.
My students feel this and the end of the year, so about half of them showed up today. Even if I wanted to get things done...
I suspected one of my students, who is clearly from a rich family (I've seen him driving two different cars, one of them a new 4x4, and he's 14 years old) of paying Dinho to sit next to him during the Biology test and tell him the answers (he couldn't simply look, because I made two versions). So today, before starting class, I took him into the teacher's room and told him to do the version he didn't do on Friday. I said that if he had studied, he should do a little worse, due to time and the version being a little harder, but I'd be able to determine if the work was his own.
He said, "I can't." I replied that it meant he would get a zero. He agreed, however apathetically, with the sort of attitude that it really didn't matter. In those few seconds, I think I saw an educational lifetime full of buying grades that has so desensitized him he has no stock in the education and no motivation to graduate. It's just something to keep him busy. And when I juxtapose that in my head with girls I know are capable of doing well in school but aren't taking classes because of money, it angers me.
And because Dinho helped - and I believe received quite a bit of money - I've given the two of them zeroes. Judging by their reactions, I'm 99% sure I'm correct. And maybe I should feel good about that, but I don't. I want to believe that I'm not just melting an iceberg with a candle.
No, I refuse to lose my idealism.
Maybe that's what people confuse with naivete.
Peace
John
