Wednesday 23 July 2003

January 2002 started with high hopes. I was still as lonely as hell, but my work was making up for it. Still in need of extra cash trying to pay off the loan sharks, I began working for Harrah's at APAC 24 hours a week... 6-11pm Sunday through Wednesday nights... a very manageable schedule on top of teaching.

The new semester brought new faces into my classroom... most notably The Goddesses as I came to call them. Hannah, Andrea, Beth, and Ashley were all sophomores taking Algebra II, a junior-level course. They sat next to each other in the back row and the talent among them was phenomenal. Hannah will most likely be valedictorian of her class, and Andrea had one of the quickest minds I'd ever had the pleasure to teach. The four of them started first period each day with a quote from Shakespeare on the back blackboard.

To keep up with them, I accelerated the pace of the course even more than I'd done first semester. The four of them couldn't seem to get enough, and the rest of the class kept pace with them. I never pressed a class harder than I did that one, and I was more than impressed with the result.

The new semester also brought familiar faces into my classroom. A number of students went to their counselors because I was, in their words, "The only person who could teach them." Students who'd failed a class from another teacher wanted me. I was told by a parent he had talked with a classmate of his daughter's. The dad asked, "Did you have Mr. Jones for math?" The kid said, "I wish!" The dad, whose daughter had worked very hard in my class, asked why. The kid told him, "Because he's tough!" So I had students who were struggling seeking my classes because they knew I wouldn't give up on them, and students with great talent seeking my classes because they knew I would challenge them.

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