Back on November 10, I wrote that my S3 class was my most challenging. And they were challenging in various ways - too many of them for the room, one disruptive pupil who should have been in a lower ability class but had been seperated from his regular partners in crime, one bright lad who had decided to stop working (or even thinking at times), a couple of girls who missed more lessons through ill-health than they attended and they could all chat for Britain.
But overall, I came to enjoy teaching them most. They generally did cotton on eventually, they attempted theior homework (mostly), they did detention reasonably cheerfully when they hadn't done said homework bubt most of all they had some sense of fun. Yes, I had to quieten them down regularly. Frequently even. But it's hard to get cross and stay cross when the conversation goes like this (names changed to protect the guilty):
Me "Jason! Chantelle! What's all that noise? And what's so funny about frequency diagrams?"
Chantelle: "Nothing, sir (sic). Jason was just doing his Chewbacca impression."
In the end, I enjoyed being with them and I think they enjoyed being with me, which made the whole teaching/learning thing easier for all of us. After my last lesson I even got a high five from one of the boys I'd had to talk to a lot in the first few days.
So here's to classes with spirit. But maybe not tooooo much.
PS Here's the Chewie link on Wookieepedia. I couldn't resist that. Sorry.