The End of the Affair

Not really sure if you understand the reference, because in this case, it's not really apt. As I recall, the End of the Affair is a Graham Greene novel where the rare instance occurs and the cheater actually wins.

In my story, cheaters don't win... and by cheaters, I mean my students.

Yes, these kids.

It's winter break, my students have six weeks off and soooooo doooooo  I! The end of the semester was particularly stressful, I had finished covering all 12 units early to allow for review with my students - only to realize that my students don't understand what review is and didn't really care enough to pay attention to most of it. The thunders of my voice and the lightening of my temper shocked them into absorbing some of it as I tried to carry out a twelve unit review in three weeks time. I wanted to reward them on their hard work, but to my chagrin, most of them were hardly working. These children are in seventh grade, but they're anywhere from 12 to 16 years old. They chatted, they chattered. It's been very cold! Review sheets, extra study sessions, paired with loss of electricity and several, several come to Jesus talks later.... they took the final.

AAAAAAHHHHHH! How did it go, you wonder? So do I. I hope they won, but I don't think they beat the system this time. Perhaps next semester!

These are the things that I've come to learn about my kids and me this past semester:

• Most of them don't like learning, but they love school.
• They're interesting to talk to, eager to do so - but my conflict always comes when I've not been able to spread my time fairly among all of my kids.
• THEY ARE CHEATERS. They cheat because they don't feel like they have a solid grasp of the material, which is my fault, but they don't try to put forth the effort to learn that material - they're fault. We're mutually faulty. 
• Students think that they can outsmart teacher. Never, never happening. I know when they cheat, when they spit, and when they're talking. All 54 of them. Brattipups. 
• I've tried to teach them cheats, or in this case, simplified ways to remember fast facts about English. I think that's the only thing that they respond to! - my frantic teaching at the end. I want them to do well and they know that but they... only sometimes want to impress me.
• They think I'm too nice and they wish that I would be more strict with them. 
• NO more prizes next semester. It wastes too much time and they've already promised to work hard regardless. 

I'm optimistic about next semester. I'm worried that they'll have forgotten everything from this semester, but they're smart kids. We'll see.