Today is not the greatest day. It's not even close. My last class of the day is honors, and I really am discouraged by my honors class. Honestly, it's not merely this year but every year. Maybe my expectations are too high. I want my honors students to show more thought and perspective than my other students, and it rarely happens. A few of my honors students are truly honors (at least what I think of as honors), but most of them are nice students with a propensity to be major suck ups. While many teachers may think the nice, suck up student is amazing, I find them annoying to quite annoying. For example, I don't need students walking into my classroom saying, "Hi." Instead, I want them to walk in and be prepared to think and learn. Don't start the class off by giving me an origami peace crane (yep this happened today). Start the class of my looking at the board, seeing what you need, and preparing for class. So far this year, the honors students have had the exact same activities, and their discussions (answers, reasoning) has been the same as my other classes and many times subpar in comparison to my other classes. Tomorrow they will be challenged with a more difficult curriculum. It also will not be the greatest day.
The good news is that I am impressed by many of the students in my other classes. Their reasoning is sound, and they are willing to share not only their answer but their process of coming at the answer. When I push them with further questions, they don't give up. They keep going to prove their answer or to help me understand their answer. This, my friends, is my expectations for an honors student.
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