Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

So far only one student has shown up for the consultation on the astronomy quiz slated Monday, and it’s not even someone enrolled. It’s a guy whose girlfriend is in my class, but has been absent since last Friday. He asked for notes to photocopy. I told him I didn’t have any. What I didn’t tell him was that even if I did, it’s a bad precedent to let the students copy the teacher’s notes for when they were absent.

His alternative? To teach him how to use the zodiac constellation calendar to teach his girlfriend. I admired his effort, but I didn’t think it was the right way to go about it. No matter how dedicated he is, just the fact that he has no stake in learning this stuff, unlike his girlfriend or her classmates, means he won’t be absorbing as much, at least not in one session. And I was right; he did accept what I had to teach him, after only a handful of examples. I also didn’t teach him the short cuts to some of the questions, but told him how to solve them the long way.

Let's see how she does on Monday.

On another front, I finally convinced to of my co-teachers who have handled programming classes to look at my thesis student’s program. I also asked them to write down their comments and suggestions on paper for me to give to the guy so he’ll know it’s not just my opinion involved. I'm planning to leave the papers with the secretary to give to him when he does show up, even when I'm not around.

And another co-teacher of mine promised to confront him about the inadequacies of his software next time she sees him.

Lastly, I also have to say something against teachers in other subjects who assign their students to go around interviewing other teachers for their reports.
It’s a waste of my time, and the answers would probably be just the same as if they’d asked fellow students. Ditto with asking students to distribute surveys during another teacher’s class time.

This time it was about preferring a parliamentary or presidential form of government. The students begged that they really needed to have a science teacher’s views. I deliberately sabotaged my answers, so that any sociology teacher worth their salt would know it’s paranoid thinking. And I gave my name, so I’m prepared for that teacher to confront me about it, and I’ll confront him or her about proper teaching methods.