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

Yesterday was the first time I met with the split Trigonometry classes.

It seems only three people (who were assigned to the earlier class) did not know about the switch and still attended the 1pm class.

I already anticipated that, which was why the first order of business for the later class was to check their attendance. Afterwards I asked if there were any who weren't called.

Two people raised their hands (the third one arrived late). I told them they were supposed to be in the other class.

I know, imprecision of language. At least that's one positive thing I got from Lois Lowry's book "The Giver".

Because of this one of the two displaced, Deiv, the same student I mentioned before (June 19 entry) who was one of the five highest in the quiz but was still asking whether certain answers of his were checked or not, stood up with his bags and was ready to leave the classroom.

Even when I told him that the "other class" happened an hour and a half before in the same room with the same teacher, he was still ready to leave. I clarified that he would have to stay if he didn't want to miss the lesson for that day.

Deiv is smart, but it's a bookish smart. Sometimes, he asks questions in class based on what is written on the board that was explained in what I said while writing it (can't have anyone just taking phone pictures of the board to pass).

The other one, not surprisingly, was Dudley, who expressed being more concerned about being marked absent.I said I would count their attendance for that session on that day only. For next meeting (Friday) they will be marked absent if they didn't attend the 1120am class.

And what was the lesson for yesterday? Trigonometric functions of angles larger than 360 degrees and of angles less than zero degrees.

With only twenty students in each class, I asked them to occupy the second to the fourth row. I discouraged sitting in the last row so as not to strain my voice, already aggravated by the chalkdust (it's the board's fault, not the chalk, the green paint applied on the wood is different from others I've used).

The chalk dust is also the reason why I told them it's okay if no one wants to sit in the first row and get their hair or clothes dirty.

And just like in my mechanics classes last term, for the second class I just kept one side of the board unerased that would be used for the next session. Not the sample problems and their solutions though. Those I had to erase and just write again afterwards.

Lastly, when I discussed the answers to the exam, there were at least two problems that seem to have alternative solutions depending on the equations they used which I gave them. So there will have to be considerations given to those possible (even if wrong) answers.