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

Continued with the verification of trigonometric equations using identities today.

That's after I gave them the results of their latest long exam and showed them how to compute for their midterm standing.

Showing that they are a different breed from the upperclassmen, I got questions from the freshmen about whether the midterm grade would show up in the transcript, and on whether they still had a chance of passing the course.

Deiv continues to test my patience by asking if he could bring his test papers home, despite the fact that I asked them for group envelopes so I could keep the documents for them.

I allowed them to take the envelopes for now, with the understanding that if they lose them, they forfeit the right to complain about what they could claim as incorrect scores when it comes to computing their pre-final grades.

Dudley also left the room after getting his paper and finding out he "passed" in the exam, although it seems that his midterm standing is failing.

I also gave them a group activity/assignment (they couldn't finish it in class, so I had them take it home) of completing a table of trigonometric functions expressed in terms of the other functions. This was something I never got to give to my class last trimester, although it's a great way for them to practice.

There is a type of teacher who appreciates questions from the students, no matter how trivial or inconsequential. There are even teachers who tell the students that fact, encouraging more questions.

I am not one of them. I welcome questions, and sometimes (not always) even break the flow of a sentence I'm in the middle of just to entertain them.

There are some teachers who on the other hand request the students to reserve all questions until the he or she has sufficiently put on the brakes from the steam he or she gathered starting to explain a certain concept.

But I believe there is a point when the student should discriminate when the question he or she is asking is important not just for him but also for the rest of the class.

I also believe there are some people who abuse the fact that asking questions forces the person addressed to attend to them or else appear rude, no matter how inane the question is. These people's intention is apparently just to have their presence be acknowledged, which they somehow know they won't get by just starting to state facts during a conversation, that are most of the time only marginally relevant to topic or a tangent into another direction entirely.

I still have to work on a very heartening response to these situations (I'm not sure if I want to say the usual drill about curiosity in general being positive), but one that also somehow deflects the person's inquisitiveness for another time, or at least inspires more sensible questions that is also useful to their classmates.

Ah, this is taking up a time. I'll continue tomorrow.