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

I was talking about questions that my students asked during my Mathematical Methods One class. I don’t know the reason for it, but I was making more mistakes writing things down on the board than I seem to have in previous subjects. And the students in this class are taking me to task more for it; or maybe the attention to it is what is making me think there’s more this time around.

It could, on the other hand, be the way that the students have been pointing out the mistakes I’ve been jotting down. I could tolerate pointing out my errors accompanied by the question “Sir, is that correct?”

But it seems that most of the time, students who do notice those slip ups ask, “Sir, why is it that…” or “Sir, how did that become…”

I don’t know why, but it’s a bit disconcerting.

As for what I promised to relate last time, there is this student, JM, who at one time during the first week of classes already reacted negatively to only the second of our daily exercises. Sometime at the start of the recitation slash board work, he also asked (again revealing his “least effort” outlook) if all would be called from the class. I said it depended on the time, but I would definitely manipulate it so that all topics that were in the quiz would be taken up.

At certain points in the activity, I asked the students if they were finished copying a certain solved problem, so I could call the next person to recite. If no one complained, I would erase it then pick out the name of the student from their course cards before writing down the problem (although I was taking it from the textbook, so they still had an idea more or less which question might be next). I preferred that to giving the problem first before calling on someone.

If they weren’t finished copying, I’d give them a set number of minutes before I erased it. Towards the middle I noticed that only JM would answer that he was copying, but then he’d bury his head in his arms on his desk afterwards. Obviously, it was a delaying tactic so that there would be less probability of him being called before the class ended. Not that it worked.

That reminds me, during the live student debate on TV Sunday night two weeks ago, another of my former students was on one of the panels. He was called MJ in the program.

The most telling point of his appearance was that even though he came from a secular institute, that he was on the side of preferring a non-secular school when that question came up.

His fellow student panelist, from the rival school, in his final statement sadly reverted back to loyalty blurting out their popular athletic competition slogan, after an hour long embarrassment of not showing the supposed English articulation their campus is supposed to be known for – in front of one of his former professors who was one of the resource speakers at that (maybe that was one of the reasons behind the pressure he buckled under).

MJ, on the other hand, just thanked his alma mater for the well rounded education he was given, in his closing address.

I have to admit though that it was the most heated topic I’ve seen discussed on that show so far, with several people trying to speak up at various points to rebut someone, and one teen guest even going so far as to counter the pronouncement made by Commission on Higher Education Chairman about public schools being better in certain courses such as education (bad enough that I didn’t like the way he rolled his R’s while he was speaking). I guess the intensity of getting their own view across was that great, or it could just all be boiled down to school spirit.

I will have to end session 615 here, and talk about my first quiz for the term next time. For now, class dismissed.