Math Woes

There's a lot of negativity in my kids lately and it's getting me down. I try to stay on the bright side but it is hard when so much of what the kids bring is so negative. It is hard to be positive.
I walk around my part of the school on my breaks and hear what goes on. Most of the teachers sound like me. They have their good parts and bad parts. They are all dealing with the same problems and behaviors. It's remarkable how much we sound alike at times. I laugh as I hear what sounds like my stage patter coming out of a teacher totally different from me. Obviously, not as different as I thought. So much of teaching is like some Zen koan. If you see it then you don't see it, young grasshopper. Perhaps we are all tapped into some cosmic teacher consciousness? A consciousness that gives you those proverbial eyes in the back of the head. Kind of like that magical third eye that comes after decades of meditation? Holy crap. It all makes sense now.

My kids flat out cannot do math. WOW is it bad. I'm going to fail the lot of them. That can't happen. I've got to figure out what's going wrong with my teaching. From what I see, after teaching for more than a month, it comes down to not reading directions, going too fast, not paying attention, and not studying. The actual material and knowing it isn't even on the list, it's so friggin' far down! What are we going to do? I go fast and they don't get it. I go like a frozen amoeba on the back of a frozen turtle and they still don't get it. I go just right and they don't get it. Word problems just kill us because we don't read them at all. We just shut down and write down anything. UGHHHHHHH!!! Why can't we just try to read them? Why? Einstein couldn't have solved a problem without reading it. No one can. Why don't these kids help themselves? Help me, St. Jude! This is a hopeless case!