I was so excited about how well things went with my toughest class yesterday: we did such good and focused work, though, that I should have expected today. Frustrating all around.

During the bell ringer, when we were going over some of their work, trying to get a student to say that the highest value on the Y axis of a graph (we’re reading a cross-curricular text about deception in graphing) was 70. Even when I pointed to it. Even when I said, “The first number is seven.” Even when I added, “The second number is zero.” Even when I said “70.” Even when I said, “Say ’70.'”

Later in the lesson, when we were going over how to do something, I did the first half of the work for them — for all intents and purposes — in the name of modeling, even though we should be past modeling now. Be all that as it may, some of the kids didn’t even make use of the modeling — and really all they had to do is copy what we came up with as a class.

Every class has tough days, I guess. But they’re even tougher when the happen on the heels of a great day.