I barely know what week I’m in right now. We just finished the second marking period and we’re just starting to get into systems of equations. I went through a few moments of “I can’t believe this is what they turned in” to “Yes, exactly, this this this!” and everything in between. I’ve known loneliness intimately in school, embraced it, and hoped it meant my voice meant more and not less. I went from goatee to moustache to beard back to moustache, and shed as much hair as I’ve shed frustration in the last month.

Linear relationships would be so much easier if children learned this way, too.

I’d determine the pattern and hope they could progress just as consistently as the tables we’ve developed. They wouldn’t have to go through the same point of origin, but they’d at least grow continually, at a consistent pace, with a discernible slope. But they don’t. Students can keep coming to class and not keep learning. Or not. Students can keep having their materials ready for class. Or not. Students can keep doing well on my quizzes, homework assignments, and participation. Or not.

In other words, I’m in a perpetual search for the solution to 90 separate graphs, realistically un-graphable. Let’s see what the next two quarters of the year look like.