i'm like crushed to the max at this point.

Jiaaaaa is still in school at this hour.

Today has been a frustrating day, especially for maths. I am going to talk about Maths. All the dissatisfaction expressed below goes to Maths, not Bio, not Science.

I have started with the chapter on Ratios, Rates and Proportions. 

For the past few weeks i have spent so much time doing Algebraic Expressions and Linear Equations with the students. Exercises were given. Extra questions were given. We even had an extra class last night just to go through the chapter on Algebraic Expressions. I can honestly *and proudly* tell you that i put my heart, mind, and soul into helping them to understand.

But today, their silly questions that have not been processed in their brain really crushed my spirit to the max. 

Earlier on, we learnt this - 

2(2x + 1) = 4x + 2

Today, while solving one of the questions with the students... we came across this...

(2x + 4) x 8 = 16x + 32

One girl gave me her 'standard' blank look and her 'famous' head shake....

'Teacher, why 16x.....?'

I almost wanted to shout at her 'You blind ah? Can't you see it's 2x multiplied by 8?'

Ok. Almost.

And I almost wanted to ask them 'Please stop asking silly/stupid questions.'

Of course I didn't use that kind of words. 

"OK. Listen up. Open your eyes and observe carefully..... we are doing multiplication here. That's why it's 16x"

The drama is.. she still couldn't get it!!!!!!! my god!!!! I seriously wanted to just disappear into thin air at the very moment. And I know my face had turned as red as tomato which i only wanted it to be like that during the lepak drinking time. Not in front of those brats who are not using their brain.

So, we had to go through it again to tell her that both are the same. We are still doing multiplication for goodness sake! Ok great, finally she got it. And these brats are already in the middle of being a Form 2 students. I wonder what happened during primary school and their Form 1.

Then, another drama came. This girl couldn't understand the steps to determine if a pair of ratios are equivalent or not. Goodness gracious. oh crap. this is really bad, i tell you. I was already quite agitated with the whole 16x incident, and now there's another crappy 'why-is-it-like-that' question. We almost fought. Her friends who have already understood way earlier than her kept explaining to her but she refused to listen and kept pestering me with her questions.

Argh, give me a break!

I took a deep breath and told God, "Oh God, you've got to do this crap. I don't know how the heck to explain any more."

"Hey, pay attention and listen carefully...." blah blah blah... i tried again. and again. and finally i don't need to try again. It finally dawned on her why we are doing this and not that... etc etc etc...

May I tell you how tired I got every time i walked out from the math classes, particularly for that class?

There's no satisfaction in that. is it rewarding? i am not feeling anything of that kind. seriously.

Next week they will have their Math April test. I don't know what will become of me if they failed the test. And I have the feeling that this is going to happen to some of them. this is crap, because some of them can't even do proper addition and subtraction of positive and negative integers. Such basic stuff and yet they can't give accurate answers.


I am in ruins.