Two weeks feels good

We've had six sessions in each class.  I have a total of 12 students but I am not enrolling two of them until I see them show up a few more times.  I am physically tired at the end of six hours of contact time (lunch time disappears quickly with early arrivals), but I think I can learn to manage that better if I change the configuration of the classroom.  I need to sit more for my sake and also for a calmer atmosphere in which students come up to me for help--or I call them up to me for help. 

My morning class is easier and more varied than the afternoon class.  C is a 16 year old mother of a 1 1/2 year old child who lives in foster care.  E is a 68 year old immigrant from Kenya.  He is proud that of his ten children, eight are college graduates and says now it is his turn to get an education.  In Kenya he was a primary school teacher.  His mother, at age 98, is still running a curio shop in Nairobi--so he thinks he has many years ahead of him as well!  I think that four of the five students have jobs which is amazing to me. 

The afternoon class is all young women including my problem child B!  I hope I can keep a sense of humor in dealing with her.  Yesterday, after going over three definitions contributed by the class, she asked when we were going to tell her what those words on the board meant.  Where was she?  Physically present, but obviously not mentally there.  She is often physically absent as well--many trips to the bathroom--for phone calls?  Maybe.  She calls me Miss and sometimes Miss Sally (her teacher last year) while E, our gentleman from Kenya, calls me Madam. 

I wonder if better students pick a morning class and those who can't get up early choose the afternoon.  In that way there is self-selection going on.  I am learning that I can't keep the classes together in the skills I teach.  My plan book is now split down the middle!