Once again, I caught a couple students plagiarizing. Grotesquely. Once again, they divided themselves neatly into "sympathetic" and "evil that must be clubbed into a quivering pulp on the ground" categories for my convenience. And once again, a talented student redeemed what was otherwise one crappy week.
Whenever I pull a student aside and tell them they have an aptitude for something, the reactions always confound me. I understand gratitude, maybe some awkwardness about accepting a compliment—I really do—but the consistent level of shock is downright disturbing. They gasp. They can't make eye contact. Eyes may well up. I've even gotten a hug. And then invariably, they utter some form of "No one here's ever noticed me."
How can this be? How can brilliant students go unnoticed, unencouraged, for four years? Not to put too fine a point on it, but what the fuck are other teachers doing all day, and who's paying them to do it? I'd die without the hard-working stars. Well, not die, but I certainly wouldn't teach. As I told an overly grateful star student this week, "You're why I'm here." It rather makes me wonder why my peers are.