I keep coming back to the old adage "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." Your students come to you already pre-formed by a severely flawed system that does not appropriately prepare them to move on educationally but simply adjusts the bar ever lower with grade advancements. You cannot repair that. All you can do is your own part to teach and motivate those that will be receptive and interested. I do and have taught for over 20 years. I also was the rare self motivated learner in my highschool full of dropouts and predominantly vocational education graduates, with a flawed school focus on graduating as many of the students as possible, not on truly educating those who were interested in learning. As such us higher achievers were literally left on our own to scavenge from books and teachers what the school knew would be an adequate but not spectacular education, while the schools aimed at teaching to the lower ability students just to get them a diploma and push them through the system. They taught to the lowest abilities and did not really help the high ability students. I have learned through experience that it is better to teach to the higher ability interested student and let them drag along the less capable or less interested students. The latter will either follow or fail ultimately. You must always do your best to teach those that are willing to learn, and attempt to motivate the small population of others who may be willing to under the right circumstances. Focus on these groups and realize that in the flawed system you are forced to teach in there will simply be those who only coast along without a care in the world. The only way to teach selflessness at your level is to do it by example, as many of your efforts to go beyond the norm with your lessons demonstrate. Just realize there will be times when you will "cast pearls before swine," meaning that you may find the majority of your efforts in vain. However, even if you only move or motivate one mind, you have accomplished a portion of your mission in life. You cannot fix all the problems. You are a teacher----not an "enforcer of learning". So teach, creatively and enthusiastically, aiming high and nurturing any signs of a stirring interest in your students, but always realize that you cannot effect great change on a lot of your preformed preflawed preordained preoccupied students.

Good luck.


jeff