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[denise]

Myprofe--I sometimes blame myself as well, but then I come around and realize that it doesn't help matters. If one of my lessons bombs, I look at how well structured it was, how interesting the topic was, how well delivered it was, etc., but I also look at the students--were they in good moods at the beginning of the lesson, or were they crabby and tired? (And what caused their crabbiness--maybe it was something completely unrelated to school.) Did they put forth the effort that I expected of them, or did they slack off? We as teachers can certainly control our own actions, and we can do our best to inspire and motivate our students, but we cannot always control how responsive they will be, even to our most thoughtfully planned and well-executed lessons.

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