One of those days...

Whoa, boy. Today was rough. There was an aura of negative energy across both of my classes after lunch. The only thing I can think of off-kilter was that the cafeteria did Thanksgiving lunch today and for some reason, it took them longer than usual to get it out each of our 4 lunch periods, so some kids were rushed getting to class. Don't know if this was part of the issue. It's a week until a full moon. Kids were cussing freely, talking over each other and me, and immediately getting frustrated when they didn't understand when they usually ask questions. I mostly kept my cool, but, forget being positive, the best I could do was remain neutral.

Gonna kick the dust off tonight and try again tomorrow.

Edit: I have some thoughts on why it may have been rough. I think today was the first day in a loooong time that those classes listened to me (weren't on their computers) for the whole class. That's not to say I lectured. We did Desmos's Parabola Polygraph. This got them amped up a bit and that was a good thing, but I didn't provide a transition to quiet--we just kinda went straight into talking about negative, positive, decreasing, and increasing intervals and doing some more graphing practice. The overall structure of my classes is inconsistent at best. I need to find a way to build structure and keep the self-pacing in place. Thinking...

Also, they earned new assigned seats for tomorrow. :)