when the sky turns black, and we know it will from time to time, we've been through that, and we came out on top

~Ivan & Alyosha (Easy to Love)


Last night, as I was finishing up writing the second (hopefully slightly less difficult!) midterm for my general chemistry course and pondering how my students will fare on it, I found this email in my inbox from a student who has only spoken to me once:

"Prof Klug,

Hey I just wanted to e-mail you and let you know that I
really appreciate your class this term! This is my second time taking Chem 1211
and I'm understanding it much much better this quarter! So yeah I just wanted to
shoot you an e-mail letting you know that. Thanks for your
awesomeness.

Love,
(a student)"

Whenever I start to feel like I confuse my whole class of 56 students and they must hate the subject matter, I get a glimmer of hope from a simple email or comment that lets me know all has not been in vain. I suppose it just goes to show that all students learn and express their learning in different ways. Though I hardly know this student, they are enjoying the class! It has been my experience this quarter that I mostly only hear from the students who are not enjoying or are frustrated because they are not "getting it," but there are others in that sea of fun faces.

We'll see how they feel after the test tomorrow. I'm expecting a huge improvement, though...