Most people, who haven't done it, would think that teaching in a private school is a breeze. It's not. There are different problems but they're still there.

For instance, parents think they should be able to decide what the teacher/class does because they are paying for the class.

But mostly private schools are just like public schools.

We had a group of students who pretended not to understand the chemistry they were going over so that they could avoid a take home test. Then they stupidly bragged about it at lunch. Same guys did the same thing in math. Bragged about it at lunch. They used the same techniques in my class, but it didn't get them anything except that we are going to have a quiz on Monday over the stuff they read. They may pass it, but in that case it's a throw away grade.

It's also made me decide that we aren't doing enough work in class and I'm going to have them take notes and they'll have to answer the questions for the reading we go over out of class. I really have been easy on them in terms of classwork and homework. I found out most of them are spending a total of 45 minutes on their homework outside of class. They're supposed to be assigned three hours worth of homework.

I had four ninth graders forget to put their names on their papers. I figured out who they were by shifting through all the possibilities and checking their handwriting samples. They lost 10 points this time. Next time it will be 20.

I also had two eleventh graders forget to put their names on their papers. I could not figure out which was whose because their handwritings are too similar. However, once I graded them I realized this was not going to be a problem. They both got 65.