In Soviet Russia...

Here's how it's supposed to go:

- Teacher assigns task
- Student completes task
- Student gets rewarded

OR

- Teacher assigns task
- Student doesn't complete task
- Student suffers consequences

Somewhere along the line, a few of my students got the idea that this is not how it works. You see, they somehow think that if I let them do whatever they like, they will reward me by doing work. Yes, that's right. Them working is now a reward for the teacher.

After a student asked me if they could go sit in a different part of the learning space and was denied this request, he actually said "Fine then, I won't do any work!" and it's not the first time something like this has happened with students in this particular group.

How on earth did they get this idea? How many teachers would have had a cajoling attitude which gave students the impression that they can get away with this? How on earth are their parents bringing them up?

I find this quite alarming.