Today Ben was in a rough mood when I came in. He was giving me one word answers like "Hey Ben, what happened to your finger?" (it was bandaged), his response, "Stuff."
I knew that meant he needed some time to get started. He said he was in a bad mood because of the privileged students here. That don't have to think about money. They can buy food and get it delivered any time they want. I told him I understood that. I have to wait to buy groceries for when we get paid. I can't afford to have Chik-fil-a brought to me each day. Then I explained to him that I try to keep things in perspective for a need versus a want. That I don't really need Chik-fil-a, and that I'm fortunate to be able to bring some food from home. I told him that just because money is coming in, doesn't really mean that the "grass is greener" on the other side. We further discussed and I think he shifted his perspective a little bit.
We were able to be a little productive. I wrote some exponent problems on the board. I asked him to simplify them. He recalled that anything to a zero power is 1. He also recalled how to divide powers (by subtracting them).