I talked to Hunter about my frustration with him yesterday, as well as my frustration with myself about being looser with the phone the past few weeks. I told him that I reached a tipping point with him being distracted by it, and by his complaints about not wanting to be here. I apologized for walking out. I told him that he would need to keep the phone in a bag again (I brought a gift bag from home) and he could have it during the breaks. I also encouraged him to make the best of being here, and to try to have a good attitude. He was much more engaged and did a better job of paying attention. He also did not complain!

It was a hard second session with Hunter. When we started with 2 hour blocks a few weeks ago, I intended to have him put his phone in a bag (I had him doing that before the Christmas Break). He made the comment one day that if I let him look at his phone during class, that he wouldn't need as many breaks during our 2 hour block of time. It's challenging when teaching one-on-one to keep a good balance between setting expectations and standards vs. not wanting to be so strict that Hunter hates me (and therefore hates being in class even more than he already does). So, I have been bending and letting him look at his phone periodically. But, I am mad at myself for letting him do it. And, it has not helped his attitude. As you've seen by my recent comments, he's complaining often about not wanting to be here, not wanting to do the work, etc. Today, when he checked his phone and I told him to put it down and pay attention, he told me "I have more important things going on in my life than this class", or something to that effect. Had we been in a regular classroom setting, that would have been the point when I would have given him the choice to give me the phone, or sent him to the dean's office to "deal with what is more important than this class." Instead, I lost patience and walked out to talk to you. When I returned to his class, I told him that I wasn't going to let him have the phone anymore, and that it is disrespectful for him to be looking at it during class. He can check it during breaks. Tomorrow, I will talk to him further, and let him know that he is "biting the hand that feeds him." I am trying to teach him this material and get him through this math credit, and I am not going to tolerate his disrespectful complaining, looking at the phone, and constant yawning. He makes it abundantly clear that he does not want to be here. However, he really doesn't have another choice, and he needs to make the best of it. His poor, lethargic, "I want to be somewhere else and I don't want to do this" attitude is wearing me down. I need him to adjust the attitude, and I need some moral support here.

I substituted for Bradford today.