[JerryG]

Thanks Gerry! I've come to the realization that kids who did not have our advantages growing-up cannot handle our academic expectations. My average student reads at a fourth grade level in high school and is so damned reactionary due to a constant anger about a destroyed home life. In many ways, my classroom is the calmest, friendliest, most rational place they have each day apart from grandparents perhaps. You remember I'm sure that "No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care."

That is precisely it, Patrick. Even in the school where I worked, at the end of the day we often wished we could just keep them at school.
They are lucky to have you in their corner.