Back-handed compliment.

"So Sir," asks M from my Form as I escort him out from his ICT lesson in which he is persistently and calmly ignoring everything the teacher has asked him to do in favour of wandering about annoying the others, breaking equipment and then complaining about how much the teacher is winding him up. "Sir, you're going to be our form tutor until the end of the year, right?"
"Yes, M, that's right."
"No offence, yeah, but that's rubbish."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, I mean, when you were just our French teacher it was cool because we only saw you twice a week..."
He's being sincere and not intending to be rude. I can't see where he's heading with this one.
"...riiiiight..."
"Well, Sir, what I mean is that we kind of andIdon'tmeanthisinanweirdway missed you, so we looked forward to the lessons more, but now that we see you every day it's bate."
This takes me a second to figure out. 'Bate' is a pejorative adjective.
"Thanks, M?"
The delights of making a difference!

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GCSE group. Waiting for silence. Again.
C: Sir you're always moany these days. You used to be nice.
Maybe if you shup up once in a while, or attempted your coursework, or came on time at least occasionally or didn't insult me in front of the rest of the class then I wouldn't have to moan at you. Till then get used to it....hoooold it...such rhetoric wouldn't help matters. Also, it would be pointless moaning.
Me: Thank you, C. Now please remember to bring your passports for the trip on Saturday.
C: Whatever, Sir! See-ya!

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I think that teaching is most often thankless. You have got to get enjoyment from the actual process because you cannot expect acknowledgement from the pupils for the hours and hours you put into their education. You also have to have some intrinsic motivation: a deep-seated desire to do something good. I spent 12 hours in school today and then had to plan for a further hour and a half at home. Thinking back, I don't believe that I even realised teachers planned until I reached sixth form and had a young history teacher who was noticeably learning the course herself as she taught it to us. Until then I thought, as most of my pupils surely do now, that the teacher just rocked up and talked about the same things they always did and, moreover, that their lessons just flowed from somewhere inside them without hours of painstaking preparation. Actually "thought" is an overstatement. I never even posed myself the question as to where the lessons came from!