selective hearing

Sometimes I make the mistake of forgetting that teenagers have selective hearing. So when you tell them that you'll sing for them if they get through all of the material you had planned for that day, all they hear is "I'll sing at the end of class." And then you will never hear the end of it. And every day they will remind you that you still need to sing for them. And that they would really like for you to freestyle rap.

And when you tell them one time three weeks ago that they get to do a fire lab, and then remind them every single day that they have a quiz on Tuesday, and write it on the board and on the assignment sheet you handed out to them, they will still come into class on Tuesday surprised that you're handing out a quiz. But they will still ask every single day when they get to do the fire lab you mentioned once three weeks ago.

And when you tell them specifically to read the directions to their quiz, because on the directions you write "if you do not know the answer, simply put your name in the blank and you will receive full credit for the question" because you know perfectly well that nobody reads anything you give them and nobody listens to anything you tell them, every single student except for three still fails the quiz. But at least they now read the directions.