he's THAT kid

We're one quarter into my second year of teaching and I've discovered a new pet peeve. In general, students who cannot figure out answers to test chalk it up to their own lack of studying. I say in general because this does not apply to Bert (who's name has been changed to protect his at times annoying identity). Bert is very smart and I've come to discover, a little bit too sure of himself. Every time (and I do mean EVERY TIME) we have a test, Bert encounters something that doesn't look familiar on a test and proceeds to accuse me of testing something that has not been covered in the material.

Last week it was "well I don't remember reading the term "man-made" anywhere in our text." I said "wow that's pretty amazing that you can remember that since your test is over more than 100 pages of reading." he was wrong and did in fact discover the term "man-made"

Today it was "Mrs. Haslam, NONE of our vocabulary cards have the word "rebirth" on them. I know that for sure." I replied "just because it says use a vocab word doesn't mean I necessarily gave you the definition of that word, you might need to know the context." He mutters as I walk away "well I know the book didn't use the word rebirth anywhere." shocker: he found it after he turned his test in.

It is seriously all I can do not to freak out when Bert feels the need to make his lack of studying my fault. You'd think after being proved wrong every single time, he'd come to learn that I'm not the one making the mistakes. you'd think.