Sometimes you hear the nicest things

I was out the other night with some of my colleagues and one of them told me that she had one of my previous students in a class. This student was not doing well in my friend's class and she failed my class. This student actually confessed to my friend that my class was the only other one with which they had had problems (which makes you wonder what their other classes were like).

Many of you know I had a pretty rough semester in the spring with an unusually whiny group of students and I've been kinda down about it all although I have figured out some things I can do differently to try and prevent a similar situation in the future (or so I hope)! The reason I am mentioning all of this is because my friend then told me that this student had explained that she really liked me but that my tests were really hard (which is sorta what we aim for in our department). So I'm feeling a bit better about things. When you fail a student and they still appreciate you as a teacher you know you aren't completely screwing up.