So, now I know what to do when students don't do the work?

I reach home. Without feeling sleepy on the road.

And I am hungry like a bear.

I don't care to even bring my stuff from the car; I rush to the kitchen to fix myself a sandwich and coffee.

It feels awfully quiet.

I hurry to the stereo and load the Simon+Garfunkel CD.

I fill the coffeemaker with water and coffee and get that going.

Which is when I realize that it feels quite cold.  I walk up to to the thermostat, which reports 61.  No wonder I am cold.

So, I go up to the attic and find that the furnace isn't working.  I give it a thump on the left, one on the right, and one again.  It kicks into life.

I re-enter the kitchen and it is quiet.  No music from the stereo.  I give it a thump on the left, one on the right, and one again.  Cecelia pours out from somewhere in the middle of the song.

I start assembling the sandwich when I realize that there is no fresh coffee aroma from the coffeemaker.  Yep, I give it a thump on the left, one on the right, and the familiar sounds began after a few seconds.

I am finally having my sandwich and coffee in a slowly warming home, with Simon+Garfunkel in the background, when it dawns on me.  Three different mechanisms started doing what I expected them to do only after I thumped them left and right.

Three is, as they say in statistics, a definite trend!  If thumping is what gets non-working systems to do what they have to do ...

And thus, the revelation: tomorrow--Monday--I will be back in the classroom and, as always, I will bug students with questions.  When there is no response, a thump on the left, a thump on the right, ...

Nah!

The stereo is still working.  I haven't tried the coffeemaker again.

The furnace has, however, stopped working; it will be a cold morning that I will wake up to.

Here is hoping that my heart will be thumping, eh!