The difficult ones

Teaching can be a very rewarding experience. Whether you are teaching kids or adults, when you see your students "get it" there is a feeling of euphoria. This is what keeps us teaching. On the flip side we have students who refuse to get it. I am not talking about the people that work their butts off and come up short. I mean the ones who refuse to engage, who are unwilling to put forth any concerted effort or those whose goal is to disrupt class . I usually have a number of these kids each semester. These are the ones that make class difficult.
What is the best way to deal with them? The ones who show up everyday and refuse to do anything are probably my biggest frustration. After a few weeks of encouragement for them to dress and participate I will leave them alone. It is a sad state of affairs but I refuse to spend all my energy on a small few and take that away from the rest of the class. Over time some of these kids have come around and become involved in the class (usually not until the next semester) but many just fade away. I've found that phone calls home are only a temporary fix and don't work for very long. School discipline is also ineffective. I would love to know how others deal with these students.

I Failed!

This is quite a disturbing statement to make. No one likes to fail and some people don't fail well. Let me be specific about what I mean by not "failing well." There are some who will enter into a class, challenge, certification and quickly give up and quit. When the inevitable happens, they fail, the excuses come out. Phrases like, "I didn't really try" or "It was stupid anyway" or "the teacher/instructor didn't like me." I could go on and on with examples of people's rationalizations for failure. When someone utters one of these excuses they fail a second time. It is one thing to fail the initial task but there is no excuse to fail a second time and not learn from the mistakes you made.
I spent the last 2 days at CrossFit Silicon Valley for the Level 2 certification and I failed. I failed to score enough points to achieve the certification. I earned 50 points and I needed 54 to pass. I contend that despite not getting certified I was not really a failure. I was successful for a couple of reasons. I learned how to be a better instructor/teacher/coach. I also learned what aspects of my teaching are lacking and now I can focus on improving those areas.
Does that sound familiar,"work your weaknesses?" It should. In CrossFit we learn that if you improve the weak point it benefits everything else. You only really fail when you stop trying.
Now the hard part begins. I must continue to hone my craft, learn as much as my brain will allow, practice, practice, practice and then I will take the Cert again. The next time I will achieve my passing score and it will be that much sweeter knowing I had to work extra hard to succeed.
Thanks to Todd, Adrian, Lisa, Freddy and Annie for their valuable insights and instruction. I value your opinions and I will take to heart your advise.