Just when you think the world is against you...

I'm not exactly the world's most organized teacher. My class is laid back and most days I do my lesson planning the night before or that morning on the way in. I know the general idea of what I'm going to teach, but I don't lay out my lessons in advance, and I don't pay careful attention to the objectives and state standards and agendas and other stuff we're always supposed to do to look good on paper. On paper, I look like the worst teacher ever.

In the classroom, however, I get things done. My kids don't always realize they're learning because I don't like to shine the flashlight on the material. I like my education to sneak in when you're not looking and clock you over the head and run off with your woman. That conversation we had about herpes? That was really about the archetype of the goddess figure. Take that, guy who taught that boring methods class. We all know how much I idolize Joss Whedon in my writing life, but Frank McCourt is my teaching idol. I think Teacher Man was written just for me. That tiny Irish man doesn't have time for crappy rules that ignore common sense and I'm the same way.

Still, yesterday a colleague of mine told me I was in trouble. I'd already had a talking to about my pacing (I get off topic and spend days discussing stuff not at all related to the play we're reading, and this makes the play go on for infinity) and I've been caught several times not writing the day's objective on the board or dressing way too casually for education. Then a crazy lady supposedly wrote me and another teacher up for not working hard enough to keep pot smokers off the stairs near our classrooms while we are supposed to be in those classrooms teaching. I have an outside balcony room which I love, but it means I get ditchers out there and I have to shoo them into the building. Apparently the crazy lady didn't think I was doing a good enough job. Probably because while she just yells at them, I tell them that if they don't leave I will just keep annoying them to death with my obnoxious voice until they go to class. My way gets better results. I think she's jealous.

The point is, I was feeling pretty demoralized going into a meeting with my boss. Everybody had to have this meeting at one point or another, but I just knew I was going to get reamed for my lack of professionalism even though my kids are learning. Because that's always bugged me about teaching: a teacher can be the most organized, lesson-planning fool in the world but still spend the entire class period doing worksheets and watching videos, and they get all the accolades because they cross their Ts the right way. Meanwhile, the one who's really teaching gets yelled at for failing to fill out the proper forms on time. In an ideal world I'd be able to do both, but I'm a writer. You know how we are. I'm amazed I remember to put my pants on properly.

So I go into this meeting and my boss is very pleasant and gives me a few pointers and I listen waiting for the big blow of insults, but they don't come. Instead she says the following: "I'm happy. Because when I walk into your classroom your students are smiling. And it's not because they're not doing anything, it's because they're learning."

And that's why I get to keep teaching upper-classmen. I'm good at it. Apparently.