Creative writing with all seven students turned into a giant whinefest as the students complained about the grading "policy" at our progressive high school. Actually it was mostly one student, an A personality junior who has huge issues about grade grubbing. That is a tough row to hoe in a progressive school where the emphasis is not really supposed to be on grades.

But of course it is for these juniors who are hoping to be impressive to colleges next year.

Anyway, I was aware of letting the class go long into this discussion, and we took about a half an hour to listen and talk and complain and question. I asked myself, is this a situation where the kids are taking advantage of my willingness to let them talk and not do any actual writing? Or is it important for them to occasionally have a place at school where they can vent their feelings and have an adult listen to them?

The situation is so utterly different from when I was in high school thirty years ago. I had a few good teachers, people who seemed to genuinely enjoy being with teenagers, but certainly not all of them were like that. And I wasn't looking for teachers at that point to be my buddies, anyway. Just like kids today. As much as I enjoy the connections I make with the students, I always have to be careful not to get carried away with that thrill, and to remember that I represent a certain, fixed symbol in their lives and no more. I am not a friend, I am not a parent or even really a surrogate parent. I am a teacher.

It is really kind of a cool category if you think about it. Or at least it's going that way for me right now. Sure, I have too much work to do, and I could do even more to be better prepared, but I have material and ideas to share, and all the power of my ability to listen and receive their adolescent impressions.

Which brings me ungracefully to the question: what is it to be a high school teacher? Just who are you when you take on this particular job? What kind of person do you become, or what kind of human relationship have you made yourself available to when you spend your day with groups of teenagers, trying to pass on information about literature and grammar and spelling (most of them are relatively adept at that by now) and criticism and interpretation and analysis and how to find the goddamn jokes in Joan Didion's writing, which really seems to be too hard for these particular 17-year-olds?

I have come to regard Joan Didion as a wonderful writer, and I didn't really know that for myself before we started reading "Democracy" this semester. Too bad the kids didn't care for it, and in fact complain regularly about how much they disklike Didion's style.

So I read in the ACSD (or is that ASCD? I always forget) newsletter that teachers nowadays are using blogs to express themselves all over the place. One teacher in Everett, Washington (hi, mom's family relatives!) got in trouble for complaining about how the girls in his high school dressed like call girls to go to the prom. Well, isn't that kind of the style these days? But anyway, I would love to find out where other teachers are blogging around here to see what their perspectives are. Especially the ones who are new to the job and a little older and who work in small, private high schools. But I like to read about the public school teachers, too.

One thing is for sure: in all my early years of trying to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up, I never really thought I would enjoy being a teacher so much. I thought it was one of the dopier job choices, a last resort for loser types who couldn't make it in the glamorous worlds of tv production or whathaveyou. And of course I am discovering that being a teacher in a classroom is an excellent place for a ham who loves good books and likes to spend time with "young people" and also enjoys the kinds of other people who want to do the same kind of work. Yeah, it doesn't pay enough, and there are other huge drawbacks which I'll go into later, but for the most part, it's the most fun I've had since I was a camp counselor, and I really enjoyed that.