The Principal's Office

My permanent record is pretty much golden.  Not one trip to the principal's office.  Never.  Not ever.  Not even after I toilet papered the principal's house with my best friend and then ran over his water mainline when he blocked us in the driveway.  I probably would have been expelled, but I didn't get caught.  No one made a peep even after I wrote a personal narrative about my little adventure for Junior year English.  

I had another close call in first grade.  My mother loves to retell this story.  

Michelle came home from school and said she got her name on the board for helping Tony take his boots off.  So, I went up to that school and I asked the teacher what she had done that was just so terrible.  And the teacher said ever so sweetly, "But you see, Tony didn't WANT his boots off!"

My mom just cracks up at that part.  I'm not sure if it's because I was so unhelpfully helpful or because at the tender age of seven, I was already manhandling the would-be-men in my class.  Either way, I missed my ticket to the principal's office due to my teacher's good nature.  In the class of another, I might not have fared so well.

It's a good thing that those permanent record things, aren't that permanent or my adult self would be in a heap of trouble for marring that pristine document.  Today, I got called into the principal's office.  It wasn't pretty.  It certainly wasn't my first time since I started getting called into the principal's office, which was sometime back in 2009(-ish).  (Holla-attcha, Mrs. Trout, and, by the way, FUCK YOU!!!)  

On the bright side, my current principal is NOTHING like Mrs. Trout.  That is because my current principal is a good and decent and rational person with a good heart that cares about children AND her teachers AND staff.  She is the opposite of a two-faced cold-hearted amoral self-serving jackass with whom I am familiar.  My current principal is practically an angel by comparison.  

Angel or not,  new principal knows how to smack down.  She is succinct, to the point, and cuts to the chase.  She mixes in a little Encyclopedia Brown style questioning/concern.... How are you doing?  What's going on with you?  (You know, she's making sure that nobody in family has died and that I'm not recently diagnosed with something awful.  I can respect that... nice move.)  Then, boom, so I notice that you've come to school late the past two mornings. (I've gotten there at 7:18 and 7:19.  The bell rings at 7:20 and that's when we pick up the kids.  We are supposed to be at school by 7:10.)  You know, Michelle, it's very important that you are here on time.  

Blah, blah, blah... some other stuff.....  I won't bore you to death with it all.  Suffice to say, I better not show up late one more day and I better have the kids all set and ready to stick with our plans.  No more cleaning out desks during intervention time.  (I did have to tell her that we were cleaning out desks, because last semester one of the kids had a roach crawl out of their desk and I thought it was necessary to clean them all out, even if it took a little extra time.)  

The good news is that my principal was well within her bounds of reasonableness to talk with me about being late and even to check on whether I was going to be doing intervention.  I think it gave me a moment to let her know that I was recalibrating for the year at the start of the new semester and to hear what was important to her... i.e. timeliness in general and working in small groups for interventions.  This was a good thing for me to focus on for my future.  

As they say, every cloud has a silver lining.  If I have learned anything, that is the God's honest truth.  If you can't see the good out of the bad, then you aren't looking hard enough, and you aren't getting the message.  For all of the dislike that I have for Mrs. Trout (Fuck you, again, you fired up my engines all over again with your latest bullshit stunt - sorry - I have Tourrette's, when I think about that woman sometimes and I just start typing crazy shit) um, back to... for all of the dislike that I have for Mrs. Trout, I credit a lot of my current happiness to her.  

I learned a lot from her. I learned a lot about curriculum and rigor.  I learned about what a good teacher that I am and that I can be better and better all of the time.  I learned that I can learn so much from my peers and specialists. I learned that it is important to always to talk about your strengths and to not be defensive about your weaknesses.  I learned that when it comes to your boss just apologize, agree, change it, and move on.  I learned that there are some people that lie.  I learned that there are some people that cheat.  I learned that there are some people that manipulate and bully.  I learned that I am not one of those people.  Above all, I learned that if you do the right thing, good things will happen for you.  Always.  Every time.  Without fail.  I learned that integrity is the permanent record that only you can see and its the only one that matters.