I'm such a mutanist.

This post is pretty much taken straight from a conversation I had on MSN Messenger, where I
rarely ever abide by grammatical rules.  Deal with it.  :P

today i subbed a high school and helped one of my classes to organize together to lodge a formal complaint against their regular teacher.

(they actually had legitimate complaints against the teacher?)

ooohhh yeah.  
let's see... to name a few, blatant favoritism that the whole class had noticed, swearing about one student to other students, not following the curriculum at all, inconsistent grading (says she'll do one thing and then randomly changes her mind), gossiping about students and faculty to students, terrible classroom management and then blaming the students - to the students, assignments and classroom inconsistent with assessment... that's only about half... can't remember most of it

(what?! how did it go?)

i used my powers as english teacher to talk to them about keeping in mind their intended audience and tailoring the writing accordingly, to organize their letter to emphasize their main points, to use detailed examples to back up numerous points, to understand any arguments that the reader might have and to address them... even how to use a round robin to keep any one person from getting the brunt of any lashback.

even if it wasn't an english class, and even if i was only there that day, i know that i made a difference.  that's what real teaching is all about - seizing the moments that matter to students and turning them into learning experiences.  this problem really bothered the students and they learned so much more because they cared about the cause; it wasn't just for some random assignment.