The Greatest Compliment To Date

Yesterday, the day before the last day of school, I was entertaining ridiculous questions from a harmless drama queen. I know I am not supposed to say this but I get a laugh out of egging her on. During the course of our conversation the student sitting next to her chimed in, out of nowhere and said, “Mr. Z., you are the only teacher all year who has not hollered at us.” This was a surprise because the harmless drama queen was complaining about her exam and I was giving my usual responses of “Do your best” or “Figure it out.” The student, who interrupted us, is one who constantly disrupts class by making noises and singing. It gets even better, when I confront him he says, “It wasn’t me!!!” He inevitably receives at least one writing assignment a week from me. I am still in awe of the kid because I never backed down from him and he always received a writing assignment for his disruptive behavior. My response to his original statement was “What’s the point?” referring to hollering. He thought I meant, “Why are you telling me this.” He responded, “Really, you are the only teacher, all year, who has not hollered at us.” I replied, “What’s the point of hollering?” The harmless queen chimes in, “He doesn’t need to, he does what he says he going to do.”