Payday comes early . . .

Let's get one thing straight: I'm glad I get paid fairly decently for my job, and I (and Mrs. Meridian, and the mother of my children) would be sorely distressed were that not to be the case. But I do what I do because, dewy-eyed idealist that I remain (you thought that was rheum, I bet), I truly do love my work. So for me, the real pay, that which tells me that I'm Accomplishing Something, comes from my students.
My longtime reader(s) may recall that in one of my Comp classes, my students would be required to write and research about paintings by painters of my selection. We've now come to the end of the semester--they will turn in their research projects next Tuesday. For the past two weeks, I've been meeting with them individually to talk about their projects, and without exception, each has told me something along the lines of this: "When you told us what we'd be doing, I didn't think I'd like it, but this turned out to be my favorite class this semester." They mean it, they assure me. Almost none of them, I should add, had ever even paid much attention to art before, much less visited a museum, and very much less written about paintings. And though, true, not all of them did superior work, all improved mightily as observers and writers about what they observe. And what can I say when one of those students, who professed to be very afraid at the beginning of the semester, reaches the point of wanting to write about light as a "character" in Edward Hopper's paintings? How cool is that?--not the subject necessarily, though I do find that cool, too, but the fact that she arrived at that point.
My experience with this class reminds me yet again that my students and their teacher are happiest when we're actually learning something new, when we're not just going through the motions of planning to write standard-issue essays and research papers. Note that I've included myself in there as well: this rote-teaching business is not for me, though the system in place here makes it very tempting to fall into such habits. But now, the spring is something to look forward to: the Intro. to Humanities class, followed by Intro to Lit (maybe it'll make this semester; this fall's didn't, for some reason); and a revamped Comp II offering that'll be something we won't all sleepwalk through.
And I actually understand Spivak enough to disagree with her, now that she's talking about literature. Life is good.