Unconventional Solutions

All the teachers that I ever liked growing up used unconventional methods.  Still, it seems counterproductive to try to be unconventional... it would defeat the purpose...  so I have been going along my merry way as a regular teacher and today the opportunity for being unconventional presented itself.  

Background to the Problem
The scenario is that my colleague has accidentally upset a student who is a member of a group that we co-lead.  My colleague is the student's mentor (we'll call the student Mal).  Mal is upset because she read an unfinished, unpolished report that is an accurate and honest but not very positive report about herself and her progress / lack thereof.  Mal is now mad at my colleague and he doesn't know what to do. 

Unconventional Light-Bulb
I set out a plan for entertaining myself, pranking my colleague (which is always fun), and resolving the conflict between Mal and my colleague (which I was hoping for but I had no idea whether it would work). 

I checked with admin to make sure it was OK (I am chicken).  I requested very seriously from the teacher whose class my student was in, "may I pull Mal out to talk for a few minutes."  No problem.  Mal thinks she is in trouble and I make her wait in the hall for a few seconds while I pull out two rolls of masking tape and a mini-day-calendar of "inspirational" teaching quotes out of my classroom.  "Wanna get back at McCLure for saying all those "mean" things?"  (we'll call my colleague "McClure" from here on in the story) "Yess" she responds enthusiastically. 

The whole thing with the inspirational quotes is that McClure finds them irritating.  So we proceeded to cover his desk, walls and the surrounding area of his desk in post-it-note sized pages of quotes.  When we were finished, there were quotes everywhere, even a few hidden behind pictures on the walls... the gift that keeps on giving. 

Mal enjoyed the revenge enough that it smoothed things over from the report... a result I hoped for but didn't expect.  I had a truly entertaining afternoon.  McClure was irritated by all the papers taped to his desk but happy about the result with Mal. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PS - I was able to have a productive conversation with my colleague about my issue yesterday and I think I have sorted it out.