When friends and colleagues ask me if I watch "Boston Public," I say, "Of course I do--it's the best comedy on television." The Fox TV series is no more about school than "Ally McBeal" is about law. "Boston Public" executive producer David E. Kelley would appear to value sensationalism over substance.

Past episodes of the program have definitely been entertaining but not very educational. In no particular order, the following occurred on the show's first season: a student suicide, a sexual relationship between a student and a teacher, grade tampering, open bigotry, gunshots (by a teacher!), braless co-eds protesting the dress code, a SWAT team in the hallways, an abused/abusive class genius, drug dealing, trading sex acts for votes in a student election, a "hit list" found in a student's journal, the death of a teacher on school grounds, an athlete suffering a heart attack, a teacher stalked by a former student, and a school bully physically attacked by the principal. This is a lot of excitement for one high school in one year.

My neighborhood buddies want to know if my job is as thrilling/dramatic/sexy as what they see on Monday nights. Thankfully, I can tell them no.

Yet what I find most disturbing about "Boston Public" are its lies by omission. Precious few Asian or Hispanic students or staff members are found in fictitious Winslow High School, whereas Boston public schools have an 85 percent minority enrollment. Hollywood, for some reason, has changed the very face of our classrooms. Perhaps more alarming is the not-so-subtle way the shown maligns veteran teachers. The senior faculty is portrayed as bigoted, inept and insensitive. On the other hand, the younger teachers are veritable knights in fashionable armor, possessing all the answers to the school's problems. While young teachers do infuse fresh ideas into developed curricula, "Boston Public" does so at the expense of veterans whose wealth of experience provides continuity and stability in our schools.

Teaching is often rewarding but at times can be laborious and plodding. One may never glean from Fox's hip high school show that education is a process and not a product. In its defense, the show points out that teachers often work long hours. Nearly every show ends with the principal coming around to a fellow staff member's room telling him or her to go home and get some rest. Occasionally, the show portrays the all-too-real plight of teachers: poor pay, limited respect, unmotivated students and heavy workloads. I applaud this realistic undertone; it keeps me coming back each week in the hope of finding more. I'm still waiting.

I had the pleasure of meeting many fellow educators from across the country while attending the AFT QuEST Conference in Washington, D.C., last summer. Since I'm a Boston teacher, several people at the conference asked me if I watched the television show "Boston Public" and what I thought of it.

My first comment was, "Don't believe everything you see on TV." We all understand that the producers are selling their product to a diverse mass audience, and "Boston Public" has to appeal to as many people as possible. The writers and producers obviously take license with events and characters--I don't recall ever hearing about a teacher bringing a loaded gun to school and shooting it off for effect.

But the show does get some important things right when it comes to public education. What "Boston Public" gives a glimpse of, and the show does it quite well, is the passion that Boston teachers have for their profession and for their students' learning and well-being. My favorite episode--last season's "graduation" finale--bears this point out. Those who followed the series saw "Boston Public" students causing heartbreak and havoc with the teaching staff and administration throughout the year. (They were being perfectly normal teenagers.) In this final episode, at graduation, the students shared their appreciation with the staff because they knew that those adults had served them well.

I don't know why these spontaneous events happen in real life at graduation and beyond, but they do. I recall one of my own rewarding moments, after the last day of school in June, when a student approached me and I asked him if he thought he had had a good year and was looking forward to September. There was nobody else around. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Yes, I had a good year, and I look forward to September. I like this school. I have only one regret, that you won't be my English language arts teacher."

So many times, we will run into former students who thank us for being so hard on them. They will encourage us to keep it up. They will say that they were better prepared for the subsequent year's work because of our devotion to our profession. They will thank us for our understanding through difficult times.

To their credit, the show's producers, writers and cast members get this, and they are adept at capturing it on screen. To their credit, the series seems to understand that these events are more than incidental moments in the lives of students, teachers and staff.