Teaching by -- what?

During a committee meeting at our college we were discussing how best to teach technology since it changed so fast. I made the statement that when teaching technology, most teachers were "flying by the seat of their pants."

A few days later in a faculty retreat, a teacher from our committee told the members of the retreat that she liked my description of how we were trying to teach technology. She is, however, from eastern Europe and still struggles with American idioms. As she gave me credit for the quote, she said, "Most teachers are teaching by the fly of their pants!"