My students tried to trick me into participating in the pep rally by saying that all of the Language Arts teachers were going to be assisting the cheerleaders. I didn't buy it. "Do you know how ungrammatical cheerleaders are?" I asked them. I cited some examples, like to "be, be aggressive."
Finally, I conceded that cheerleaders sure do love to spell. "Give me an A!" I mock cheered, about to spell an entire word, before interjecting on my own joke. "In all seriousness, most of you are getting B's." Only a couple of the students were able to follow my progression of jokes, the rest must be on the football team or something. "I bet you know how to spell rowdy," I said to a cheerleader (pictured at right) in the class. After I received a blank stare, I chanted, "R-O-W-D-I-E, that's the way we spell rowdy." It didn't occur to me until that point that that's not how rowdy is spelled. I pondered it aloud for a while and then concluded, "And that is why I will not be participating in the pep rally." Again, the class was completely confused, except for two students who found me hysterical. I swear, I'm the most bizarrely irritating teacher to most students, but to the few who get my dry sense of humor and everything's a big joke approach to teaching, I'm pretty sure I'll be their favorite teacher ever. It's one of these in-the-know students that asked why I was wearing bowling shoes. That's right, I wore bowling shoes to school today. Bowling shoes were the extent of my pep, I decided. "Did you steal them?" someone asked. I got into this whole long story that once when I was bowling, I gave them my shoes, but when I went back for them, they were missing, and so I asked if I could just keep the bowling shoes instead.
That, by the way, was a lie: the truth is that I stole them.
My shoes weren't the only things the kids took notice of today. For kicks, I also chose to wear the tightest pair of pants I own, where snugness begins to border on obscene. As I teach, I sit on a high table in front of the desks, putting my crotch on display. Generally, that's not really an issue, but in these pants, it's significantly more noticeable. As I read, I caught a student staring at my crotch intently. I take a quick peek, and indeed I'm probably a bit more penis-y than kids are used to seeing in their teachers. It wasn't as though as I was, uh, happy at the moment, but these pants are pretty generous. A couple of minutes later, I noticed another student staring, as well. At that point, I realized that part of the problem was that these pants were so tight, I apparently ripped them and a hole at the underside of the crotch had emerged to display my boxers. Talk about pep!
When the pep rally actually occurred, I stayed indoors, occasionally watching from my classroom window. Rather than looking at the main event, however, I choose to watch the emo kids on the outskirts, doing their best to ignore the festivities. They'd rather cut themselves than have school spirit and, you know what?, I respect that. Because I'm a good teacher -- with stolen bowling shoes and a hole in my pants displaying my underwear.
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