During Homecoming in the fall, our school has a number of Homecoming princesses of whom one is elected Queen. During the winter/basketball season we have Gala princes, one of whom is elected king. During Homecoming a woman teacher is voted a titular honor, during Gala a man teacher is.
For 13 years I've asked, pleaded, cajoled my students into voting for me. It's pretty sad, what lows I've been reduced to, but no winning.
Until yesterday.
I hadn't even planned on going to the rally. I gave quizzes all morning and they weren't going to grade themselves. They were relatively short quizzes, however, I was able to have them all graded before the rally began, and having nothing else that was screaming for my attention, I headed to the gym.
I don't usually like the Homecoming or Gala rallies, which in the past have been exceptionally risque. I'm no prude but these were things that we shouldn't be promoting during school activities so I usually just choose not to go. I don't really know why I went yesterday, given that I don't like watching those activities and I had no expectation of being crowed King.
But I went. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the activities had been cleaned up--not a bit, a lot. I understand there was a small bit of activity of which I wouldn't have approved had I seen it, but I didn't see it, and the big stuff was far more appropriate than it had been in the past.
It was great seeing several of my students chosen as princes--not all the uber-athletes, either, as was the case in my day. It was especially gratifying seeing who won King--a very bright, decent kid, who most definitely was not the captain of the football team. The students at my school are much more--I'm not quite sure what the word is, but they're better about such things than we were at my high school a few decades ago.
The MC's of the rally are students of mine, so it was with flourish that they announced my name as the teacher King. I walked out onto the floor with dignity, waving regally to my subjects, as I knelt and accepted what had so long eluded me. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown", they say, but I wore it.
And my students convinced me to wear it tonight when I chaperone the dance.
"Your Majesty." It has a nice ring to it when it's directed at you.
Congratulations!
ReplyDelete---
Back in my high school days one of the last events of the year was the senior-class-day assembly, which gave over the stage in the theater to the senior class for a skit with the whole school in attendance. Over the years it had devolved into a series of attempts to smuggle beer and drinking onto the stage.
Then, our senior year, some of my friends took it over. A very funny friend of mine wrote a knock-off of the Breakfast Club, which had come out that year, and her skit was spot on. She's a fan of the Marx brothers and has a great comedic touch. The audience, including the teachers were laughing heartily. Our finest moment was the mocking of our idiot principal (who lasted two years in the job): the senior class president, who somewhat resembled the principal, came out on stage as two flash pots went off and said: "Through mutual understanding, we can all work together to make this school a better place...I know what I'm talking about: I have a PHD!" (FYI, his PhD was in econ.)
The skit was brilliant and funny, and even the teachers loved the dig at the principal, who they hated as much as the students did--probably more since they had to actually work with him.
We set a new standard for Senior Class Day and had a blast doing it.
To quote Mel Brooks: "It's good to be the king."
ReplyDelete