Teacher Spirit Week

This week marks Homecoming Week at our school. Yes, another fun-filled extravaganza. Can't you just feel the excitement?

Yeah, I thought so. 

Each day this week is designated as a specific dress up day with a specific phase. Monday is Twin Day (Make 'Em See Double), Tuesday is Decade Day (Turn back the clock on the Indians), Wednesday is Super Hero Day (Show 'Em Who's Boss), Thursday is Favorite Team Jersey Day (The Warriors Can't Compete) and Friday is Panther Spirit Day (Make them see Black & Blue).

Well, all of that got me to thinking about how we could have our own little teacher dress up week complete with catchy little phrases. You don't even have to completely dress up for this. All you have to do is print out little stickers and wear them. It'll be our little secret.

Monday…Super Star Day Sticker

We could call it Teacher Spirit Week. It would go something like this…

Tuesday… Stupid Head Day

Monday… is Super Star Day
Grab one of those stinky starfish and toss 'em back. Yep, we're saving public education one stinker at a time.

Tuesday… is Big Fat Stupid Head Day

Highlight one educational policy/politician/bureaucrat that pushes an agenda that doesn't work. (I bet you can't pick just one.) On this day only, you have a free pass to say "Big Fat Stupid Head" all day and it won't stop my little timer. (Check out the counter on the right side of this blog.)

Wednesday… Double Trouble Bubbles Day

Wednesday… is Double Trouble Bubbles

Concentrate on just one thing that pops into the bubble above your head today. Repeat it like a silent mantra, and if it won't get you fired, actually say the bubble above your head just once. I bet you'll feel better.

Thursday… ECD Day

Thursday… is ECD Day–Emergency Chocolate Day

Bring some chocolate goodness to school and share it with a colleague or two. I bet you single handedly improve staff morale 110 percent.

Friday… Ninja Day

Friday… is Ninja Day

Today you'll actually have to semi-dress the part. Wear all black. Slap on your sticker and start your day saying, "I am Ninja Teacher. You can't see me. I fly under the radar. I am better, faster and smarter than you. When I shut my classroom door, the magic happens."

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Don't forget the next edition of the Education Buzz–Life's a Carnival will appear here Wednesday, Sept. 28. Please submit your posts no later than Saturday, Sept. 24 by 5 p.m. CDT. Use this handy dandy form for your submissions.

Other Duties As Assigned…

As I sat outside in 90-degree or so heat (this is Texas remember) supervising my one hour and 45 minute Homecoming Float Duty, it just made me run through that mental list of “Things We Didn’t Go to College For” that bounces around the back of my brain from time to time. But with teachers flanking both sides of me sitting in those “Soccer Mom” folding chairs and grading papers, my friend the Spanish teacher glanced over my shoulder as I compiled my list and duly noted that a better title would be: “What they really mean when they say, ‘Other duties as assigned…’”

And, as usual she’s right, so there it is, and here we are with a list culled from years of experience, a number of teachers and from a variety of school districts.

Other duties as assigned…

• Playing yearbook "bingo" in order to sort through 1,000-plus books by teacher name and an assorted array of customized extras in order to distribute the book. Trust me on this one, you don't want to know the rules. There's never a winner.

• Stuffing tootsie rolls in empty rolls of toilet paper and wrapping them up for cheerleaders to throw to fans at football games.

• “Designing” receipts through all manner and forms of technology for items purchased for kids after misplacing the original receipts.

• Ascertaining whether “Lick Lamar” was too graphic to put on a lollipop when trying to come up with a theme for the Friday night football game against Arlington Lamar High School.

• Luring kangaroo mice with sunflower seeds and popping trashcans over them because we legally couldn’t set mouse traps or bait.

• Taking the temperature of vents throughout the school because no one in maintenance (located in a separate building, on a different street, with working temperature controls) actually believed the air blows at a frigid 53 degrees. Instead, the infamous “they” believed the teaching staff was comprised of menopausal, hormonally whacked-out females suffering from faulty temperature sensations.

• Chasing chickens (yes, real ones, not the wacky rubber ones) down the hallway after some end-of-the-year prankster put them in the girls’ bathroom.

• Arranging cookies on cocktail napkins for parents at the end of an assembly just so we could thieve a snickerdoodle or two.

• Rewriting about 100 statistics from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test results on a blank sheet of paper during teacher in-service (staff development) to prove we can (a) find the data (b) accurately record the information and (c) waste all morning doing it.

• Trying to teach a computer class for six weeks without computers. Unless that was part of the “monitor and adjust” curriculum of Education 101.

• Being issued not red pens, whiteboard markers or paper clips but a yellow and black flashlight as the only piece of official equipment to cope with the anticipated power outages from low-bid construction crews hired to renovate the school. And, yes, of course, they were used.

• Painting [substitute your mascot’s name here] paws for a mile in preparation for the Homecoming Parade.

• Being assigned to the Noise Patrol to confiscate air horns and other noisemakers at graduation. Or, better yet, being pressed into duty as part of the Gum Squad–that’s G-U-M not G-U-N–to make would-be graduates spit out their chewy blobs before being allowed to bebop down the aisles to “Pomp and Circumstance.”

I swear all this is true…I couldn’t make this stuff up even if I tried. Sure would like to hear some of your stories. You can post them here or you can email me at mybellringers@gmail.com.