I adore the sillies.

A case of the sillies, silly people of any age, silly for the sake of being silly.  Sillything!

The two weeks post-Christmas and winter break at work have been hair curling.  I rarely feel I've had a legitimately "bad day," as my personal definition of a bad day is along the lines of Lance Armstrong's self-defined "75 million dollar day," December 14, 2012, or any of the examples listed in this link (assuming they are all factual).  So instead, the past two weeks at work have been hair curling.  Significant numbers of students in my classes are demonstrating conduct that I don't typically observe until the week leading up to spring break, or the month leading up to summer break.  Maybe it's simply my perception, or maybe there was more than a 'few hours' of "contaminated" water funneled into the city water system as was reported on a date in December.  On top of zany and trying student behavior, the spring semester in an agrarian styled school year is always, for most if not all educators, the more challenging one, in all respects.  Deadlines loom - and are suddenly more real, breaks are fewer in number, illness spreads quicker than really juicy gossip, and preparation for high stakes state testing pressure kicks into overdrive.  As my friend Jamie commented recently about another topic, however, as a certain curly-haired red-headed orphan proclaimed, the sun does indeed come out tomorrow.  Or whenever you choose to see it.

In a string of long days made longer by evening meetings and events, I witnessed and possibly participated in some acts of extraordinary silly:

I have yet to personally view the Gangnam Style YouTube explosion, but after a display of 75-100 middle school students at an academic competition, I'm confident I've experienced it in a way that leaves not a stitch to be desired.  As a means of keeping students entertained while they awaited competition score announcements, the master of ceremonies periodically played top 40 tunes, especially ones accompanied by specific dance moves.  Insert Gangnam Style.  I've rarely seen such dedication and focus on the part of a mob of middle school kids; the facial expressions alone were enough to motivate me to learn the moves.  I wish I could share video, but blurring out of 75-100 faces is beyond my technological patience limit.  I was bleary-eyed with tears of laughter - to see such authentic fun being had - by the time several students took a breather, faces bathed in perspiration from their effort.

I was without choice when another song played - I am bad with titles, but it involved some stomping and clapping and pausing and salsa-ing - and my principal along with a few other teachers, including me, were thrown into the mix.  There is reportedly video evidence of our participation, but it too would entail the blurring out of 75-100 student faces.  Ain't nobody got time for that.

In a fortune of all fortunes, I ended my workweek on a Friday that led into our three day weekend by providing "adult" supervision on a field trip to our city's newest science museum.  It truly is as remarkable as you may have heard, if you're reading this post in said city/region.  Students from underprivileged backgrounds are normally so grateful to be afforded extracurricular opportunities like this, that conduct on outings is always positive and, frankly, overwhelmingly delightful.  This field trip was no different but I am sadly 99% confident that there are several student shot videos, posted on their own social media sites, that contain footage of me and my colleagues demonstrating poor examples of adult conduct while leading impressionable minds.  What can I say...exhibits like classroom-sized LED sensory walls are obviously more fun when you drag your backside across the vertical surface from one end to the other.  At adult prompting, one of our more genius and comical students "raced" T-Rex with his arms/hands appropriately elevated and angled.  There's video of that, but, well, you know...  And although this disturbed my Mudda and sounds like a Jodi Foster movie opener, one of my students asked* me for a strand of my hair while we were en route 'home,' on the yellow dog.  Perhaps I'm creepy because I didn't find this creepy**, but instead absurdly funny.  I like the silly.

Today I participated with a small group of students and colleagues in the local MLK celebration parade. Once again, I'm reminded of the question that can never be answered:  "Why, OH WHY, was I never in the drum line?"  Pity.  Drum lines are bangin'!  (you catch that, eh?)

In homage to inauguration weekend, I'll share some photos of past inaugurations that you may find fairly cute, too:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/01/19/168570312/inaugural-hijinks-10-odd-photos-from-ceremonies-past

*I declined his request.

**I have since learned that my hair requesting student is reportedly collecting (by request) strands of hair from varied subjects.  Ok, possibly that does cross the silly zone into the creepy zone.  But, as long as he doesn't intend to knit a sweater from his collection, it still makes me laugh.  Because I'm silly.