The Life of Bon: Greatest, Grandest, Hippest Read-A-Thon On Earth

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Greatest, Grandest, Hippest Read-A-Thon On Earth

HAPPY TEACHER APPRECIATION DAY!

I hereby declare today Teacher Appreciation day.  I'm a teacher and I appreciate things!  I also like to be appreciated, dang it!  So here, here!  Teacher appreciation day it is!

In honor of teacher appreciation day, I wore heels and red lipstick to school.  Wow!  Aren't I a rebel? Then I took really crappily taken photos of myself trying to use the tv monitor as a stand.  THEN I realized why I will never ever ever be a fashion blogger.  Like ever.


THEN the principal decided to pop a squat in my classroom. I have a conversation with this man about once a year. I like to consider myself a low maintenance high output faculty member, so I try not to bother him. He's got 100 teachers to look after (there are literally 100 teachers at my HS!) and 1000 whining parents. So I just try to keep quiet and hope that the quiet wheel gets the recognition? Or something like that?  Anyway, you can imagine my surprise when he popped his head in my classroom.  Guess he wanted me to know he appreciates me?  Either that or he heard I was selling pot in my classroom and had to come down to check it out for himself.

In honor of teacher appreciation day I treated myself to an ice cold diet coke.  It tasted like manna from the heavens going down my throat.  Oh, wait.  I do that every day.

Also in honor of teacher appreciation day, I let my students wear their pajamas to school and lay on the floor and read all class period.  Wait.  This was actually last week, but does it really matter how/when/why/where this all took place?

FINE.  You people sure are pushy, you know.  I will tell you how this whole reading pajama fiasco came to be.  Although from here on out I will refer to it as the Greatest, Grandest, Hippest Read-A-Thon On Earth.  You have been warned.

A few weeks ago in class we were discussing good old Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye and how he drops out of school even though he is brilliant.  This led us to a discussion of things that kill our natural love of learning: too much homework, pressures, classroom enviornment, boredom, etc. 

A girl chimed in, "Whatever happened to read a thons?!  I liked learning in elementary school because we did fun things.  Reading wasn't at a desk and it wasn't hard and stressful... we got to read under our desks and eat food and wear our pjs."

Bing.  Lightbulb.

I pondered the idea for about a week, silently mulling over the possibilities.  Could I really let my students do nothing all period but read?  Would this really fly? 

I decided What the Hey and I gave it a go.  "Wear your pjs tomorrow folks, we're having the Greatest, Grandest, Hippest Read-A-Thon On Earth!"  They rolled their eyes at me and gave me looks that said they were too cool for my lame, old school slang.  But they showed up the next day with pillows and snacks, sleepers and books, sodas and blankets.

Game on.

The Greatest, Grandest, Hippest Read-A-Thon On Earth worked like a freaking charm.


 

There's a teacher somewhere in the mix of those ruffians.  Can you find her?

Also, so you can all feel sorry for me, the above picture is exactly HALF of my fourth period class.  There are 20 kids in the picture, 40 kids in the class.  CURSE YE, UTAH CLASS SIZES!

P.S.  I am trying out different photo editing programs.  Can you guess what picture was edited?  I suppose you could say I ain't no good at it... but it's a work in process, people.  Anybody want to do a guest post on my blog about how to edit photos?  The Bon Bon needs some help.  And yes, I just referred to myself as The Bon Bon.  Time for bed.

P.P.S.   The answers from the post on Monday:  The top four things that couples fight about in order are: 1.  Money 2.  Family (Kids and in-laws) 3.  Sex  and 4. Responsibilities/ chores around the house.  Y'all are too smart.

19 comments:

  1. Love your posts Bon! Where the hay were you when I was in high school?!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8:47 PM

    First of all: hahhaha!!!!! As a fellow teacher (Spanish :) ), I LOVE your posts! You really seem like a great teacher and honestly that read-a-thon idea is genius!! I am curious: how did you make sure they stayed quiet and actually read the whole time? I have large class sizes, too (32, though you are obviously beating me wIth 40!), and I find it hard to keep that many quiet and on task sometimes. Please tell me your secret!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love the kid in the footie pajamas! I worked at a school once and they had a school wide read-a-thon. One period out of the day (each grading period) was a reading period. I was teaching PE, but 3rd period was a reading period, and the kids LOVED it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You have 40 kiddos in your classes?? Yikes!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I loved read-a-thons in elementary school! I would have been all for wearing pj's and reading in your class! :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. happy teacher appreciation day! to celebrate i got...nothing. but that's just because korea doesn't celebrate teachers. rude i know. but one of my 7 year olds did serenade me with songs all through out class so i'll take that as a win.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Awe, we do those in 4th grade. They totally believe it's a reward:)
    I WISH there were 100 teachers in my school. Then I could blend in more...

    ReplyDelete
  8. You are so adorable. My english teacher in high school was super fun also. We ate a lot in her class, probably should have read more! haha.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wish you were my teacher back when I was in school! So much fun you guys have!
    http://johced-ourjourneytoeverywhere.blogspot.com/
    xxx

    ReplyDelete
  10. I LOVED reading says in elementary school. They were so fun. If only you had been my high school teacher

    ReplyDelete
  11. That's a great idea! Looks like a lot of fun! Glad you're getting your students to read, and enjoy it!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Aswesome and so much fun!! They may have rolled their eyes but I am sure in about 5 years they will remember how cool it was!

    you are too cute by the way!

    xoTiffany

    ReplyDelete
  13. So fun! I loved the days in school when the teacher would just let us relax, read, spend quiet time.

    ReplyDelete
  14. This is fantastic. Love the dude with the guts to wear footie dinosaur PJs!

    ReplyDelete
  15. this is awesome!!! love this idea. i want you to be my teacher.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Um that's freaking awesome! Love how they were excited about it. You are a cool teacher!
    We're having Polar Express Day in a few weeks and I can't wait to tell my students!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I love this idea!! With all of the testing we do, I think we do lose a lot of the fun in learning. What a great way to get the kids excited. I can't believe you have 40 kids in one class! I think my 30 is too many!

    ReplyDelete
  18. I love this so much. Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite books. I think Holden Caulfield is a character so many high school students can identify with. It's great that you found what exactly they have in common with the character and worked from that. There is so much goodness (and genius) in that. You sound like an awesome teacher. Props to you!!

    ReplyDelete
  19. It is SO WEIRD {to me} to see highschoolers doing what we call "camp read a lot" ... when i taught, we were year-round, so this is what kids did once a quarter so teachers could get report cards done. awesomeness.

    ReplyDelete