It is 8 am. Spirit day. I'm standing in the crowd, listening to the drum line do their thing, when a fellow teacher gets up to the mike. She tries to rev up the crowd. Their benchmark scores came back and they did well. She wants to get them all pumped up. Cuz, you know, we be the baddest mo-fo's out there. 'ana smartest too, foo.
Ah-hem.
Anyhow. That's when the pandemonium starts. She says.... the words. I stare at my 8th graders and they start to snicker. My jaw drops open. Impossible. I listen more closely. She didn't mean to say that... did she?
Oh hell. Yes she did. And now there are signs. Another teacher is handing them out-- hold em high! Say it loud! And then the chanting begins. First the fourth & fifth graders, 6th, then the 7th and 8th. They're snickering. The boys are having a field day. The girls are pretending they don't know.
And I'm dying.
I look around. Where is the film crew? Why did I not bring my camera? This is surreal. This cannot be happening.
I'm looking around for anyone, anyone to talk to, thinking WHERE THE HELL IS GEORGE? I find Rebecca. And I'm losing it. I stutter a few choice words and we hide our faces with large envelopes and dissolve into buckets of laughter before retaining composure.
And then....the 17 year old rapper starts-- he has written a song for our school. And the phrase, this motto, it's sprayed all over it. And the kids are singing along.
"At ____________-dick, we go hard! Go hard or go home!"
"Our boys basketball team, they go hard!"
"Our teachers softball team, they go hard!"
"Our football team, they go hard."
"And on benchmarks, we go hard!"
"All day, we go hard!"
So, what do I get to hear for the rest of the day?
"I'm not hard so can I go home?"
"Hey Edgar, you hard? I know Eddy's hard. Angel, hard yet?"
"Can I hang this 'Go Hard' poster in your room?"
"Can't work, gotta go hard."
Oh. My. God.
Tell me. What other school with "dick" in the name adopts the phrase "go hard"...and has its own rap song? Tell me.
No comments:
Post a Comment