Since I teach at a small, Christian school in suburban Portland, Maine, I am the middle school teacher. I have an aide, Amanda, who is excellent with the kids, but I am the one and only teacher for all of our 21 7th and 8th graders. Consequently, it is my role to 'throw' an awards night each year as school nears its end. This school year, awards night happen last night.
As to be expected, our awards night was a little unconventional. We had four 8th graders who didn't get to do their juggling solos earlier in the year, so Tyler, Nick and Jake did a combined diabolo routine. These guys worked very hard getting it ready for yesterday, and the work paid off. Then, after awards for academics, improvement and Christian character, Alex did his 8th grade solo, that included staff, balls, diabolo, clubs and machetes. He certainly has a strong stage presence, and won over the crowd. Immediately after his routine, he stayed on stage and shared how the Lord has changed his heart over the last three years, and how welcome, accepting and forgiving his teachers and peers have been since coming to WCA. He really connected with the crowd of parents, students and administration, and he wasn't asked to do this; he asked for the opportunity.
Of course it was awards night, so I don't want to skip over that part of the evening. I'm proud to say that our daughter, Rose, came home with the achievement awards in 7th grade Language Arts, Bible and History, as well as one of the Christian character awards. But the highlight, as a teacher, to me was to give most improved student awards to Meira and Jake. The progress in both of these kids has been some of the most I've ever seen in a school year.
After Alex moved us with his juggling and words, the real highlight of the evening occurred. Amanda and I gave out personalized gifts to each student. This is a tradition I've done for years, and, without knowing the inside jokes, describing them makes little or no sense, but the kids and parents come more for this than for awards. Some of the gifts included a rubber hand on a stick, a poster of 72 year old Paul McCartney in a bathing suit, bubble wrap and a poster of Nicolas Cage with Grumpy the dwarf's face superimposed over Cage's face. Yeah, anyone who would get it was already there that night.
The closing of the evening involved the whole class singing "Middle School Rhapsody", a spoof on the classic Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody". Again, it was peppered with inside jokes, but most people over 18 years old can relate to the final lyrics:
"Algebra doesn't matter
Algebra doesn't matter
Algebra just doesn't matter...
to me. "
Ah middle school.