Painted Toenails and Our Motto

Anyone who is any kind of familiar with my school life will be aware of a theme that has emerged in my classes this year. It started (as do most things) as a joke one day when I felt like I was doing a bit too much poking and prodding to accomplish. I wrote on the board in desperation the words "Our Motto: Care!". It stuck. Anyone in my classes this year when asked "What's the motto?' knows the answer. What's funny is that when I ask that question, the answer usually gets an answer of morose teenagers droning the word only to placate me.

Today I went deeper with the theme with my Humanities class. After witnessing the crash and burn death of a discussion of cynicism in the Late Middle Ages (and yes, that irony is available to me), I launched into a description of a group I called the "People of the Worksheet". The problem is that after a 2 min extended description of this not so mythical society, one of the kids said in a voice too sweet to mean disrespect, "Ummm, Ms Educat, I think today we just are people of the worksheet.".

Quote of the Day honors go to Nancy today who said something like "Spring is here, there is no turning back, I have painted my toenails." The problem is that I have too. The problem is that 48 hours ago I was walking around Paseo looking at art, laughing and smelling like patchouli and now I have to exist in my windowless classroom and care about the Late Middle Ages for myself and 30 dazed teenagers. This will all shake off but these patches are the hardest to navigate. It reminds me of college and having rehearsal every night when everyone else was at the lake, playing outside, or something else fun (they probably were studying and having no more fun than I was, but this is my memory and I am going with it).

I am writing the motto back on the board, just as soon as I get that worksheet graded.