Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Nerds Rule the School

Grams has worked two days at our local high school this week. Yesterday I taught chemistry. Today it was algebra. I'll just admit right now that I am woefully inadequate to teach either, but especially algebra. Fortunately, for today's algebra class I had an aide who was a math specialist for the first two class periods. She actually taught the class while I observed and took notes.

It's homecoming week at the high school which means the students are celebrating every day. Yesterday was celebrity day. I saw girls dressed as Kim Kardashian, J-Wow, and Christina Aguilera. The boys didn't seem to participate too much.

Today was Nerd Day. There were dozens of kids, both boys and girls, dressed as nerds. It was the cutest thing ever to see high school kids who are usually so concerned about being dressed in the most fashionable and popular clothing. Today they came in plaid shorts with suspenders, argyle sweaters, knee socks, Chuck Taylors, black socks, hair in pig tails, horn-rimmed glasses with tape on the nose piece, bow ties, and plaid skirts. I even saw one boy in a beanie with a propeller on top. It was SO cute!

There were even a couple of teachers who dressed nerdy. At lunch, one teacher came into the faculty lunch room and in her best "Steve Urkel" voice asked if anyone saved her a seat. She then reached into her pocket and pulled out her reading glasses which were extremely thick and held together with masking tape. But my absolute favorite thing was the science and math teachers. They all had on black t-shirts emblazoned across the front with "Talk Nerdy To Me."

Personally, I like nerds. In fact, I love them. I always told my daughter that nerds make the best husbands. Many years ago when I went to one of my high school reunions, I discovered that many of the boys whom we had considered nerds in high school were looking much better. They had great jobs, had learned how to dress well, looked younger than many of the others and seemed to have overcome the "nerd" label we had put on them.

Tomorrow is breast cancer awareness day at the high school. Each class has made and sold t-shirts to support breast cancer awareness. The school will be awash in pink.

Friday is maroon shirts and crazy socks and hat day. That should be fun.