Sioux-per Respect Rally

Friday morning we had a Respect Rally and it was fantastic. Maybe the best one yet. It started off with the jazz band welcoming us in - for middle schoolers, they did an outstanding job! Then, the National Anthem from our choir kiddos followed by a little song from the 6th graders with some great soloists. Then, Mrs. T. the health teacher stood up and walked to the podium and in her geekiest voice said, "Today kids I'm here to talk to you about spirit." Then, she reaches for her pom-poms and starts ummm... enthusiastically is such an understatement... cheering:

Get up on that Spartan train,
Jump on it, jump on it!
Get up on that Spartan train,
Jump on, jump on.
We don’t need no ticket,
All you need is pride
So get up on the Spartan train,
And ride, ride, ride!

Then she calmly walked back to the podium and back to geeky voice said, "Thank you for your attention." It was so fun! At first the kids were like wha? But then they got into it. To be sure, I heard it in bits and pieces throughout the day (as well as other catchy tunes such as "$5, $5, $5 foot loooong." and "Freee credit report dot com." Somebody should give those marketing people a raise or a swift kick in the pants.)

Then, we had Miss Our State chat with our students about how the little things every day either bring us closer to our goals or farther away - likewise what we do brings the people around us closer or farther away from their goals. I don't know if the kids got any of it, but the guys especially were paying attention with her tiiiight little skirt and like seven inch heels prancing around all over the gym floor.

And, then, the moment a lot of kids were waiting for, we had a little pentatholon with two guys - Jake Marto and Robbie Bina - from the Sioux hockey team. It was funny because they spoke a bit about respect and about how they have to respect their coaches (like when their coach flips off the ref?) and other teams (like when they take them down and beat them up?). Anyways, it just cracked me up. It was great for them to be there, but the whole respect tie in was a little lame. Each event had some students, a teacher, and the two hockey boys competing against each other. The kids were just thrilled (I don't know how many times different kids came up to me - were you at the Respect Rally Mrs. J? Did you see me?) and it was great.

First event: shooting hockey pucks at the two upper targets in a net/winner: Mr. B the teacher who teaches next to me, who incidently was Mr. Hockey in '97.

Second event: pitching - Mr. C. our counselor and emcee had a radar gun to do the scoring/winner: tie between Jake Marto and Robbie Bina at 79 mph.

Third event: shooting three-pointers around the world in 35 seconds/winner: student J.R. with 8.

Fourth event: slam dunk contest/winner: Mr. C. when he pulled out a trampoline and mat.

Fifth event: tug-of-war - first between the two 8th grade teams, then winners took on the teachers of their gender/winners: female teachers and male teachers --- the kids really think they can beat us, but in weight alone we kick their butts!