Saturday, January 17, 2009

Shawty is a killa'

It's almost 11 PM and I'm exhausted from a long day of doing mostly nothing (although I did get all of my errands run before 10 AM and I made applesauce and homemade chicken noodle soup today) but I wanted to share with whoever still reads this thing my experiences of last night.

I chaperoned my first middle school 'dance' last night. Basically, it was my job to watch the food and make sure my students didn't take too much fried chicken, spaghetti, juice more defined by color than flavor of fruit, and flamin' hot cheetos. Stereotypes are for the weak-minded, but they exist for a reason...

I spent my evening watching about 50 black kids stand around a half-lit gym and sort of sway to music being played from a boombox with a microphone set up in front of it. Every once in a while a brave kid would bust a move for a minute until our principal got to him/her and ended that business right quick. I heard about 125 times that this party was 'wack', because everyone told me at least twice. I just sorta shrugged. It looked pretty wack from my chicken-guarding post. But the brand new, 24-year-old teacher is not going to get up and start shakin' it to get things going when the principal is yelling at kids to stop dancing and go play pictionary instead.

But really. If they're blasting Lil' Wayne, Ne-Yo, and Beyonce over the 20 year old sound system, are you going to want to shake your ass, or have your classmates try and guess that you're drawing a stack of pancakes? The answer is pretty clear to me. I guess administration has to figure these things out on their own...

Who am I, after all, to tell them how to run their school?

5 comments:

r.c.f. said...

hilarious. and i thought only white kids did the stand-around/sort-of-sway dance. i guess it's spreading. maybe administration is simply trying to bolster the new, hippest trends.

Alissa said...

Haha. Oh Bethany. Such is the plight of the "I want to be conservative, but no wait, we can still be cool too" mentality. I would have laughed so hard and cheered you on if you just busted out with a move and would not stoop until after they had dragged you out! :) In fact, I would have been right there with you. Loves to you.

Jen said...

I'm sad that none of your kiddos busted a move that's just pretty "wack." Why would the principle tell them to stop dancing if it is a dance?

Stephenie said...

I love the mental image of all this.

You're my favorite.

Kathlyn D said...

haha. school dances. on friday afternoons, my students play mgmt really loud outside. apparently it has been "approved." you should see the white boys dance. at least they think they are hot. keep up the good food guarding job.