Assembly may be required

What a snooze… No, not me last night which was anything but- I think I may have gotten about five hours of sleep if I’m lucky.  I’m referring of course to the assemblies that happen sometimes at schools.  Especially those that totally mess up the schedule.  For me, it was pretty much irrelevant too.  Not to the kids or staff, just to me and any other sub that might have been there.  You see, it was an awards ceremony.  For the entire school.  All, or at least many, sports and academic clubs.  As a sub I knew pretty much zero of the names, hence why it was kind of a snooze to me.  It was a snooze to probably nearly all the students as well because it lasted for more. Than.  Two.  Hours…  For nearly all of the awards, they handed out certificates to every student involved, name by name, and then gave awards to high achievers.  I would guess well over 300 names were read over those 2 hours 20 minutes.  There was one sport I couldn’t believe they had, let alone the number of students involved.  Bocce-Ball.  I kid you not.  Nearly a hundred kids involved too by my estimate.  Wow.  Only track compared to that with four teams, 7th and 8th grades, boys and girls.  There were probably 60-80 students involved there.  The only other sport I remember was girls volleyball- I’m guessing there was no boys volleyball team because one of the students was a boy.  The teacher was careful to not refer to that particular team (7th or 8th, I don’t remember) as “the girls.”

The academic teams and clubs consisted of a math team, geography team, and science olympiad.  Probably more- I don’t remember.  Interesting to note the math team was entirely Indian (or similar) or East Asian.  Hmm.  Perhaps our schools really are failing the children in the math field.  Band, orchestra, and drama were part of the other extracurricular activities.  And finally, there were also service clubs.  One club helped the mentally-challenged kids, and another- well club doesn’t really apply here (you’ll see why in a sec)- recognized students who did some sort of community work.  Thankfully they did not recognize these students individually as a good 90% of the students raised their hands when the principal asked who has done some community work or project!  Was this part of a class assignment or were they really this outward-thinking?

Well, after some 25 teams, clubs, and organizations they wrapped up, had a drawing for some Pepsi T-shirts, and then were dismissed.  The scheduled ending time was 9:45.  The actual ending time was 10:35.  Oops.  Reminds me of television networks and sports for some reason…

So, we skipped two of the periods and I went on break.  Finally I could get off my feet.  Oh, did I mention that I had to stand for the entire assembly because there were no chairs provided for the teachers?  Some plopped down with the students, other stood right along beside me.  Now, I have an injured foot so I did a lot of leaning, walking, and a little bit of sitting on the floor in addition to the standing.  So, all good and well now.  Unfortunately I had about twenty minutes and I had to start eating my lunch as the teacher I was in for had no scheduled lunch.  Instead, she had a study hall period.  So, I had a panini during 4th period, an orange and a Mountain Dew 6th during study hall, and the rest of my lunch last period.  Well, an interesting day for sure.