Career Day, part 2

In my last blog, I wrote about the wonderful experience of career day. However, something even more meaningful happened on that day: I got, "whoop-whooped." It's not every day that I get a "whoop-whoop." It left me feeling appreciated, liked, and respected.

One of the speakers was an assistant principal at a community college high school (a high school where students can earn dual credit towards a diploma and college coursework). He spoke in an auditorium filled with 4th and 5th graders. The main thrust of his speech was to get kids thinking about college. He asked them such open-ended questions like: "What does college look like?" and "What kind of people go to a college?". He presented these questions to the students and some volunteered their answers.

He complimented the students on their answers, but then put the call out for grown-ups (mainly us, faculty members) to come up to the mic and volunteer their opinions on his questions. I am not a public speaker. So, I sulked down into my chair. He picked one of my female colleagues, Ms. Teacher, to go up front. He asked her what kind of things you could learn about in college. She talked about what her major had been and talked about some of the other majors available. He asked her what college looked like and she talked about how her college was a small college, but how other colleges were huge.

When he was done with her, he then asked for a male teacher's thoughts. I slunk further. My fellow colleague, Mr. Teacher, was not at this particular assembly so I knew the odds were not in my favor. Since the auditorium was filled with 5th graders (most of them my students from last year) and 4th graders (most of my students from this year), things did not look good. There were 2 or 3 other male teachers in the auditorium, but there sphere of influence was minimal. They were bilingual teachers and only had one section of students for the current year and previous year. I had 5 sections last year and 5 sections this year.

Sure enough, I heard someone shout out, "Mr. Cater!" Then, someone else chimed in my name. Then, all collective eyes in the auditorium were on me. There was nowhere to hide. I succumbed and got up out of my seat and started walking to the front. That is when the "Whoop, whoops" started. I felt like Arsenio Hall. Kids started clapping.

It was a good feeling.

I felt....well......

"Liked."

Who doesn't like to feel that way? It was an ego-booster for sure.

The assistant principal (who looked and sounded a lot like Ray Romano) then asked me his college question: "What kind of people go to college?" I then proceeded to answer that people of all ages and races went to college. I went further into it than that, of course, but that was basically it. The kids had probably tuned me out the second I said, "People of all ......"

But, who really cares if they tuned me out or not?

I got "whoop whooped"!