School Assemblies

School assemblies tend to be a mixed blessing. There are enough other teachers around, and usually a principal also so you really don't have to worry about student behavior that much. It is a break from teaching.

But the assemblies themselves can be quite horrific. Today I was at one of the inner city schools in my district. The school is about 75% African American. For some reason someone decided to invite a dance/gymnastic group for the school assembly. The fifty dancers were from one of the well to do suburbs outside of the district. 95% of the dancers were white.

How do the dancers decide to begin the assembly? With a hip-hop routine of course. I am cringing with embarrassment for the entire race of white people. Who thought this was a good idea? The even sadder thing is...they weren't good. They weren't good dancers, they weren't good looking. The boys in my class and all the other classes start laughing immediately. The assembly has just started and I want it to be over now.

The girls are all tramped out. Way too much lipstick. Way too much makeup in general. Their routine involves several hip thrusts toward the crowd and toward each other. Somebody thought this was appropriate for 1st to 5th graders? Get real!