Lesson 87: Wake Me Up When September Ends

Ahhh, September.  That joyous month for teachers.  That wonderful month when the kids return to school rested and ready to learn.................OK,  wake me up.  I'm dreaming.  I just put in four days and they are all not ready to return.  Trust me.  At Open House tonight I head the word "boring" thirty times in the first half hour.  Hang tight, kids.  We have books to pass out and rules to go over.  Stick with us for a few days and things will pick up.  Shortly you'll be whining because we are giving you too much work to do.  School is fun.  If you disagree, then you are not trying hard enough to make it fun.  It's all about attitude (read my last blog post).  Change your thinking and you can do anything--even memorizing your dreaded math facts.  There's no two ways around it--you need to know them, so stop making excuses and just get on with it.

I was looking for a September song.  I like it when my songs match the time of year.  I remembered this one from years ago from one of my favorite bands, Green Day.  Time of My Life is my #4 favorite song of all time and I wrote about it a month back.   I never watched the video before, and I have to admit, it sucked me in like a cheap reality TV show.  Originally I was thinking about my tiredness during the month of September and how the song would match my fatigue.  However when I watched the above video, it is a little movie about young love and a choice the boy makes.  I thought it was a predictable song, but it surprised me.  If you watch it the whole way through, it may surprise you, too.

It is a song about the innocence of young love.  It reminded me of the teenagers I've been working with at the high school for the last week.  I observe them in the hallways and they are a funny bunch.  May God bestow extra blessings upon you tonight if you are a parent of one.  Was I ever like that?  Did I ever sit alone in the bleachers wondering about someone?  Was I that naive?

It also got me thinking about how I don't like guys who wear eyeliner and I just had to wonder why the lead singer didn't fix his chipped front tooth.  He has to earn a good income from his record deals, doesn't he?  Surely the guy could afford dental work.  Nevertheless, the song I stumbled on by accident ended up making me think.  And that dear readers is what schools are trying to teach kids to do, to think.  Thinking is good, otherwise you are just existing and just existing is bad.


Here's to the stimulation of the mind.  Think.
Professor Eloise