"Hair up, jewelry off, workout clothes and shoes on."

I just got a call from Missy relaying the message that after she spoke with two of the cheerleaders who I noted were not participating to their fullest and not being cooperative with a fellow cheerleader who was put in charge to help critique and sharpen their dance. For today's in-class practice, one of the cheerleaders (who is also one of my English students) is not the head of her squad but has gained the title of "dance queen" was appointed to help teach and perfect the dance during practice. I was assigned as an extension of Missy to help K with any problems from fellow cheerleaders that may arise, and there were a few I noticed from Day One of my apprenticeship that were not giving their all when it came time to do a run-through. This brought me back to my former high school days as a Drum Major, and I also went back to hearing stories from a very good friend of mine who was the Drill Team Captain, and it infuriated me that these two girls were A) disrespecting their fellow teammate by disregarding her constructive criticism and help and B) simply going through the motions and rolling their eyes and slowly ambling to their spots. And after the JV and fish would do a run-through, they would immediately sit after holding the last position with spaghetti arms and scowls on their faces. It didn't seem to me that they carried an ounce of pride, enthusiasm, and/or concern/interest in being part of the squad at all.

I'm all about efficiency - if you're supposed to be at practice, less than half the battle is showing up. The remainder of making it worthwhile is putting in the work, the effort. And if this isn't present, you might as well not be there. Just as a piece of technology is as smart as its user; the squad/team/band/etc. is just as strong as its weakest player/member. Missy set me with a duty, and I took it seriously - as I take all things in my job and in life. Sure, I'm a bit intense when it comes to things. I called for the girls to get in opening formation and grew tired of seeing them slowly pace to their spots and stand in strut. I ached when I couldn't blow my whistle or call attention. There isn't much of anything like that in cheerleading, so when girls were simply walking WALKING to their spots from SITTING DOWN, I began to countdown from 5, and they STILL lingered. So yeah, you could just imagine how pissed I was that they weren't taking this seriously, especially when they have a dress rehearsal for a performance next Saturday on Monday and a final performance for their showcase a week after that.

So yes, I told Missy about the two in particular who were a pain to me and the squad, and apparently they denied it and bawled their eyes out. But after she gave them a talking to and told them about my observations and report post-practice, they were PERFECT for her during after-school practice. I'll have to pull them aside next block to talk to them one-on-one to let them know that my only intention is to make them better as individuals for their own and whole-group success because I want to see them succeed and live up to their potential. I want them to know that I'll be hard on them because I want them to prove to me that they want to be their best, and I know that since they acted in such an emotional way during the talk that they DO care. But I want them to show me. I need them to make me see that they belong and are worthy of being a part of the squad. I believe in the girls WHOLEHEARTEDLY. But if we ALL have to show up, we might as well make our time worth it.

We had a shortened class day due to the late start @ 10am (we've got another tomorrow @ 9.30a) but I got to get up in front of my Pre-APs to practice annotations and close-reading strategies so I ended up with what I call "alien fingers" from cleaning off the green Vis-a-Vis overhead marker. I was a bit nervous the first time around, but the kids were great and provided me with good suggestions in terms of responses to questions I would ask them. We underlined and marked up the margins, and I went through how to approach answering questions with the class; then I let them loose for six APMCs on their own (with my help.) I eased up and got more comfortable during 3rd block and started quoting Bon Qui Qui and Wendy Williams via The Soup... yeah, that's when you know Ms. L's feeling at ease. My 2nd block kids thanked me on their way out the door; it made me feel good to know my tips were helpful! Hopefully I'll see more of their detailed annotations on future work! It seriously ends up in better results!

So today was definitely a day full of "room for improvements!"

Always looking forward to the next,
Ms. L