Freak the Mighty

Well, school has been back in session for me for a week and a half now. Chris has only been back for a week, lucky him.
The term ended yesterday with what seemed like a bang. The city of Provo is doing a city wide literacy initiative to get everyone to read the same book "Freak the Mighty" by Philbrick. Since I'm an English teacher it fell withing my departments range to rally the school around this initiative. So to kick off this reading we held an assembly yesterday. Man, it is a lot of work to plan assemblies. We decided to have the students do a relay race competition between grades with events that were inspired by things in the book. We had a couple of late nights as a department planning this activity. But the greatest was that we, the four English teachers, demonstrated the relay race before. Man, did the students laugh at us, but that was the point. I never would have believed that I would have been caught dead doing that 5 years ago, but it seems that teaching has brought the Calderwood out in me. (For those that don't know, that is the outrageous, loud side of my family.) I forgot to bring a camera, but the school took lots of pictures and even videotaped it. I may have to burn that when I find it. Or I'll just blame it on being doped up on cold medicine since I've been sick for most of the week. It was a lot of fun and I think we've gotten a lot of students interested in reading the book- the extra credit I'm offering might help the seniors feel motivated. I think this is a great idea that the city and district had, I just hope that people get behind it. I think a life-long love of reading is one of the most beneficial traits a person can have, but I might be a little biased.
Happy New Year Everyone!