As a high school student, homecoming meant a busy week in my too-short cheerleading skirt and bouncy ponytail. I was never the homecoming queen, but I thoroughly enjoyed the week with the grand finale of a dance on the weathered wood floor of the old gym where Midwestern girls tried to shake it to songs like "Lovefool" and "Wannabe." In my first year of teaching, homecoming turned tragic when a senior cheerleader was killed in a car accident between school and the football game. Homecoming was a canceled football game coupled with feeble attempts to comfort a swarm of sobbing teenagers huddled together in the center of the football field, each yard line a memorial marked with grief. These are the lessons you never learn in a teacher education program. Still today a homecoming doesn't pass that I don't think of breathtaking Aayla with her life laid out before her like a blank sheet of paper, a canvas. Now as a teacher homecoming means flexibility and sometimes fun. I deal with the disruptions of homecoming week as students miss class for skit rehearsal and Powderpuff football. I try not to grumble too much as I see students in a different light -- a more carefree light. This year I participated in all of the dress-up days, danced like a fool (still) in the faculty skit, and wiped tears as our school crowned a homecoming king with special needs. Homecoming means realizing that some days we fashion floats instead of conquer the Common Core. Homecoming can mean tragedy, and it can mean triumph. What does Homecoming mean to you as an educator?
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September 2020
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