The Ancient Cheerleader

Do you take time to have fun at work?  I’m not talking about with your students.  I’ve no doubt we all do that.   I’m talking about with your co-workers.  Do you take the time to laugh together?  Get to know them?  You spend approximately 8 hours a day at school, 5 days a week. Enjoying your time at school is important.  When I left my old school, I cried and cried.  I thought that I would never find friends as good as the ones I was leaving behind.  But I did.  I moved to a new, wonderful school and met new co-workers who have now become my close friends.  They are there to talk to in the mornings, vent to, support each other, celebrate with.  They were at my wedding and they are there when we just need to hang out. They are no longer considered co-workers but friends. 

A few years ago, one of our teachers found an old, cheerleader bulletin board piece.  
“The ancient cheerleader”——->

Since I was coaching cheerleading at the time, he thought it was only fitting to give the cheerleader to me to keep.  Of course, I thought this thing was ug-ly and didn’t want it, so I snuck it back into his room when he wasn’t looking.  3 years later, we are still passing this ancient cheerleader back and forth among our classes, hiding it so that the other will not find it. We even get our kids in our classes in on it. They help us plot and think of ways to give the cheerleader back.  

 It’s become a game almost as competitive as the winter Olympics.

The rules are simple:

1) You can’t give the cheerleader back in a way you’ve already given her back before. Every time you pass the cheerleader back, it has to be in a new, creative way.
2) If you hide the cheerleader, there must be a picture of the cheerleader with a clue about where she could be hiding in the classroom.
3) You can’t harm the cheerleader. She can be folded, but that is about it. 
4) The teacher who has possession of the cheerleader at the end of the day on the last day of school has to buy the other one lunch.

Well, today I had to hand it to him.  This weekend was my birthday.  Today was a professional development day.  I walked into my classroom to a birthday cake!  My friends had baked me a cake and it was SO sweet!  Until I started to cut into the cake…