Homecoming Week

This has been a great week at school with lots of excitement about the homecoming game. Today we had a big homecoming assembly at 11.30, and then the entire school was given a half day. The homecoming assembly was a surreal experience for me.

It’s difficult to describe. We assembled in the gym which was decorated last night by a large number of pupils wielding acres of paper, dozens of cans of silver spray paint and carte blanche to design thrones for the princesses. Each year group, 9th Grade (freshmen) 10th grade (sophomores) 11th grade (juniors) and 12th grade (seniors) had their own throne to design and build. After singing ‘The Star-spangled banner’, and various other songs accompanied with dancing cheerleaders, several girls were crowned as ‘princesses’ and escorted to their thrones by their ‘princes’. Finally our ‘queen’ was crowned, the crown going to the princess whose homeroom (sort of like their registration class) had sold the most candy bars for our big fundraising effort.
After that we were introduced to our football team (there seemed to be about 100 of them). Finally the school broke up. I had to pinch myself several times to make sure I wasn’t just imagining it all. So frustrating having no-one else to nudge!

Tonight is the football game. We are playing at a local stadium against another high school. As far as I can tell most of our pupils will go along, and they will be joined by past pupils (alumni) and parents.

The thing that struck me the most about all of this: the pupils loved every minute of it. Think I might have underestimated their love of seasonal rituals.