{"id":2586,"date":"2012-02-22T23:59:30","date_gmt":"2012-02-23T03:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=2586"},"modified":"2012-02-22T23:59:30","modified_gmt":"2012-02-23T03:59:30","slug":"standards-of-dancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=2586","title":{"rendered":"Standards of Dancing"},"content":{"rendered":"

So there I was, Dining\u00a0and Dancing with the SOLs.\u00a0 This involves taking your 3rd grader, by which in this case we mean the Reigning Queen of Pink, to her school around 6pm, eating\u00a0fundraiser-priced pizza,\u00a0and listening to a lecture about what the Standards of Learning tests are, when they are, why they’re important, why they’re not<\/strong> important, why your students shouldn’t stress over them at all<\/strong>, but why you should pleasepleaseplease not go on vacation during test week and make sure they get enough sleep and make sure they get a good breakfast and make sure they’ve studied all the stuff we’re going to send home with them for 2 months beforehand and make sure to quiz them and drill them on the practice tests that you shouldn’t stress over but the URLs are right here, and we’ll have sample test questions sent home every day, but really, make sure the kids don’t worry about this in the slightest – it’s no big deal<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Really.\u00a0 Not to worry at all.\u00a0 It’s just our jobs on the line.\u00a0 Which is the sad, sad, and odd part of it – for most of the kids, this test really won’t affect their lives.\u00a0 Their teachers’ lives, however, will be measured and found full or lacking based on the results of the kids’ scores.\u00a0 As a project manager, I understand this completely – but I have a lot more control over my team’s performance than any teacher ever had over a 3rd grader.\u00a0 To say that this is a goofy way to run an educational system is to risk understatement, but\u00a0it’s a perfectly\u00a0valid rationale for the\u00a0slightly schizophrenic tone to the message. \u00a0\u00a0Also,\u00a0this is a goofy way to run an educational system.<\/p>\n

Then we got to the dancing part.\u00a0 This is hook to get people to show up – promise the 3rd graders pizza and dancing, and they will<\/strong> drag their parents.<\/p>\n

We retired to the gym, which still conjures in me flashbacks of Hell – from being picked last (well, next to last, most of the time; I was at least reasonably tall and didn’t wear glasses) to coming in last to not being at all athletically inclined, the gym was never exactly a\u00a0sanctuary for younger versions of myself.\u00a0 This particular gym wasn’t helping with that – we’re going to line up and everybody gets to dance with their kid, isn’t that nice!\u00a0 You’re invited regardless of inclination or ability.\u00a0 It’s like the draft,\u00a0only with line dancing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We started with a dance routine lead by an amazing drill sergeant<\/del> dance instructor<\/del> gym teacher who was somehow capable of being in 4 places at once.\u00a0 Her voice is bigger than her frame, which I suspect comes from dealing with small children at a distance, and she moved through the crowd so fast I thought she was disapperating and apparating over on the other side of the room.\u00a0\u00a0We “did the Hustle” for one of the dances, but she did it for the whole dance.\u00a0 Every time we turned to face a new wall and clap, there she was!\u00a0 She must be a hell of a gym sergeant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anyway, the music teacher \/ DJ had us start with some new fresh wedding hell called the Cupid Shuffle, which I’m certain was\u00a0invented by some wedding\u00a0DJ bent on highlighting the dance floor inadequacies of overweight white guys. I mean, not that I blame him, but I resemble that remark, you know?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Truth:\u00a0 I have all the rhythm of a busted metronome trying to swing, tick-tock-splot,\u00a0in a bucket of jello.\u00a0 Thanks to events like this, I have the opportunity to prove it to not only my 3rd grader, but to the rest of the 3rd grade cohort.\u00a0 And their parents.\u00a0 And the PTA President.\u00a0 And her camera.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For\u00a0one brief, shining moment, I held out hope that the evening would end as the last one did – when I was here with Number One Son<\/a> 2 years ago, he bailed out after about\u00a0one song.\u00a0 Alas, it was not to be – when the Reigning Queen of Pink dances, she’s in it to win it, baby.<\/p>\n

We danced to my Achy Breaky Heart, which\u00a0(I never knew!) involves moving your\u00a0hands up to the right and\u00a0then left, down to right and left, and then slapping your hips – right and then left – and then doing some other stuff.\u00a0 Needless to say, this lasted for about 15 seconds\u00a0before my\u00a0“right hip slap” sent my Blackberry\u00a0skittering across the floor (one of the dangers of coming without changing from work).\u00a0<\/p>\n

There was a brief medley of 5-second musical vignettes that seemed like a combination of “Flashdance in 15 Seconds” and “Name That Tune.”\u00a0 In less than 3 minutes, we covered everything from “Do You Love Me” and Glen Miller’s “In the Mood” to the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin” to “The Twist” to “Day-O” to Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night.”\u00a0 We danced to them all, my white bread, jello-shot metronome notwithstanding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Consolation prize:\u00a0 When we came home, someone mentioned that it’s National Margarita Day.\u00a0 Also, this is my last 3rd grader – I am done with line dancing until the next wedding.\u00a0 The Reigning Queen of Pink came home perfectly happy and content – after all, she’s got nothing to worry about<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Truth: I have all the rhythm of a busted metronome trying to swing, tick-tock-splot, in a bucket of jello. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[61,47,35,40,10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2586"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2590,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586\/revisions\/2590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}