School Olympics

One of the traditions at my school is a school wide "Olympic" competition. All of the middle school classes compete against each other, as do all of the high school classes. This means there is one winner for the middle school and one winner for the high school. The students participate in a variety of activities, mostly athletic in nature, though there is a costume contest. Each class picked a theme for their costumes and dress up and decorated their space accordingly. These are the classes and what they dressed up as:

1ag - Mimes, and then they yelled at each other all day not to speak.
1bg - Vampires
1cg - Primary School Students

2ag - Emo/Goth Kids
2bg - Thugs

3ag - Construction Workers
3bg - Tea

1a - Musicians
1b - Village People (As in people from the village, NOT the music group famous for their smash hits "YMCA" and "In the Navy." I asked.)

2a - Bad Guys
2b - Anti-Terrorist Group (All the the teachers were deemed terrorists.)

3a - People Camping
3b - Gangstas

All of the grades competed in various swimming events that ranged from basic races to more complicated tasks. The coolest water event involved two students that started at opposite ends of the pool. The referee threw 12 "hockey pucks" into the middle of the pool. The students then had to race to the middle and fetch all of the pucks and swim them to end of the pool. Each grade had a pair compete and the best time won.

The high school students competed in a volleyball tournament. They are SUPER intense players, in that at varying points during the competition I was afraid for my own well being or for the well being of someone else. The final round was between the 3a and 3b classes. It was an amazing match, but 3a ended up winning. Watching them play was so much fun. They really worked well as a team, and many of them are very skilled players.

The middle school students a variety of smaller relay races or other athletic skill tests. The relays included batons, somersaults, and objects to run around. There was also a jumping competition where each team saw how far the could jump, one person at a time. The first student would jump and then chalk was used to draw a line behind his/her heel. The next student would then put his/her toes on the line and jump. Basketball and soccer shooting were other events.

However, the BEST part of the day was the bribes. Most of the classes had food or drink of some kind to bribe the teachers into giving them more points. This is probably the coolest privilege I have experienced yet as a teacher. I ate so much. I drank "blood" from the vampire team, had apple cake from the villagers, a sandwich wrapped in newspaper from the construction workers, and two different types of tea (hot and iced) from the tea team. I felt like a true American- eating lots of food and watching others exercise.

I'm not sure who ended up being the grand champion of either the middle or high school. We thought that there was going to be a closing ceremony of some kind, but there wasn't. Everyone just scattered and disappeared, it was almost eerie how everyone left so quickly. I guess because it was Friday afternoon people wanted to get home. All in all it was a great day and really fun to witness. I'm grateful to be at a school where we have such unique traditions and take time to do special things with the students.

Peace,
Colleen