SLICE #14- DAP DAY

So today was "Dap Day."

Tomorrow we start PARCC. The administrators at my school arranged a PARCC Pep Rally this afternoon. A couple of days ago, I was told that the leadership team was performing a rap at the assembly.

To tell you the truth, I wasn't all that excited about it.

First of all, I am not all that excited about all the testing we are required to do. OK, yeah, and I'm probably not supposed to admit that, but I'm not. And because I'm not that excited about testing, I'm not that excited about an assembly about testing.

And I think it's a little ridiculous to tell kids to get a good night's sleep and eat a good breakfast tomorrow. I want them to do that every single night. I want them to be at the top of their game every single day. Not just the day before a standardized test.

And if I wasn't excited about testing, I really, really, really wasn't that excited about this dap thing. I wasn't even exactly sure what the dap was. I thought I was probably the only one who didn't know about the dap, but several people who read my blog yesterday said they didn't know either.

I felt a teeny bit better. Just a teeny bit. I googled "dap" on the internet last night. I thought maybe there would be a "how to" video that I could use to practice, but I didn't find one. Every dap video looked different than every other one. And to be really honest, a lot of them looked a lot like someone wiping their nose on their sleeve.

By the time I got to school this morning, I had gotten another email. We were going to practice. Twice. On the way in from the parking lot, I tried to convince the music teacher to trade me places. I told her I would cover her class if she would dap for me.

She wasn't buying it.

And so we practiced. With background music. And I wasn't that good at it.

But then my principal, a former music teacher, reworked my verse. She took out about a few of the words. And she practiced with me a couple of more times. She counted the beats and showed me when to start. It felt a little easier.

And then it was time for the performance.

And I was super nervous. I really am not musical. And I really didn't want to make a fool of myself and have to hear about it from the middle school kids for the next few weeks, until I do something else embarrassing.

And then the music started. And I decided to go for it. And I did. I my dap was a little questionable, really kind of a combination between dap (whatever that is) and Saturday Night Fever. But it went ok, I think, and I didn't die of embarrassment.

About an hour after that, I was on after school duty in the front hall.

And one of the sixth graders came up to talk to me.

"Dr. Wilcox," she said. "You are about the funniest old lady I know. We laughed about you dapping all afternoon. "

I guess that's good enough for me.