School Talent Show Lament

5 more days.  Five.  More.  Days.  The school year will be over soon and my 9 year old can taste it.  State mandated testing has passed (I won’t even go into what a shit storm our law makers brewed up with that one) and all the kids are wondering what the point of continuing to attend school is now that they have taken their test and been told whether or not they can continue to the 4th grade.  So, why are we still here again? 

Anyhoo – parents, students and teachers are all phoning it in.  Myself included.  I conveniently forgot to write the May PTA newsletter because I already had one thousand and one things to do that month and we’re not in school the entire month anyway, so what’s the point? 

The last week of school is spent anticipating the class party on Thursday and the last day of school isn’t really a real day because it’s the school talent show.  Addison has begged me to allow him not to go to school on the last day because the school talent show is torturous.  The kids sit on the gym floor All. Day. Long. and watch a string of mind numbing routines, dances and lip syncs.  Basically it is a “ya’ll come” attitude with the talent show participants and I’m beginning to thing it’s the teacher’s way to punish the kids one last time for being little shits all year long (because let’s face it; being a teacher is about the hardest job in the world for the smallest salary in the world.  They deserve some retribution.)

In order to be in the talent show, one must “audition” for the music teachers.  Every kid who can make at least one rotation of the hula hoop around their waist, or can knock plastic light sabers together while Duel of the Fates is playing makes the cut.  Well, almost every kid.  

Last year Addison and two boys decided they wanted to be in the talent show.  They wanted to reenact a Minecraft video they had seen on YouTube.  It is set to a song called Like An Enderman that is a take off on Gangnam Style (remember when that song was all the rage?  That guy is laughing all the way to the bank.)  Their reenactment was pretty terrible, but Addison seemed excited about it so I encouraged him to practice.  I even downloaded the song and burned it to a CD so he could take it to his music teacher.  Some geek in his parent’s basement making covers of Gangnum Style made 99 cents off of me because I was trying to be a supportive parent.  We even had one of the other little boys over to practice.  I’m sure in their heads it was awesome but to everyone else watching it was confusing.  Without the video as a frame of reference (which would be about 99.9% of the audience) it just looked like two boys falling over each other.  It made no sense whatsoever.  

Audition day came along and Dear Husband and I gave Addison a high-five for good luck and advised him not to be disappointed if it didn’t work out.  Addison and the friend who practiced (I’m not sure what happened to the third boy, I think there was some sort of artistic differences and a falling out) brought their A-game to the audition.  Let me clarify the practice method of 2nd graders.  By “practice” I mean they tried to reenact the video, while watching it, twice.  I tried to explain to them that they wouldn’t have the video to watch while on stage but this didn’t seem to be a problem to their little 8 year old brains.  I really think that they thought it would just come to them like some sort of divine inspiration.  Kind of like when I was in the Wal-Mart in Costa Rica and thought I would suddenly be fluent in Spanish because I’ve watched Dora.  Apparently, there is more to a conversation then Hola, soy Dora.  

Back to the audition…the music teacher watched and, bless her frazzled soul, had the wisdom to say Sorry, not this year boys.  Thank baby Jesus in the manger we were all saved from watching that hot mess in a stuffy, darkened gymnasium and subsequently having to comfort a child who put himself through such an ordeal.  This year there was no mention of being in the show.  In fact, quit the opposite.

Four more days, plus the talent show.  We’re on the home stretch here, folks.  Whether or not Addison will go the talent show this year; I plead the 5th.