Community

Yesterday the teachers gathered together--keeping our distance--for a parade!  I had been looking forward to it for days.  I was glad to see my friends and excited for the chance to catch a glimpse of my students as we drove by.  Jamie always has the best pens and told me about the best pencil sharpener (it is seriously so much better than any others) and bought us all the best kind of whiteboard erasers.

So of course she had markers for all of us to decorate our car windows.  In between uses she would take them and wipe them off with Clorox wipes.

The teachers were all a little giddy.  Then we saw how Mr. Dawson, our new principal, was going to ride in the parade:

his wife was his driver

He has instituted fist bump Fridays with the students and called to sing to me on my birthday and said, "How about you don't have to come to school today since it's your birthday?"  (And also since I was supposed to stay home from school anyway.)

So of course this is how he rode in the parade.

We had an escort, lights flashing, which warmed my heart and upped the excitement for the kids.

Not only were all these teachers there because they wanted to show our students we love them, but these great people who serve Orem were there too.

It felt like a proud day for community spirit.

We lined up in our cars and headed out.

here's my friend Jamie

Adam drove me so I could focus on waving.  It made me really happy when students recognized me and said, "Mrs. Davis!' in a sort of excited voice.  Most of them know me minimally, I think seeing me was just a reminder of someone from a place they love.

It made me ecstatic when I saw my own kids.  I would yell their names out the window.  It was one of my girls' birthday and when I saw her I yelled, "Happy Birthday!"  Unfortunately she was out the driver's side window and I mostly yelled in Adam's ear.  He said pleasantly, "Wow, my ear is ringing."

Earlier in the day I had been working in my classroom and Adam brought me lunch.  One of the aides said, "Your husband is so nice."

Everyone knows it, especially me.

I loved seeing families spread out on their lawns or waving from their front porches.

We drove around for about an hour, up and down streets, waving furiously at each other.  I loved seeing people in the neighborhood, who didn't have children, out on their porches waving to us too.  One dad ran up to every car and handed the teachers a cold gatorade and some candy.

"Treat time!" he'd yell.

There were lots of signs, homemade by the students, and like my friend Janelle said, it was clear that a school is more than a building where children go to learn and adults go to work.  It's a community.  It's a fabric of people woven together.  The children may have little more than geography in common.  The adults may have little more than their love of teaching children in common.  But when we come together, we create something pretty magical.  We create a community.