I used to dream of skipping school the day after the Super Bowl. As a teacher, that is. Lots of students skipped. Having succumbed to the “Super Bowl flu,” they spent the morning in bed. The others showed up, too tired to learn, seeming to sleep with their eyes open.
They forgot their pencils and couldn’t find their homework and needed to be told five times to turn to page 263.
“What did you say?”—this was the most-asked question on post-Super Bowl mornings.
But the mercy of this fog ended at lunch.
Then came the afternoon with its sour grapes and arguments about play-calls and in-your-face celebrations by fans of the winning team. And all this was mediated by teachers in their varied post-party states.
Some schools cancel on Super Bowl Monday. I can see why. It’s not a day to introduce new concepts or facilitate group work or give tests. It’s not a day for a whole lot of learning.
Except for one lesson—toughness.
“I know you don’t feel like doing this,” I’d tell students.
They’d look at me through the blear in their eyes.
“And you know what?” I’d say. “I don’t either.”
That got me a point. So they listened as I taught them an old saying: 80 percent of success in life is just showing up.
We weren’t at our best, my students and I, but we were there . . . building our resilience, finding we could be reliable and trustworthy and committed.
I’m writing this the morning after the Chiefs came back to tie the 49ers and to win the game in overtime. I went to bed later than usual. And slept later than usual. I’m glad to be old and retired, writing in a bathrobe in my lamp-lit living room.
But I applaud all the resilient people toughing it out just down the road at London Middle School.
Apple to Apple 