Prom

I went to the prom on Thursday night. The Senior Citizen's Prom. After months of planning and mini breakdowns, it all came together and was over in 2 short hours.

I cannot claim credit for the idea. Our high school did it every year with the National Honors Society. A small group of students would head it up, but it had so much precedent, there was no concern over getting seniors or getting students to attend. Our school, being cyber, a) has never done anything like this and b) has a hard enough time getting a kid to answer their personal cell phone, let alone show up and dance with an elderly person.

I brought the idea to Anne, the person running NHS at our school, and she fortunately jumped right on board. We chose Wellington, a retirement community that is more like a lux hotel then old folks home. I contacted the activities director there and set up a meeting. She had some concerns, but was overall extremely enthusiastic. This was back in perhaps January.

I then went and got permission from the bigwigs at school. I chose a date and everyone was cool with it. It conflicted with some field trips, but oh well. We advertised to the students and 35 said that they wanted to be a part of it. And thus it began.

It was interesting to see the opposition cropping up like clockwork every few weeks. We created a survey to hand out to the seniors to get some information from them to help us shape the dance. Well, they did not want to dance. They did not want to get dressed up. They did not want to run for prom king and queen. We actually had a group of seniors gossiping negatively about the dance. You would think at 85 you would get over that, but apparently not. We decided to forge ahead. If we had a small group, so what? Easier for us. A few more weeks into planning, the activities director called and said we had to cancel the dance. This was near spring break, after we had been planning seriously for about a month. Her son was having an engagement party that night. My heart sunk and I wanted to throw up. I called her and begged her to reconsider, that we had already started planning things, the kids were already excited, we already had a dj and photographer. We chose to move the dance to Thursday night.
I cleared the date with everyone important, and we went ahead again. A few more weeks pass and I start hearing from students that they cannot come - their senior awards dinner is that night. Despite me clearing that date with the person who scheduled the dinner, "it could not be helped, it was the only date free." Excuse me, but no, it was NOT free, in fact. :| So then I started to get worried that we would have no kids. But again, we kept planning and kept going on.

In the end, we had about 25+ kids (I do not even know who was there in the end, considering I do not know what most of my students look like) and we had100 seniors. From something that was almost canceled from lack of interest and bad timing, we had a full blown party. It was bigger than my wedding.

And they loved it!

As I see it, there were only two downsides to the evening. First of all, they did not dance as much as I hoped. Their average age was 85. In my high school, they must have been in their 60's and 70's... I just thought at the ripe ole age of 17 that they were much more ancient than they actually were. The other downside is that we ran out of vanilla for root beer floats. Those old people love em some floats!

Other than that, I really think it went without a hitch. They were not bored, they loved interacting with the kids. We made a bazillion corsages that turned out very well. The decorations worked out great with generous donations of helium, a tank, and a bunch of metal lit star arches. The photographer was very wonderful and already asked if they could do it again for us next year. The DJ did a great job too. Both were free.

I was standing by the door as the seniors walked out and nearly every one wanted to shake my hand or kiss my cheek and tell me how wonderful the night was. "Like a regular old Saturday night!" I am so glad that we were able to provide that opportunity and memory for them. The kids were really fantastic with them, and some in particular really went out of their way to sit with the seniors and chat with them. I was so proud. I thing I feel confident about in cyber school is that the students are really nice. So many of them are shy and sweet and they do not have the prejudices that us jaded public school kids do. Fat, skinny, cute, ugly, old, young, it does not matter, they all hung out together, and it was beautiful to see.

I think what I loved best is that you could see some of the students growing. One girl, a very shy one in my honors bio class, came despite being utterly broken out in hives from an allergic reaction. Her mom told me that because of my class, she wants to go into medicine. How freaking amazing is that? And she is just a lovely, bright girl. Another girl, who is rather overweight and very afraid of public speaking, did a double dose of putting herself out there. Not only did she make friends with the skinny girls who knew each other, but she served as one of our emcees for the evening. She said to me today that she was now more excited to go on trips and do things at school because she knows people now and is not afraid of being alone or being judged. Another girl, who spent a good deal of the night sitting at tables with the seniors, came up to me and said that they were all amazing and she was so glad that she got to talk to them. Another student, who is ESL and sped, had a fantastic time and got to hang out with a bunch of new people who honestly did not even realize something was "off" about him. He is fantastic at the jitterbug, I might add, as he was my dance partner when we learned the other week. I had another, who looks like a freaking supermodel, come up and tell me that she loved the whole night and really wants to take a more active, in charge role next year. We had another girl set up with the photographers, and the spent the whole night teaching her about how to use a dSLR and to set up portrait shots and use different lighting and everything. So amazing.

Despite the mini breakdowns and all of the hard work on me and Anne's part, I am so happy that it happened, not only for the seniors, but for the students. They do want us back, which I think is the highest compliment. I need to get some much needed sleep before I even start considering it, but I know we will probably do it. :) In the three days before the prom, I constantly woke up at night with "prom" the first word in my mind and on my lips, just to fall back asleep. So silly.

Anyway, it was great and exhausting and now I get to move on to other things:
1. finishing the school year
2. graduation (and taking the photography there eek!)
3. kyu test at the end of the month
4. Project Philly has started!

No rest for the weary I suppose.