First Place

On Tuesday of this week, we performed the "Horsepower Challenge" - an activity designed by my mom for her class. It involved my students implementing their own strategy in a competition to get the most power while running up our school's stairs (physics talk).

My students got pretty into it, and it was entertaining watching all of them run full speed up the stairs. Seeing a few kids eat it was even better. It was all the senior class could talk about for the whole day, and the rumors of who fell and how they fell got increasingly dramatic over our hours in school. At one point, I heard a junior telling a freshman how seniors in pre-calculus were pushing each other down the stairs with backpacks on...so, yeah, that's pretty close to the truth. I wasn't going to correct them.

To tap into their competitive side, I offered 1st prize ribbons to the team that won in each class. My kids tried to pretend they were too cool for the ribbons, and then two seconds later, they all desperately wanted them. Those kids wore those ribbons around for the whole day.

Pictured is one of my favorite students and advisory members, Larry. His team won, and he asked me if we could take a picture so he could post it on Instagram. Too much pride in this picture.