Blogocentric Formulations

I Want It That Way

"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond"  PROMPT (DAY 19): Pick a song that brings you back to a specific event in your life. But the catch is... LOVE SONGS ARE NOT ALLOWED!


Even though it's kind of a romantic song depending on how you interpret the lyrics, the reason I picked this song is most definitely not romantic. Mostly because it involves several male teachers in my high school's history department.

For years, our high school had problems with its pep rallies. Not much enthusiasm, pretty bland and predictable activities, etc. Imagine your stereotypical high school from any teen show; they have the marching band play, the football players and cheerleaders pump up the crowd, the class president making some announcements... literally, it's every stereotype you could possibly imagine.

One school year (I think it was my sophomore year), the school hired a bunch of new history teachers. It was a weird situation where a few had left and a really large class was coming in, so they needed extra teachers in all departments but especially history. Three of the new history teachers talked two of the existing ones and convinced them to put on a little skit. Unbeknownst to pretty much everybody (even the administration who thought they were going to do some kind of boring history presentation), they instead dressed up in the all-white outfits from this video and lip-synched "I Want It That Way," complete with choreographed dance moves and a handful of female student they conspired with to scream and cheer and hold up signs and throw flower petals at them.

It was definitely one of the more memorable pep rallies at our school and the best part was that it actually kicked off an unofficial competition among the departments to come up with increasingly "out there" stunts to keep the students interested and excited to show up at pep rallies. The chemistry teacher blew up a piñata in the middle of the football field, the physical education teachers had a "strong man/woman" competition. It was the tipping point that made the last couple of years of high school go from dull and uninspired to really fun and entertaining.