Bringing PRIDE Back!!!

At a time where our schools, children and community are faced with the paradigm switch that often accompanies the installment of a new team with new rules (either written or implied), new ideals (either written or enforced) and new attitudes (either hidden or on full display) – we are the ones impacted the most because WE’VE been through the most!

Besides our children and their education – the next thing that suffers is School, Children and Community PRIDE! Yes – there are pockets of pride here and there and it is certainly not due to principals and teachers lack of creating visual pictorials of pride. I’ve gone to many of our schools and there is unquestionably an element of pride on display. But PRIDE has an air about it – it’s not just a visual art, but in fact it is a visceral need!

When I attended the Plainfield Schools there was an AIR of PRIDE that everyone partook in. At Cook Elementary – We created a slogan “It’s Cool To Be Smart”. Lead by our illustrious music teacher – Mr. Segall (currently teaching at Cedarbrook) we created a song (a Rap –our own brand of hip hop before Rap became Hip!) We were featured in the Courier News and our Superintendent stopped in to see our presentation! In the famous words of my 6th grade teacher Miss Roberts – we just couldn’t stop being so “gitty”!

At Maxson, under the leadership of Mr. Hobbie (our Principal) – we learned the art of discipline. Not meted out haphazardly, but with love and genuine respect.

In my final years of schooling at PHS – PRIDE was doled out in daily doses through teachers like Mrs. Harper, Mr. Pannone, Mrs. Corbett, Mr. Horn, Mrs. Jones, Ms. MacDonald, Mr. Cavalier, Mrs. Willard, Mrs. Watts, Mr. Rob (I’ll never get over you pouring that gatoraid on me – burrrr -- I owe YA!) – and a host of other teachers and administrators. On any given day you could find them in the hallways singing ditties of “Play that funky music”, “Go-BIG Red”, and “PLAINFIELD --- Plainfield --Let’s Go All the WAY!” intermingled with Shakespearean soliloquies, Pythagorean theorems, FOIL methodology, elimination dodge ball theory and the art of debate and negotiations. There was academic pride in our honor society, and school pride in our sports teams, in our teachers and in the students!

How do we get it back? 1 Parent, 1 Community Member, 1 Faculty, 1 Student, 1 Administrator, 1 Board Member, 1 Call to Consciousness at a time!

It’s cool to be smart in many ways…
because being SMART really pays.
Once you learn it………you’ll never forget………
That there’s 26 letters in the alphabet.
It’s cool, cool, cool – to be Smarrrrrrrrrrrt!

So ----- Goooooooooooooo BIG Redddddddd!….Gooooooooooooo BIG Reddddddddddd! I said Go, Go, Big Red, Go Go Big Red– I said Go, go Big Red………….Go, go Big Red. Gooooooooooooooo Big Red!