The high school prom will make lasting memories, and great memories are so important to a person s l

Will Okun is a Chicago school teacher who traveled with Nick Kristof in June to central Africa, on the win-a-trip contest. He blogged and vlogged as he went, and you can see his reports at www.nytimes.com/twofortheroad . He teaches English and photography in a Chicago school with many students from low-income and minority homes.
My mentor teacher once advised, “Go to as many student events cheap weekend cruises as you can. You will rarely regret cheap weekend cruises going and the students will always appreciate it.” Look for us in the stands at the next talent show or sporting event; teachers are easy to identify. cheap weekend cruises We are the haggard, disheveled zombies clustered in isolation, gripping our enormous coffees and diet sodas, gossiping and griping more than our teenage students. (Don’t worry about the earnest, fresh-faced young woman sitting by herself who is simultaneously cheering, grading papers and crying — she is still new.) Other than graduation, my favorite student event is definitely prom. And I am not just saying that because I won “Best Dressed” three years ago.
When seniors at our high school on the west side of Chicago return from winter break, all talk turns to prom. Who is going with whom? Who will be the King and Queen? How little fabric can be used in constructing a dress? Does teal really go with tangerine? Will it be warm enough for a stretch limousine convertible? Where is the after-party after the after-party?
On the actual day of prom, my senior English class is as empty as the Florida Marlins baseball stadium. On the bright side, however, no students means no sleepers for the first time all year. And for that one day, I have an excuse when no one laughs at my usual witty banter. Jokes are like trees falling in the forest: if no one is there to hear them, are they still hilarious?
Apparently it takes a whole day to get ready for prom. Like church on Easter Sunday, the hairdo alone can be an eight-hour ordeal. These nails do not do themselves; manicures, pedicures, eyebrows, make-up, lotion, tuxedos and dresses all take time.
When the beautiful girl-now-a-woman finally cheap weekend cruises emerges down the “red carpet” stairs of her house, most of the neighborhood is eagerly waiting. The younger neighbors in the vocal crowd are every bit the judges on Project Runway: “That dress is fierce, girl. And those heels….” Make it work, indeed.
A few of these dresses make J-Lo’s green Versace gown look positively Amish. In this case, the wardrobe malfunction is on purpose. In dizzyingly vibrant colors, the fabrics defy the laws of physics in the ways they floss across and hang from the body. Perfect for prom and for the swimming pool.
Many of the dresses are custom made and quite expensive. I told a student she could get a great dress and accessories for free through The Glass Slipper cheap weekend cruises Project and she just rolled her eyes in reply, “They only have white girl styles.”
Of course, the perfect car is essential. You can’t roll up to the rodeo riding a mule; only Cadillacs, Jeeps, Hummers, motorcycles, old Impalas and limousines will do. As the prom goers slowly disembark from their luxury vehicles at the historic Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago, each studied arrival is greeted by a mob of ecstatically screaming friends. Tourists from Indiana and other foreign lands stop to look on with befuddlement and wonder.
cheap weekend cruises Female students vastly outnumber the males in our graduating senior class, and the ratio is similarly disproportionate in the expansive ballroom. Every year, it seems more and more females choose to go to prom alone or with friends. There is no embarrassment in their voices when they announce, “I am going by myself.”
The banquet food of wings and tacos is largely ignored as the students head directly for the dance floor, which will be gloriously mobbed for the entire four hours. cheap weekend cruises The D.J. spins only rap, juke and R B — Vic, Jeezy, R. Kelly, Shorty Lo. Even though the D.J. plays the radio versions of the songs, the students knowingly chant in unison cheap weekend cruises the cuss words that have been omitted. Like school on Sunday — no class!
This year I expanded my list of “Least Favorite Prom Songs” to include the current hit “Lollipop” by Lil’ Wayne, with its inspiring chorus of “shawty wanna thug, bottles in the club, shawty wanna hump, ya know I like to touch ya lovely lady lumps.” Still in first place on the list is “Meeting in My Bedroom” by Silk, followed by “I’m in Love With a Stripper” by T-Pain. I tried to slip the D.J. a $10 bill to play one Prince song, but he said that request would be at least $20.
There are only a handful of wallflowers, everyone is dancing with everyone: steppin’, jukin’, and grindin’. There is no nun walking around with a ruler. In fact all of the school chaperones are gathered in the back around the free buffet. The D.J. joked, “Who is chaperoning the chaperones?”
Every year, heated debate and anxious hand-wringing erupts among staff about establishing stricter guidelines for dress, dance styles and music at the prom. I always argue for leniency — let the students have their legal, non-gang, non-disrespectful fun. However, at the end of this year’s prom, I changed cheap weekend cruises my mind. During the last few songs of the night, several male “big-timers” started to “Make It Rain,” an act popularized (of course) by entertainers and athletes who throw large amounts of cash in the air. Our students cheap weekend cruises were only throwing up singles, so really they were just making it drizzle. Regardless, the other students were diving on the floor for the money like it was a candy from a piñata.
As the clock on Reggie’s hat struck midnight, the music finally wound down and we headed our separate ways: the jubilant students to IHOP and the aching chaperones to bed. Cruising home in my own Cadillac, several questions stuck in my mind that I wanted to discuss with the students on Monday: Should high schools restrict prom dresses that have already been approved by the 18-year-old student, her parents and her community? cheap weekend cruises How do schools set boundaries on dancing — who deems what is appropriate cheap weekend cruises and what is offensive? Is it problematic that some students cheap weekend cruises and families spend so much on one prom night and comparatively little on educational resources? Is “Making It Rain” an incredibly vulgar display of American materialism and immorality or is it just another youthful dance fad that is no different that Elvis shaking his hips to the horror of parents? Most importantly, why wasn’t my prom this fun? For the life of me, I will never understand why many teachers do not want to share such an extraordinary experience with their students.
I m young enough (though my arthritis seems to dispute this) to remember renting town cars and stretch limos, girls with very expensive dresses (though not mine, mine was a designer original worth $3K bought for $149 at Loemann s), and after parties where the idea was to get as drunk as possible (didn t go to the before parties where getting drunk was the ideal either). And I have two thoughts:
1) I came from a very rural area where not many kids were going to college. Prom was the last hurrah before settling into a life of grinding labor (and likely cheap weekend cruises poverty). Prom is the last if not the ONLY time that most kids get to dress to the nines before moving on to kids, jobs, and lives of quiet desperation. Maybe this is not true in Chicago. cheap weekend cruises But maybe it still is.
2) If The Glass Slipper project dresses are spurned cheap weekend cruises as being white girl dresses maybe Glass Slipper ought to update their look a bit. Or give classes a la Pretty in Pink for making over white-girl-dresses into hot-urban-ethnicware. Does anyone take Home Ec anymore? A made over prom dress would be a darn site cooler than making a stupid apron or boxer shorts.
Anyway, just two thoughts. My 7th grader arguably as white a white girl as one can manage without being albino went to her first formal this year. It starts in SEVENTH grade?! I bought her dress for $32 at the Salvation Army and it was a stunner. I was worried that the peek-a-boo mid-back cutout would be too revealing, but as it turned out the style this year was for far more revealing strapless dresses and my tall somewhat awkward duckling looked like a queen swan beside the less evolved attire. She was so beautiful!
In my view, spending so much money and energy on a prom is a bit sad. Doing so simply feeds into the ridiculous notion that everything about the high school years is all-important and will make-or-break you (not just prom, but college admissions, how many AP courses you can cram into a schedule, etc.).
I attended a private high school, the sort of school that lots of people automatically (and unfairly) assume to be extravagant and elitist. It was anything but: our junior prom was held on campus in the cafeteria. Senior year, it was held in a local conference center cheap weekend cruises and limos were not allowed, so we all rode over together in school buses. Since it was primarily a boarding school, after-parties were pretty low-key (there s only so much you can get away with in a dorm with chaperones). Everyone seemed cheap weekend cruises to have a great time at both events, even though they lacked some aspects of traditional American proms.
Very lovely story and a great presentation. The photos are sensational. The seniors look like they re having such fun! Of course they should do this; it gives the students something to look forward to and plan for and get involved in organizing. If cost is an issue, cheap weekend cruises maybe the students could get involved in fundraising or recruit sponsors. It s wonderful that you volunteered to photograph it. All proms should have a photographer to document the occasion.
cheap weekend cruises The high school prom will make lasting memories, and great memories are so important to a person s life. Who knows, in the decades to come the students may lose contact, then reconnect at a much later time, and they ll say how they remembered how that person looked at the prom.
About the raining bills, is it an incredibly vulgar display of American materialism and immorality ? No, not this example, espe