Beat the Teach

 Britton is one of the "Students of the Month" at his Middle School for January. 

 

He was nominated by a teacher but Britton didn't find out which teacher nominated him until we got the official letter from the school which included a letter written by the nominating teacher to the student. It was from Mr. Webb, his science teacher.  It was a very nice letter but I must admit he laid on the praise a little thick.  Hopefully it won't go to his head too much. :-)  If you are the student of the month you get a "front of the lunch line" pass for the entire month for you and a friend.  Needless to say Britton has made a lot of students very happy by saying, "Hey, come to the front of the line with me."  He picks a new person every day.  Yeah, he may go through withdrawals when the pass is no longer valid.

The Middle School did a "Beat the Teach" reading competition for 8 weeks.  The students were trying to read more than the teachers and more than 600 students signed up to participate.  Britton was swept up in the competition and read A LOT! As in about 13,500 pages. He read all day every day and I had to tell him several times to please STOP reading and do something else.  He knew he was one of the top readers and the thought of someone else beating him was just not acceptable.  Every week the students would turn in their pages and the school would rank them.  Britton moved around the top 4 spots for several weeks. At night even after having read for hours Britton would say, "I've still got to read 200 pages before I can sleep." There were several nights that he was the last one to sleep and the first one up in the morning. 

I asked him once what he would get if he won the whole thing and he replied, "A candy bar." What?!  You're doing all of this for a candy bar?  He replied with, "I have a reputation to uphold! I'm known as the kid that reads 24/7!" Wow. I can see how you wouldn't want to be known as the kid that reads less than 24/7. That would be embarrassing. Hey, I'm all for supporting my kids in doing things that are good for them, but sometimes they go a little overboard.  Remember the great orchestra practice-a-thon of 2013?? I actually begged Britton and Jenna to STOP practicing their instruments. When they get competitive there is no stopping them and they get a little out of control.  Well, going into the last week of the competition Britton was in second place so he really didn't think he would be able to win it all, but when the final pages were counted he was the student with the most pages read. So, he "beat the teach" and everyone else, too.  Fortunately he got more than just a candy bar, he also received a $20 gift card to Hastings and 2 lg pizzas from Firehouse pizzeria. Am I glad it's over? Y-E-S. But he had a lot of fun so it's all good.