Philadelphia Flyers: Sunday Evening Rant Session

Sunday Evening Rant Session: May 24, 2015

The youth in this world are influenced by the experiences they have and the people they encounter on a day-to-day basis. As a second grade teacher, I am a member of the “making a better tomorrow” initiative. It is my duty as an educator to be the best mentor possible, and equip my children with skills necessary to be a successful member of society. Although I am proud of all the academic and social-emotional achievements my students have made this school year, there is one specific accomplishment that trumps all others.

It all started on the morning of October 8, 2014. The students had come in and read the daily message on the whiteboard, and noticed it looked a little different on that particular morning. Normally the message was written with a black dry-erase marker; but on this particular morning the message had been written with both black and orange markers. One of my students who is big on routine came up to me and said, “John, the message is written in orange and black but it’s not Halloween”. I told him that he was right; but orange and black also represented something else very important in this world that I would be sharing with the class during our morning meeting.

When we sat down for our morning meeting, we went through our normal routine of greeting and reading the morning message. Then the same student from before pointed out that I was drinking out of a different coffee mug and wanted to know what the strange symbol on the mug was. One of the girls quickly responded that it was the logo of the Philadelphia Flyers, and she knew that because they were her dad’s least favorite team in all of hockey. At that moment, fifteen young Flyers fans were created.

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Although the little girl had told the class her dad hated the orange and black, all of the children were so excited to find out something new about their teacher, and they became obsessed with finding out all they could about the Flyers. In the mornings, they would ask about how the Flyers played the night before. If time allowed in the afternoons, I would introduce the children to players on the team through the internet and they began discussing who their favorite players were.

Not only had I created a new discussion topic for us to have fun with, I created a new classroom theme. I would find Flyers logos drawn in their journals, and everything they created was in orange and black. We created a city for social studies, and all of the buildings were made with orange and black construction paper. One student even created a library for the Flyers players to go to and check out books. Even if they had never watched a single hockey game in their young lives, my students love being Philadelphia Flyers fans.

This school year, I unintentionally established the newest chapter of Flyers Nation. Unlike most other chapters, mine consists of fifteen 8-year-olds!

Next: The 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs Through the Eyes of a Flyers Fan

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