Friday afternoon after the last school bell. The halls are empty. The classroom doors are all shut and locked, except Room 255. I’m putting up some decorations on the door.
“Don’t waste your time!” someone calls out from the end of the hall, and then she laughs. “Face it. You might as well just go home. I’m going to win.”
She laughs again. I do, too.
The thing about the door decorating contests in my experience is that minimalism gets you nowhere. Yet that’s how I do documents and presentations. It’s how I adorn my classroom walls. And how I decorate doors. But these are seasoned teachers, y’all. Next to them, I am an amateur. They do decorations in a way that… well, is unmistakably teacher-like. Fringe. Flowers. Smiles. Happy notes written on stars. Nothing wrong with that. They’re usually stunning. But my jam is less is more, which judges often interpret as lame.
So my door is plain. Two colors: a black and gold (for the “Go for gold” theme). A plain background with a wavy border. (Elmer’s with glitter is so perfect for this!) A Cartesian plane with an exponential function climbing to infinity (of course, because I teach Algebra 2). Two words: “Let’s go!” following the climbing curve.
Nothing else.
Wait. There’s also an admittedly lame streak of glue that dripped despite my best efforts to let everything dry first. Dang!
She’s was right. It won’t win, which of course is just fine.