Pajama Day takedown

Pajama Day is a reward used in many elementary schools. Fill the jelly bean jar, accumulate enough points or gather enough good behavior tickets and students are invited to wear their pajamas to school for a day. As a teacher, I am not a fan of Pajama Day, but I recognize that it is a popular and easy-to-implement reward.

When I was in second or third grade, my class accumulated enough tokens to warrant a Pajama Day.

Even then I thought that Pajama Day was kind of stupid.

Pajama Day was scheduled for Friday, so on Thursday I walked into class wearing my pajamas. It created quite a stir. The teacher eventually noticed my attire and approached my desk. “Matt, Pajama Day is tomorrow. You’re one day early.”

“No, I’m not,” I said. “There’s no rule against wearing pajamas to school, so I decided to wear them today, too. And maybe tomorrow, too.”

My mother called me The Instigator. This is why.

Can you imagine how rotten I must have been to attempt to usurp Pajama Day?

As an eight-year old?

When a student proves to be especially challenging, I sometimes wonder if the universe isn’t just getting even for all the teachers I tortured as a child.