individuality

Singing in school all but stopped once I hit intermediate school, but until then the spectacle of thirty-odd kids sitting on a mat belting out "Bright Eyes" or "The Saints Go Marching In" was at least a weekly one. I can remember clearly ritual from my standard one days. The teachers would merge two classes together and chose one of the children to stand on a chair and hold up the song sheet, a big brown piece of paper with the songwords and occasionally the chords for the teacher's guitar on. Holding this sheet of paper was a coveted position, and not just because the child holding was released from singing duty for the duration of that song. I think even at that young age every kid among us wanted to make some statement to express their individuality and difference from the rest, if only for four minutes. It's funny to remember the spectable as a song would come to a close, suddenly the room would sit up straight, arms folded, hoping to picked for the noble duty of songsheet holding. Of course the teachers knew the power of this little ritual and awarded it to the good kids (as a reward for being good in general) and the naughty kids (a positive reinforcement for sitting up straight and being good this one time). As such, the times I was chosen were pretty few. In fact, I can remember only one. The thought-recording goes like this: "Ow my arms! Get it right you dicks my arms are getting sore. This is horrible, who wants to do this? Shit."
I was too lazy to stand out after that.