"American Culture Day" or "A Sneaky Way To Watch The Super Bowl"

I have declared Monday Feb. 5, "American Culture Day" for my students. We are going to Santa Claus Monday morning to watch the Super Bowl. Being that the Super Bowl is one of, if not the, biggest cultural events in America, I decided it would be a perfect learning opportunity for my morning class.

I have given the students assignments to research each team and pick one to root for. Each day this week, I'm taking the first ten minutes of class to go over players to watch, NFL rules, and basic formations and strategy (Friday will be a full class period on NFL Football). Today we went over the star players for each team.

When I announced our "field trip" to the class, most of them laughed and rolled their eyes. Admittedly, this is really a blatant, self-serving way for me to watch the Super Bowl live and avoid teaching for a day. The fact that I'm able to turn it into an "educational" event hasn't really fooled anyone except maybe the office staff who only know that I'm taking my students out of the building. My students are taking it all in good humor and being fine enablers of my football addiction (this despite the fact that most of them either don't like sports period or simply couldn't give a hoot about the NFL). How many of them actually show up for class on Monday is yet to be seen, but what the hell. I get to watch the game. Hell, they should feel lucky. if the Redskins were playing, I would have declared a national holiday!