Every nerd has her day.

Are you from Harvard?

Are you a professor?

Are you a nerd?

No, I'm just highly intelligent.

That's what I told my students every time they inquired about my attire today.  It was Nerd Day.  Every Wednesday in April, we dress up with a different theme for the equivalent of a pep rally to get kids excited about the otherwise dull act of taking the STAR test.  We started the day in the gym, rocking out to Teach Me How to Study, (aka Teach Me How to Dougie).  The result: students loved it, I'm pretty sure that nerd fashion will be making an instant comeback, and that silly song is still stuck in my head.

Teach me how to study, 
All my teachers love me.

While I was happy to dress up, I realized that it hit a nerve.  I was a nerd, am a nerd, will always be a nerd, and, let's be honest, people are not always nice to nerds.  I remember walking around high school keeping my intelligence very quiet because it didn't feel cool.  Heck, even my own siblings gave me a hard time about studying all of the time. 

So, today, I dawned my nerd gear, (items that I regularly wear anyway, just not all at once), and set off to tell the world that I'd rather be called highly intelligent than a nerd.  It felt good.  I let my nerd flag fly. 

Who knew that telling ten year olds that it is better to label people as highly intelligent than as nerds would feel so cathartic?  I guess it makes sense that a nerd would grow up to be a teacher.  Who better to love school and push others to do the same? 

Today, this nerd, I mean highly intelligent person, had her day.

My best nerd face.

It's a good day when the sparkly Toms make the cut.

Sidenote:  I can take no credit for finding this YouTube gem, the other teachers on my team are responsible!