Holler vs. Holla

I love homeroom. Each of the four years I've taught middle school, homeroom is one of my favorite times of day. In my classroom, it's pretty unstructured: come in, sit in your assigned seat, go to your locker when instructed, be silent during the 3 minute school news broadcast on the TV, and push in your chair before you leave. However, each year I like to think that the students in my HR build a special bond with each other and also with their teacher.

Today's story is about a student who is in my homeroom and who I also teach throughout the day, let's call her Sarah. Sarah is the only person in my HR who has assigned herself a job- turning on the TV for me each morning so we can watch the news at the end of HR. She is a bright young girl who is extremely well-liked by her peers and she is also a wonderful student. In addition, she loves to joke around with her teachers.

One morning last week, another student had come up to me to talk about his holiday break, and I noticed he was playing with two pipe cleaners twisted together. As his science teacher, I felt it was my duty to point out to him that he was clearly creating a double helix, aka a model of DNA. "Wow! I LOVE your DNA model!!! Hollerrrrrr!" I exclaimed. The boy looked at me with mild amusement, appeared as though he was going to correct me, but then decided otherwise and turned to walk away.

From behind me, however, I heard a girl chuckling, and I knew before even turning around that it was Sarah. "Holler?!?", she said, "Ms. Paradise, it's holla, not holler." I then explained to naive little Sarah that both options are acceptable, it just depends on the context they are used in (duh!). For example, if I'm really excited about something, I may say, "holla, holla, hollaaaaa", but if I'm simply agreeing with something or signifying my approval, I would keep it simple and professional (ha), saying "holler" or, if I want to get extra crazy, "hollerrrrrr." Psh, silly Sarah.

When this was explained to her, she laughed with me about it for a few moments and walked away, shaking her head and surely thinking about how old and dorky her teacher was. I thought the matter was put to rest, until we were walking with the students down the hall to their connections classes and I heard behind me, in the distance, a faint, "hollerrrr." When I turned around, I saw a giggling Sarah and we continued our conversation and laughter over the matter while walking down the hallway together. Sigh. Kids these days.

HOMEWORK: Look at definition #3 of "holler", provided by Urban Dictionary here.