On a freezing Friday last month, the Tape a Teacher competition commenced in the cafeteria, which swarmed with people laughing and cheering, all surrounding the four teachers taped to the wall: Ms. Carla Urbaez for the Freshmen, Ms. Beatriz Pelaez-Martinez for the Sophomores, Ms. Rachel Barker for the Juniors, and Mr. Daniel Nyfenger for the Seniors.
Ms. Ubaez, beloved freshman English teacher, was in her office when two freshmen approached her. One of the girls had already asked Urbaez to be her club advisor earlier in the year, but Urbaez had had to decline the request. Hence, when asked again to take part in the Tape a Teacher event, she couldn’t say no.
Now, days later, Urbaez stood near the freshmen section in the cafeteria, hands folded loosely in front of her, a nervous smile plastered on her face. She had never done anything like this before.
From her position against the cafeteria wall, Urbaez had a different vantage point than usual; she was no longer standing at the front of a packed classroom, guiding students though their literary analysis or correcting thesis statements. She was eye-level with their excitement.
“It’s nice to see the kids have some kind of school spirit or just be happy,” she said. “If it’s the teacher’s suffering that makes them happy, sure I’ll do it. It was fun. It didn’t hurt at all. I was a little scared that I was going to fall once they took the stool away, but….” The fear, she explained, was fleeting. “I realized that [falling is] almost impossible,” she said. “They have the other two teachers ready to get you if you fall.”
Tape a Teacher and other Olympics events are more than just about having fun and blowing off steam. They create special bonds between teachers and students.
“Most kids see their teachers as just a person that delivers the lessons and gives you tests and quizzes and all that,” Urbaez said, “so it’s nice to see them see me in a different light.”
Pelaez-Martinez, a prominent member of the Italian and Spanish teaching staff, was in her classroom when she was asked to be taped to a wall.
For her, Olympics is not a single afternoon circled on a calendar. It’s the season. She has judged events, run relays, and cheered from the sidelines. Being duct-taped to a cafeteria wall was simply the newest addition to a long list of contributions.
Still, as January 6th unfolded and the sophomore section began to gather around her, the humor gave way to a flicker of nerves.
“It was a little harrowing,” she admitted, similarly to Urbaez.
The interactions between the students and her were playful. Students addressed her as “Senora,” half laughing, half concentrating as they pressed the tape firmly across her arms and torso. There were, of course, moments that tested the boundary between playful and inappropriate. Someone drawing a mustache on Mr. Nyfenger, Pelaez-Martinez said, was one of them. Nyfenger, however, laughed it off. “He was a good sport about it,” she said.
At another point, a student attempted to tape Pelaez-Martinez’s mouth shut. “That was definitely like, oh–’don’t do that,’” she said. “‘No, I don’t want you to do that,” she described thinking at the moment.
But apart from the laughs and giggles, the event had another purpose. “It’s a fundraiser for the classes,” she said. “So I was really keen on making sure that the sophomore class raised as much money as they possibly could.”
Ms. Barker was asked to participate in Tape-a-Teacher not with a dramatic announcement but with an email. There was no hesitation in her response, since she had done it the year before.
“I was all in for doing it again this year,” she said.
There was, however, one key difference that made this round more intimidating.
“The stool was high this year,” she said.
Participants stand on a stool while students wrap them in layers of duct tape. Once enough tape is secured, the stool is removed to test whether they will remain stuck to the wall. The higher the stool, the longer the drop is if the tape isn’t strong enough.
“It was a little bit more nerve-wrenching in the beginning,” she said. “Just in case you did not stick, how far the fall was going to be.”
Ironically, despite the added stress, Barker had the least amount of tape compared to her fellow participants.
“I was … surprised that I actually stuck to the wall,” she said, laughing. “Since I didn’t have that much tape on me.”
For Barker, the value of the event wasn’t just about the funding for the eventual THS Olympics.
“I think it’s just a nice bonding experience,” she said. “For the students with each other, and for the teachers that were up on the wall.”
Unlike his co-workers, Mr. Nyfenger, an established Psychology teacher, was skeptical if he would stay stuck to the wall but agreed to be part of the event nonetheless.
Nyfenger had never participated in an event like this before, so he had no idea what would go down.
When the big day arrived and Nyfenger was held captive by layers of tape, a student decided to go one step further.
“[A student] paid one dollar to draw a mustache on my face,” Nyfenger said. “I wasn’t told that that would be a part of the process…I think it opens the door for optional add ons next year.”
Though the other taped teachers described their time on the wall as nerve wracking and anxiety-inducing, Nyfeger was more at ease. While he was taped up, motionless, he thought, “My nose itches.”
Overall, to Nyfenger and all of the teachers and staff involved, the day was a success.
“Students were excited, teachers were happy to be there,” Nyfenger said. “It was good having [the event] in the cafeteria–it was a big audience, more people probably purchased tape as a result.”
