Summer vacation ends with a thud tomorrow. Each year it’s the same: One day a kid’s free as a cat; the next he’s trapped, chained to the rhythm of the school calendar for 10 long months.
Some youngsters love this time of year; they’re eager to greet old friends, and meet new ones. Or they can’t wait for the smell of newly waxed floors, the security of assigned seats, the praise they know will be lavished on them day after day.
Others abhor it. The thought of entering a strange building filled with strange faces, or trying to be part of a group of peers who won’t accept them, or of sitting for hours at a time, doing work they can’t stand, is excruciating — even physically sickening.
Around this time each year, I think about the entire school experience. I wonder which kindergartner will hate school for the rest of the year because his teacher makes a face the morning he throws up in front of everyone, and which will love school because an aide congratulates her the afternoon she almost puts on her coat all by herself.
Which 1st grader will invent any excuse not to go to gym because he can’t throw a ball, and which will get through the school day only because he knows gym is coming soon?
Which 4th grader will walk meekly into class each morning with just 1 ambition — to get through the day without anyone noticing how ugly, or stupid, or poorly dressed she is — and which will look back on 4th grade as a turning point in her life because a guidance counselor took the time to talk to her, to show her how to comb her hair better, to make her feel good about herself?
Which 5th grader will have a teacher who does nothing when she catches him cheating on a test — too much effort to raise such a touchy issue — and which will have a teacher who scares him so much when he’s caught that he vows to never cheat in school again?
Which 6th grader will enter middle school intent on making a name for himself as the best fighter in his class, and which with the aim of never getting a grade lower than an A? Which 6th grader’s ambition will change, and which will remain the same?
Which 9th grader will temper his fledgling interest in current events with the feeling “it’s retarded; no one else in class cares,” and which will visit the New York Times website every day because her class is working on “this really neat project”?
Which 10th grader will hate English because all she does is read stupid books assigned by the stupid teacher from some stupid list, and which will go to Barnes & Noble on his own for the first time because his teacher suggests there are more books by the same author he might enjoy?
Which 12th grader will have the brains to apply to 3 Ivy League schools, but lack the common courtesy to thank a teacher who wrote glowing recommendation to all of them? And which will slip a note in a teacher’s box the morning of graduation that says, “Thanks. I’m really glad I had you this year”?
It’s easy to wrap our school years in nostalgic gauze, or try to stuff the bad memories down our mental garbage disposals.
We also tend not to think in concrete terms about what goes on inside school walls every day. Learning, we assume, happens. Kids read, write, use computers, draw, eat and see their friends.
We seldom realize how much of an impact this institution we call “school” has on our kids. Or how much it has had on us.
No question, it is important to remember that school is not the joy of learning and reuniting with life long friends…for every kid. I would hope that some educators read your blog today and remind themselves that for many kids school is one challenge after another. Social, academic, the structure of working in a big institution to name but a few. Life can be hard and school is part of life. Be nice to those kids, they’re just starting out!
Well put, Warren! I have a 3 year old but this is already a concern… I feel the chills just imagining my little one going through all that. No, I didn’t have a bad school experience (well, not too bad, I’d say), but still…
Having successfully gotten two boys through public school and into college I can say from observation that their school experience was much more positive and individualized than mine was in the 50’s and 60’s. As one who came through at the height of the baby boom I think that there were too many of us for the teachers to handle and too many of them in the profession that they weren’t ideally suited for.
Teachers today deserve the utmost respect and the profession has come a long way.