This story ran 2 years ago, as the new school year began. Several readers asked to see it again. It’s just as timely — and timeless — today. Have a great year!
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Forget January 1. Pshaw, Rosh Hashanah. Tomorrow — at least for Westport parents and students — is the real start of the new year.
It’s the first day of school.
Whether you’re a kindergartner heading off on your own, a Staples senior already counting the days to graduation, or a mom or dad feeling pride, trepidation and the warp-speed passage of time — or anyone else, who has ever gone to school — this story is for you.
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.
Greens Farms Elementary School
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 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?
Saugatuck Elementary School
Which 4th grader will walk meekly into class each morning with just one 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?
Bedford Middle School
Which 9th grader will temper his fledgling interest in current events with the feeling “it’s not cool; 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”?
Staples High School
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 laptops, 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.
Hmmmmm; parsing all the start of school emotions posited here, I see an important one missing.
That would be a Westport student thinking: “Jesus, am I lucky to be going to a public school with a clear thinking superintendent who gives a shit about me and a teaching staff not dedicated to short work day, good pay and the other benefits of an adequate education budget, but dedicated to my intellectual and emotional well being.”
Most public schools simply do not provide that and are more like order keeping institutions run by subway conductors with masters degrees, waiting for each pay check and a retirement package.
What a piece of drivel! Tell us, Dan, how many public schools have you stepped foot in in the last decades? How many “subway conductors”, or what the rest of the world calls “teachers” do you acutally know? And by the way those pay checks and retirement packages you seem to disdain are hardly just recompense for the job teachers do. Check the numbers. Here is something else that is “missing”: Perhaps parents should be thinking “Boy, am I lucky to have my child being taught by an underpaid, under-appreciated teacher who worked very hard to earn a Mastes degree in education that has given them the skills to teach my child the knowledge and skills they’ll need to succed in the world, skills that I don’t have” Fortunately most parents do not share your sour take on their children’s teachers.
Easy does it, Frankie Boy…I agree with you about the Westport teachers (where in my diatribe did I insult THEM?)….I do think MOST public school teachers fit the category I outlined…as to how many schools I’ve been in over the last decade? None…but ever so many in past decades, as teacher, as principal and as producer of a small town TV doc entitled “What’s Wrong With Iowa’s Schools.” Albeit my experiences are far from current, I think them still valid in the most part and certainly not disparaging of Westport’s system or staff.
Dan, a little closer reading may help. I would ask you as you asked me: where did I mention Westport? I clearly did not. Experience from at least a decade ago may not actually be very relevant today. You say you think your very negative observations are still valid and I’m sure you do still cling to those decades old observation but on what evidence, pray tell, are you basing that postion?
Well, to belabor this here thing, Frank, I do concede that my past many experiences may, in fact, be outdated and will allow as to how I truly hope your starry eyed optimistic and totally supportive view is the far more accurate one…if so, things have come a long, long way and, for that, I am truly thankful.
Still … “timeless”
Glad to see the article again. Thanks Dan!
Whatever happened to the sanctity of Labor Day. School never used to start until September, after the holiday.
They still get Labor Day off. School ends earlier now than it used to in June.