To tell you the truth, from the time I left my secondary school days behind me up until the day my daughter started going to school some nine years later, this day always just, you know, faded into the background. Okay, maybe not entirely.
I admit that occasionally while strolling the Wal*Mart aisles buying books or movies or groceries or whatever people buy at that infernal store, seeing children huddled around the school supplies may have tickled a memory from among the dark recesses of my mind. Believe it or not--and I know many of my old schoolmates will not believe it--but I actually liked going to school. I liked opening new packs of paper and pens and pencils. I liked wearing new school clothes and shoes. Every year we're given the chance to start over. To do better. To build upon the knowledge we'd accumulated over the years. If we were athletes or band members, we held the advantage of another year of experience. To our cliques, we added one more year to the foundations of our friendships. And maybe the most important of all, it was one more chance to build up the courage to speak to that girl you couldn't forget about over the summer.
No, not everything about returning to school was bad.
I won't go into detail about those things which caused dread to fill my heart with every new school year. For the sake of keeping this post out of the cellar of sorrow, let's just gloss over it and say there were plenty of those as well. Then again, I wouldn't be me if I didn't say I hope teachers and parents learn from past mistakes and try their best to instill in today's youth a profound understanding for tolerance and diversity. After all, the people we think are so very different from us in our school years aren't really that different at all . . . they just may be experiencing the world in a much different manner at the time.
So, my daughter started fifth grade today and this is only the second school year since my separation/divorce that she has started school without me. I hope she's doing okay. I know she was waiting with excitement for the new year to start--and, why not, she's a queen of the school. Her and her cohorts rule the playground. They dominate their territory like mighty jungle cats. Until next year that is . . . when they quietly ascend the educational ladder to middle school, yet still somehow manage to sink in peer status. I hope she's doing okay. I hope she's having fun and learning something new, even if it's just the new kid's name. And I hope she's not just building upon her foundations of knowledge and friendships and experiences, but tolerance and understanding as well.
I admit that occasionally while strolling the Wal*Mart aisles buying books or movies or groceries or whatever people buy at that infernal store, seeing children huddled around the school supplies may have tickled a memory from among the dark recesses of my mind. Believe it or not--and I know many of my old schoolmates will not believe it--but I actually liked going to school. I liked opening new packs of paper and pens and pencils. I liked wearing new school clothes and shoes. Every year we're given the chance to start over. To do better. To build upon the knowledge we'd accumulated over the years. If we were athletes or band members, we held the advantage of another year of experience. To our cliques, we added one more year to the foundations of our friendships. And maybe the most important of all, it was one more chance to build up the courage to speak to that girl you couldn't forget about over the summer.
No, not everything about returning to school was bad.
I won't go into detail about those things which caused dread to fill my heart with every new school year. For the sake of keeping this post out of the cellar of sorrow, let's just gloss over it and say there were plenty of those as well. Then again, I wouldn't be me if I didn't say I hope teachers and parents learn from past mistakes and try their best to instill in today's youth a profound understanding for tolerance and diversity. After all, the people we think are so very different from us in our school years aren't really that different at all . . . they just may be experiencing the world in a much different manner at the time.
So, my daughter started fifth grade today and this is only the second school year since my separation/divorce that she has started school without me. I hope she's doing okay. I know she was waiting with excitement for the new year to start--and, why not, she's a queen of the school. Her and her cohorts rule the playground. They dominate their territory like mighty jungle cats. Until next year that is . . . when they quietly ascend the educational ladder to middle school, yet still somehow manage to sink in peer status. I hope she's doing okay. I hope she's having fun and learning something new, even if it's just the new kid's name. And I hope she's not just building upon her foundations of knowledge and friendships and experiences, but tolerance and understanding as well.
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