The First Day of School

Tomorrow will be the beginning of my 20th year of teaching at Crestwood Elementary. I started to count how many total first days I've experienced but decided that would only make me feel even older than I already do.

I can say that teaching has changed since I entered my first classroom in 1985. 

Ronald Reagan was president, and public schools, along with the rest of the country had swung into the Back-to-Basics mode.

In the school where my career began,we shared an art and music teacher with the district. No one blinked an eye at the 29 students in my first grade classroom, and my important teaching supplies included a box of chalk , a few blank mimeograph papers and an attendance book that only an accountant could understand. (Thank God for Infinite Campus who makes attendance keeping a piece of cake!)

Our Professional Developments consisted of "Make-It, Take It "workshops, which were kind of a cross between a project from Michael's craft store and the School Supply store.

Everything in the classroom was made of wood and I'm not sure the word "differentiation" had even been invented. And moving from individual desks to tables was considered radical for all you "flexible seating" gurus.

There was not one single computer in the entire school, and the principal used a paddle on even our school's tiniest offenders.

And yet in many ways, school hasn't changed at all.

Back-to-school nightmares for teachers still exist. First day haircuts, new shoes and a planned outfit are still around. Bullies still show up and we still have hard conversations about scary things, whether it's a Space Shuttle falling from the sky carrying a teacher or (fast-forward 30 years), mass school shootings.
Head lice, lost teeth and strep throat are as common in classrooms today as in 1985

School hasn't changed much for parents either. They still worry if their kid will have a friend, will someone help them navigate the lunchroom, is a red folder going to work even though you asked for orange.

In fact, when you think of the heart of teaching, what really matters hasn't changed at all.

Every year since school immemorial, parents bring their most precious offerings to the altar of the school, with their hearts full of fear and excitement and sadness and wonder. And with only a few tears from the kindergartners' parents, they leave those precious gifts with a group of people they barely know, trusting that we will care for them and teach them and honor them and, especially, love them.


Since time began good teachers have been meeting kids where they are and helping them to move forward even before differentiation was the catch-phrase of the day. And teaching kids to read and write has always been about making sure they have access to political, social and economic power. We have always wanted our students to use math to seek out patterns and solutions to help with world problems.

The core of teaching -- relationships, trust, supporting each other, looking for solutions instead of pointing out problems, being with children and their families when the sh-- hits the fan-- will always remain.

Sometimes we forget though. And, God forgive us when we do.

Sometimes we forget that every kid in our class, even the one that kind of rubs us the wrong way-- their parents think they hung the moon.

We get so involved with standards and bulletin boards and PowerPoints, we forget to listen to them, to sing Happy Birthday, to ask if Grandma came home from the hospital. We forget that they need to move and to laugh and to talk and then move some more. We forget that remembering bus numbers and lunch numbers and homework can be hard. We forget that mistakes are how they learn.

We forget that in every single set of eyes in our classroom reflects the image of the Divine, no matter your faith tradition. We are so focused on new trends and strategies that we forget the work we do is time-less and for all-time. It is sacred and holy.

This year my beloved grandson begins his formal years of school as he begins kindergarten in a couple of weeks. My prayer is that every adult in Painted Stone Elementary will recognize him as the gift he is. That they will forgive his mistakes and failures. That they will encourage his curiosity and creativity. That patience and grace will be everywhere.

After all, he hung the moon, just like every other child in my classroom did.