What happens if they offer a first day of school and you aren't there?

I hope you bear with me as I put this day into perspective.  Quite a few of my former colleagues are wondering how I will be able to handle the first day of the new school year starting without me.  I really haven't had an answer to that, so I am going to start this section with how I view this whole thing.

It all starts on September 6, 1955.  That is the day that I started first grade. I know that most of you started in kindergarten, but we lived in Kokomo when I was kindergarten age, and at the time they only had kindergarten for those who could afford it.  We couldn't.  The summer of 55 my family moved to Laporte where they had kindergarten.  Because my parents didn't want to hold me back, they prepped me for the test to get into first grade. I aced it.  So, September 6, 1955 was when I started in the public schools of Indiana.

I really hated those first two years of school.  On my first day, my mother had prepared a great meal for me.  It was a good thing because all morning all I wanted was to go home, so  I anticipated lunch the whole time.  Remember the old thermos bottles?  You know the reflective glass inside?  I had no idea.  All I knew was that chocolate milk was waiting for me.  When I opened it, there were little chunks of the reflective glass floating throughout the milk.  That did it; I lost it.  They called my mother, but she didn't have a car or a driver's license at the time and my dad was a salesman in the Chicago district.  There was no way for anyone to come and save me.  I gutted it out some how.

The next year I had progressed so far that I met the bus across the woods from our house.  I waited with the other kids and even helped the little first graders.  Showing off my new found maturity, I crossed the road to our bus when I saw it down the road before it came to a stop.  I was sure that this was going to impress everyone.  I hadn't pay close enough attention to notice that the high school bus always came by before our bus.  All accounts of that day say that I ran right into the front left wheel of the bus.  What I remember is that high school girls were really nice to me as the driver loaded me up into their arms and took me to school.

Is it any wonder that I always wanted to skip school.  It was a traumatic place to go!  The next year dad was transferred again.  That was when we lived in Crown Point.  I remember that this was the place that I started to make friends.  I had a bike and road to their houses.  At school we played together.  And then we moved again.

When we came to Fort Wayne, I was starting in fourth grade.  I had no way of knowing, but the class that I entered was taught by one of the toughest teachers in FWCS.  Finger wrapping was not confined to paraochial schools.  It was alive and well in Southern Heights Elementary.  Two of my lifelong friends came from that year, each of us had severely sore fingers.

Dad found us a house, so we moved from the apartment, and once again, I had a new school.  This time it was Abbett.  For two years I developed a group of friends that I still see from time to time now.  During this time I was accused of spraying ink on a girl (I didn't, but I got a swat from the principal for it), confronted a bully and met him after school for a fight (we didn't fight, but we became close friends), and I realized that I could play music.

Middle school at Ben Geyer was the place that I started to find myself.  I continued my music, but I added football to my activities.  I even ran for student council president in my ninth grade year.  I lost, but it was out of my comfort zone.  This is also when I realized that teachers had interests just like me.  Ms. Miller my seventh grade history teacher loved the Cubs and developed a relationship with me through our mutual interest.  That was when I realized that I could do this school thing.

By 1964 I was headed to high school at South Side.  Football and music were still my focus, but because I was of age to help my dad at the gas station, I spent a lot of time helping out there.  Balancing it all was hard for me, I had just gained confidence in the fact that I fit in school.  Working four to six hours a night, football practice, and orchestra rehearsals all were priorities.  Somehow, I made it through.

My college years at Manchester finalized the building of what I was to become.  It didn't come easy.  Without all of my responsibilities I didn't work as hard, so the first year was my year of finding myself,  Thankfully, I did this quickly and by the time that I was receiving my diploma, I could confidently say that I was ready.

At this point the school aspect of a person's life slips away.  Most people head off to a job that has nothing to do with schools.  That is a unique difference for teachers.  We take a job teaching, and then, depending on our longevity, we spend a lifetime in schools.  In my case I took my first job in September of 1971.  Even though I went from Whitney Young to North Side, and then from North Side to Jefferson, there was a beginning to a school year every year from 1971 until 2006.

Then I retired.  I knew that I was going to another job, but I wasn't sure what I would do.  I ended up with Bowen Center and became a child and adolescent case manager.  My assignment was
East Allen County Schools, so even the year that I was away from schools, I stayed in schools.

Then in 2007 I took a job back at North Side.  I knew that I was finished with administration, but in my year with Bowen, I knew that I wasn't finished with young people.  So, even though I only intended to stay a year or two, I actually stayed seven.  I don't regret a moment of it.

Don't get me wrong, looking back at the almost 60 years of "first day of school" and remembering fondly of how almost magical the time was,  I don't miss it.  And I haven't missed it today.  I got up, fed the dogs, fixed myself breakfast, watched a little Sportscenter, woke up Michele, checked my fantasy league baseball teams, wished happy birthday to friends of Facebook, and mowed the yard.  I got all of that done before 10:30.  Not once did I think about how congested the halls were, how funny it is to see freshman looking for their next class, and how scared the faces of new teachers can be.

Now I realize that what I looked forward to every year, whether I was a teacher, an assistant principal, a principal, or an instructional coach, was the uniqueness that comes with each new year.  It is a new slate.  Everyone starts clean and fresh.  Meeting the new faces in the classroom and the teachers' lounge was an indication that this whole thing will carry on.  Do I need that validation still?  I imagine there is a part of me that still wants to be a part of that, but it fades away when I look at what I really want to do now

Now I see that freshness and newness in three little faces.  Saturday, Michele and I had them and it hit me that they are my new kids.  I can focus on them.  Thankfully first day of school for Coen is still three years away

Final word - to all of my teacher friends who had the first day this week or last - no matter what happens in government, in the kids' homes, or in the community, the relationship that you built with them today could be the moment that sends them in the right direction.  The great thing is that if today didn't work, you always get more chances.  I respect you all, and goodness knows I am an expert, I went to school for almost 60 years.