...and we watched our second son clutch his lunchbox and go down the road with his brother and cousins, his brown eyes dancing in excitement...
...our third son clutched...his lunch money and went down the road with his brothers...to board the bus for his first day of school...
...Number Four Boy left us, erect and confident...he left us with a nonchalant peck at the door and flew to join his brothers at the bus stop, his new blue jeans and red shirt flashing like the foliage of a bright bird in the morning sunshine...
...one more apron string cut--snip...Andrewshek...
...another year of school has begun...Minka's red dress flashes through the green of the trees and bushes between our window and the mailbox [bus stop]...
...after fifteen years she is alone...the whole day is hers--hers!
MSL On the Hill
Memory, you fickle thing, open the window and let me see that six-year-old climb those steps into that stone building. Let me watch his exuberant step into the unknown. And let me fast forward through the next 12,000 hours he spends within school walls, stopping to browse at will and reflect on the myriad events and interactions along the way.
I was once that young boy, yet I am forever separated by a river of experience and consciousness. I am at a different place and am forever barred from entering that bright but precarious world.
I remember a thought--a thought so clear and vivid it cuts across to the present. A thought emanating from that six year old during his first year of school and born of the entitlement lucky kids get from parents who intuitively protect their wonder and enthusiasm for their new life.
I can do anything I want. I can fool all of these adults. I am in charge. 
As I fast forward now to the present I see the little boy in the kindergarten children I work with all day. I marvel at their exuberance, their zest for new experiences, but I am sobered by the fragility of their energy and how easily they are diverted away from enthusiasm for knowledge by the perfect storm of bad ideas that shape our schools.
...coming home, slightly wilted and bone-tired as anyone could see, his only comment, "You have to sit so long at school!"
MSL [Number Four Boy]
Hello Jon,
ReplyDeleteGreat Post and wonderful ideas!! :-)))
Keep up the great work at our school....
Camila
I think of my first day of school--the big bus, the strange children, the long and lonely drive, the scary text books in the back of the classroom--and I can't help hoping for a kinder, gentler experience for Nate and Libby's. Sitting on Grandpa or Grandma's lap to hear a book, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteJon, I would make myself a follower, but I just can't submit to the nomenclature.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed that you were posting at 5:54 am.
no, 4:54 am! even better. And look at that coincidence--Camila posted at 4:54 pm... Sorry, I can't help it, this is just the way my mind works.
ReplyDelete