Back to school

This time of year makes me miss the excitement of going back to school. There was something really special about getting new notebooks, pencils, crayons, pens that almost *almost* made going back to school fun. I used to spread them out and write my name and what subject I was planning to use each notebook for in the front covers. I always preferred loose-leaf notebooks or folders for my notes. Even in college. I would take notes like crazy in my weird shorthand (that I no longer can read - it mostly left out all vowels) and then rewrite them later and that's pretty much how I would study.

Way back in the day you didn't know who your teacher was going to be until you walked into the building and would look at the lists posted outside the doors. Also back then there was just two teachers per grade (1st through 3rd) and three teachers (4th through 8th). Our supply lists really were the basics - paper, pencils, pens, ruler, and perhaps a compas or protractor if you were old enough to have that in math. As I was watching the news this morning I was amazed what what each child had to bring with them: glue, scissors, crayons, sanitizer, markers, specific folders/notebooks, kleenex.

One year I was hired to be a long-term substitute teacher for a second grade teacher who had been in an accident and was in one of those "halos" to stabilizer her neck. Now, I went to college to teach high schoolers - those kids I can handle. Those 7 & 8 year olds ran all over me! I often wonder if I stunted their academic careers with my lack of knowledge on how to teach elementary school. But then I think of some of the teacher that I had in my career and I figure I wasn't any worse than they were and they were the actual teachers in that class. My favorite thing I used to do in that class was the 10 minutes before lunch I would read to them. I felt that hearing stories read to you is a great way to get a feel for the way sentences and paragraphs flow.