I just heard the school bus go by again. It’s the first day of school. That was an important day in my life for a very long time.
Schools and Colleges
For the first thirteen years, it meant new teachers and classrooms, and seeing old friends. Whether it was Clifton School in Cincinnati, Van Buren Junior High in Kettering, or Wyoming High School back in Cincinnati, the first day was always an important one. For me, it was usually a good day, one that I looked forward to: even that first day in a brand new high school in Wyoming. It’s a scary things to do, walking into a high school in a small town as the “new kid” sophomore.
Then for the next four years, the first day of school was at Denison University. That first day of college was scary too, especially when I was walking back to my dorm room with a couple hundred pages of reading to do. But, after some struggles, I got the hang of college, learned a lot, and had a great time. Denison let me “try on” my life, from running political campaigns to teaching in public school.
It’s My Job
Then the first day of school became my job. With one year’s exception, from 1978 until 2014 the first day of school was always a new beginning. No matter how bad or good the last year was, whether I succeeded in getting those students to buy into my class and learn or not, the first day was always starting over. It was one of the best parts of being a public schoolteacher; every Day One was a new beginning, and a new test.
“This is as good as it gets.”
That was written on that antique communications device I used in my 28 years in the classroom. It was called a black board, using a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock to leave tracks on a dark smooth surface. The first class discussion: what does that mean? It was the first day of senior year, is that what’s so good? We were going to talk about government and life and what happened in our town and the world, is that it?
Or was it the reality that my handwriting on the board was really, really bad. It wasn’t going to get any better – “this is as good as it gets.”
Today they don’t use black boards, someone might be allergic to the dust. You can’t find them anyway, every class has a “dry erase” board, and most have a computer driven “smart board.” Try being left handed with a dry erase marker – it takes “writing gymnastics” not to erase everything you write.
Winning their Minds
Those twenty-five or thirty kids in first period didn’t care whether I got any sleep the night before, or how last year went. They were, for what might be a brief moment, open to learning. In forty minutes, could I get them to want to be up at 7:22 in the morning, sitting in a freezing cold room with no windows? Could I convince them that American Government was something worth knowing, something they would want to participate in?
If I was good, if I found the “key” to their interest, I could get them walking out of class with a little surprise: they wanted to come back. I could fill the “senior lunch room” with the issues we discussed in class that morning. And when first period filed out, those seats were quickly filled with second period. I began again.
For parts of four decades the first day of school welcomed students into my domain, my classroom.
Being the Dean
Then I made a big change; I became the Dean of Students at the high school. There was no longer “my classroom.” Instead it was “our school,” a team of three administrators trying to make it a good place to learn. It was no longer 150 kids a day, it was 1200, most of them never interacting with me more than a nod and a wave.
But then there were “my kids,” our “frequent flyers.” They were “sent to the office” all the time. I got to know them, their parents, their hopes and their problems. I counseled, punished, and some got suspended. A few required the sheriffs department, handcuffed privately in my office and slipped out the side door.
I don’t like goodbyes, and high school graduation ceremonies are one really long, usually hot, goodbye. But one of the good parts of the “Dean” job was getting to congratulate kids as they stepped up to the stage to get their diploma. We took particular pride in the “frequent flyers” that made it to graduation, celebrating our shared success in their making it “across the stage.”
If you’re the “discipline” guy in a high school, eight years is a long, long time. It’s not so much the job itself; you can find a lot of joy in helping kids grow. But your always making some kid mad. And the teacher that sent them wants them killed, so you’re probably making them mad as well. And if not that, there are always the parents who think their kid “couldn’t have done that.” After a few years, all of that adds up, and it’s time to go.
So my last “first day” was in August of 2013.
Back Again?
I retired from teaching and “Deaning” in June of 2014. So here I am, five years later, thinking about going back into a classroom – who’d believe it – a substitute teacher?
You’d think after forty years I’d have it down. But there’s another “first day” out there again. I’m nervous, a little excited, and dismayed at getting up at five in the morning. But the kids in the class won’t care.
This is as good as it gets.
