Do You Take the Bus or Carry Your Lunch?

      It's the first day of school around our corner of the world and it's also the first time in 20 some years that a Shellenberger kid doesn't have a First Day of School. Not in pre school, elementary school, middle school, high school or college. Pshew! They made it!  

    That roots and wings thing keeps happening, which is great and the way it's supposed to be, but I still found myself wandering through the school supplies section and picking up some markers and pencils and pocket folders and spiral notebooks because, well, it's that time of the year. It sucked me in like a giant magnet and since I will need that stuff for my KidMin and Drama directing adventures, it's all good. I'm also totally enjoying all the first day of school pictures everyone else is posting on Facebook and continuing to rejoice that I no longer have to spring, roll drag myself out of bed at o'dark thirty and actually function. We were always a cold turkey family that just dove into those shockingly freezing waters the first week back. It was our way of denying that summer was coming to an end as much as just not being willing to deal with getting up any earlier than we had to, any earlier than we had to! So far we haven't had to go to therapy for that, or for eating cereal for dinner from time to time, so it's also all good.  

     Can you remember your first day of school? I'm old enough to be that part of history when most Moms stayed home with their kids and we started school in first grade instead of kindergarten. We lived right down the street from my elementary school and close enough to walk to junior high and high school as well (you know, uphill both ways, in the snow, probably barefoot), so I never rode a school bus until I was a teacher taking my students on a field trip! I also went home for lunch just about every day in elementary school. I know, I know, it sounds like something from Twilight Zone or Stranger Things but it's how it was in our neighborhood then. So I remember carrying my little red plaid school bag and walking by myself (shocking again, right?) to my first grade classroom and lining up outside the exterior door that opened onto the playground, complete with a merry-go-round (aka throw up machine), swings and sliding board all on hard dirt with no wood chips. And, the monkey bars? They were actually installed on the hardtop of the playground! And yet, somehow we all survived, except for the few times someone threw up when we got that merry-go-round going just a little too fast!

    My first grade teacher would never have won any awards for being the most kind or compassionate teacher. We were all pretty much afraid of her. I do remember on the first day, she had written all our names on the blackboard and one by one we had to go find our name and erase it. Hmmm, that sure sounds like a great introduction to knowing how special you were! But, then the board was all clean and ready for whatever else she wrote on it the rest of the day.  I don't really remember what else happened that first day, except that when we were dismissed to go outside for morning recess, one little girl with awesome, long black hair down her back thought the day was all over (or had possibly had enough of our non-smiling teacher and all this new first grade stuff) and went home! This pretty much rocked our six-year-old world until her Mom with her equally beautiful, long black hair brought her back and we all reminded her for the next few days that she had to stay until 3:20 p.m. like the rest of us.

        Since I was pretty much a good kid who liked to learn and enjoyed our Tip and Mitten reading books, I survived first grade, even when the boys threw worms on us at recess (what would you expect from small people with cooties?) or we were reminded to not eat the white paste when it was served up out of the large plastic tub from the end of the teacher's wooden ruler onto a small square of construction paper to take back to your desk. I'll let you decide if you think I actually tried to sneak a taste or not.

       Second grade was a game changer. Miss Caren Clark, fresh out of college, with a sweet smile and a warm personality, actually made us all want to come to school every day. I would edge my desk up as close to hers as I could and she would gently remind me to move it back to the row where it belonged. She brought out clay so we could create animals for science and drew lovely colored chalk pictures on the board for special holidays. Who knew a classroom could be full of rainbows and unicorns while learning addition and subtraction facts? It was while I was in second grade that I started taking piano lessons (again, walking to the house of my piano teacher by myself), found the biography of Molly Pitcher in the school library which started my love of the stories of American history, and decided to be a second grade teacher like my beloved Miss Clark.

        When my first classroom experience as a Education major placed me in fifth grade instead of second, I discovered that fifth grade was much more of a sweet spot for me to teach. And for twenty years I simply loved teaching my fifth graders, fourth graders, gifted students and drama kids with a break in the middle to stay home with my son and daughter when they were little. That was followed by their own series of First Days of School.

          Is it any wonder that after my own years of school and teaching, plus the years for my children, that it feels just a little weird that none of us is having a First Day of School? So I was  excited that we'd scheduled an Interest Meeting today for the middle schoolers who would like to be part of this year's musical. Even though it was just during 11th period, I still had to go to school which kind of kept the streak alive and got bonus points for not including a rude, pre dawn awakening this morning.

     Now, I know most people have this whole New Year's resolution thing that starts on January 1, but my internal clock just doesn't buy it. (Who can get inspired when it's freezing outside and you're facing the inevitable task of having to take down the Christmas tree and decorations in another week  . . . or two . . . ? Not me, that's for sure.) But when those yellow, traffic-congesting buses start appearing on all my favorite routes and stores are cluttered with lunch boxes and bins of crayons and markers and round tipped scissors, that's when my heart sings that its a new year. So I'm thinking about what new ways the Lord might want to use me to make a difference in the lives of crazy, wonderful middle school Drama kids, and crazy, wonderful elementary kids and their families in our Family Fusion and Zone times at church. There's a full year ahead following these First Days of School and if we keep our eyes and hearts open, we all might just see ways to encourage and impact and write and not erase the names of tomorrow's world changers on the blackboards of our lives.   

     I'd better make sure I pick up my favorite clicky pens to be sure I'm ready for the challenge.