My year begins in September, rather than in January. True, each year I make my resolutions on New Year’s Eve, but as far as my life and activities go, it all starts in September. This probably has to do with my long connection with school, as I started kindergarten at 4, and first grade at 5, and have never stopped loving it.
I almost got off to a bad start at the beginning of first grade. I was home for lunch, and Mother and her best friend were preparing to play golf during the afternoon. They were also taking Mother’s friend’s daughter, who was my best friend, with them because her birthday didn’t fall in the month that would have allowed her to start school early with me. They left me sitting on the front step, and I determined that I wasn’t going to school. Several older students walked by and offered to walk with me, but to no avail. I sat…and cried.
About mid-afternoon, a neighbor saw me and took me into her house to wait for Mother. Old school Mother and no school I, immediately walked to the school, going in the door as all the other students were leaving. My punishment was to sit with the teacher after school the next day. This kind teacher talked with me about my father who was involved in the war in England, and the importance of making him as proud of me as I was of him. I never skipped school again.
In the “good old days” when school started the day after Labor Day, I was always excited. The next day meant a whole new start, seeing old friends, meeting new ones and being around a large group of others each day.
By middle and high school years, after a long summer, music and boys took a precedence, and I would start getting excited for school to start at the beginning of August when you could feel fall a little and know it wasn’t long until the year would start.
I didn’t know I was going to be a teacher, but all my activities seemed to lead me in that direction: teaching swimming while still in school, boy scouts, girl scouts, Sunday school classes and directing theater as a young mother. School always beckoned.
As a teacher, the coming of Labor Day brought new ideas, the prospect of new students and activities for them. These past couple of weeks I’ve been watching the Little League World Series. It brings back memories of when my three sons involved us up to our ears in baseball, and calls to mind the powerful lessons learned by the young players.
It is so nice to observe that these boys are learning, not only playing skills, but how to accept disappointment and defeat gracefully, the importance of good sportsmanship, clear thinking and obeying rules. It is delightful to join them in their joy of winning because they have learned all these things.
This time of year, I want to go back, out of retirement from teaching, back to being awake most of the night before the first day , worrying about being late, excited about the whole coming year. You are usually not invited to return to the classroom when you are in your 80s, so it is almost enough that instead, in September, my new year begins when all of the activities I have been involved in that were cancelled for the summer, resume. Almost enough.
