Back To School! (It's That Time Again!)
Hopefully, dear reader, by now you've already seen those dreaded three words a few times. If not, I'm sure the shock will not last too long for you. Deep within our souls, even years after our graduations, those words can cause deep and sometimes traumatic triggers to our collective psyches.
Still, back-to-school time really was fun for the most part, wasn't it? Oh come on now, it really was... just a little, right? Remember those new starched shirts that rubbed your collars raw, and the new pants that took ten washings so that you didn't start getting those uncontrollable itching spasms in your legs by the start of third period? Or how 'bout when Johnny sneezed that really wet one in class one day, and three days later, a third of the class (including the teacher) was home in bed?
Ah, the good old days...
And what about your shoes? These days, kids have such a bewildering array of choices. Back in our time, the choice was much simpler: black, brown or saddle. Gym shoes were, well, gym shoes, and you did not DARE walk across the Sacred Gym Floor with your street shoes on, or Coach would have you on your hands and knees after school rubbing your heel marks off that floor.
Ah, the good old days...
In those "good old" days, there was also a paddle hanging in virtually every classroom, and it was hanging there for a reason (however unreasonable we might feel that reason could be, these days). Actually, in twenty states, paddling is still allowed as a disciplinary measure. Ohio only last year banned corporal punishment from its public schools.
Some of the really draconian punishments, like kneeling on yardsticks and duck walks, had disappeared by the time I started school, but we did recite The Lord's Prayer in the Pennsylvania public school where I attended for my first year. I suppose some people these days might even think that to be a punishment, but I digress.
Remember that light beige paper that you wrote your first words on? You had to write neatly around those big brown wood chips in the paper. And how many of you had just completed your work, and then in your attempt to tear the paper from the notebook, neatly ripped it in half? Remember the teacher's two simple dreaded words, red-penned on your well-prepared essay, after that? Do over.
And then there were times like this: I must remember to spell "Washington" correctly, or I promise not to pull Suzy's pig tails, or I promise to pull Suzy's pig tails (oops....). Do over....100 more times, please.
Ah, the good old days.
Nowadays, they don't even like teachers to use red ink to correct student papers. Too traumatic on the sensitive young minds, some might say. Correct the papers using soft pastels...it will soothe their self-esteem.
Times change. Back then, when we were kids, if Billy pushed you down the stairs, there was a good possibility that you got back up and walloped him one, and that would have been the end of it. These days, do that, and you're both assigned to the psychologist, after you both come back from being suspended, even if you didn't start the fight.
Times change. Back then, they even had gun clubs in the Lakewood schools, and it was nothing to see a kid toting a .22 rifle into the gym for target practice. These days, draw a stick picture of a gun on your notebook and it's off to the psychologist again (as well as to your local law enforcement agency).
Times change. Back then, in the days before boys' hair had gotten too long and girls' skirts had gotten too short, times seemed a whole lot simpler. They weren't, of course. There were civil defense drills, because any moment a Soviet bomber could be overhead dropping an atom bomb down the chimney at Madison School. At least we were taught to get under our desks for protection, though, so that we would supposedly be safe.
Times change. We had standardized tests back then too. Every year, in fact... and teachers were supposed to use those results to HELP us with our weak areas. Nowadays, failure to pass those tests might mean that one could not move to the next grade, or even graduate with one's peers.
Times change. Back then, there were all kinds of music, art, shop, and vocational choices for the kids who liked to express themselves, create stuff, fix things, or work with their hands. Back then, there were plenty of trades and service job opportunities as well waiting outside the schoolhouse door for those kids. These days, it seems as if everyone has to go through the same academic cattle chute....or else (and by the way, just what job IS waiting for them after they get out of school these days?)
Times change. Back then, all of our classwork was printed using purple ink. Woe unto us if it fell into the toilet, or we got sweat on it, because that purple ink smeared everywhere, especially on our white pants, and if you were a lefty, you could be virtually assured of having a blue hand for the rest of your life. Nowadays, little fingers rattle across those keyboards, basking in the glow of those ever-prompting computer screens, as kids struggle to finish a project before the power goes out on them.
Times change. Once, you were rewarded in school for individual achievement and personal initiative. Nowadays, it seems as if they want everyone to be in uniform doing beehive-like group work, and they seem to be on the lookout for anyone who dares to achieve too far above or below some artificial government-or-politically inspired "norm." In my day, however, "Norm" was just a really cool kid who played the guitar.
Times change. Still, back then, as now, school continues to offer unlimited opportunities for people of all ages to improve their lot in life. A diploma continues to make a respectable statement...of survival at least, if nothing else....and of course, as good old Mark Twain reportedly wrote, one should never let schooling interfere with one's education.