First day of fourth grade

first day of fourth grade
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

“Mom, I like Mr. Rockclimber. He’s nice. But I am a little bit *suspicious*.”

“Oh really, how come, did he crash into your car or something?”***

“No. What? Actually, he did not TEACH. He just TALKED. Talk, talk, talk. All about what we were going to do. Talk, talk, talk, talk. I wonder if he is going to actually teach us anything.”

“Did he talk about anything interesting?”

“Well… maybe about himself. But he’s supposed to TEACH.”

How well I remember hating that first-day syllabus reading and policy declaration jawing from every first day of school all the way through college! Talk, talk, talk! OMG, give us a handout and get on with the job!

On the other hand, as a teacher of college freshmen I realized that only about two people in the class would read the handouts, so it was best to read everything out loud to them. Boring!!!

And as a student, did I keep those handouts and refer to them? NO! I lost them as promptly as possible. I was horrible. Even when I had them, and they were read out loud to me, did I follow their rules? We all know the answer to that one…

Moomin is very excited to think what he will learn this year. To me he seems more alert and interested in the world and in various subjects. His electives, or as they are creepily called here in the land of ultimate capitalism and anxiety about social class, “enrichment”, will be Dragons, Sailing, and Gardening. But first… a little brush up on the basic math facts as we seem to have drifted off into Arty Superhero Gamer Land and forgotten our 6 + 12s and our 4 x 9s. I say “we” on purpose. I am bad at remembering my basic math facts and sneakily use a calculator, write things down, or type “bc” at my Unix prompt to do the simplest arithmetic.

I was so proud of Moomin and felt all emotional as Rook and I stood there with our Parent Club donuts watching the kids file off into school. The mystery of what they do all day! Don’t you wish you could do a Freaky Friday and try out fourth grade for just a day or two?

***Mr. Rockclimber and I had a little fender bender in the parking lot last year… I sure hope his insurance didn’t go up from it.