Going to School too Soon.

We never had Kindergarten at our school. We started with the first grade. It was in 1956 for me. Now, I know that date sounds pretty ancient to a lot of people. Not so ancient to others. But, in terms of the way things have changed in the world, it was centuries ago!
Back then, we were still in the old three “R” mode of learning. And, believe me, some of the kid’s in my first grade class wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with them of the first day of class.

I remember two girls in particular whose Mom’s had to drag them kicking and screaming into the classroom! Both of them later became good students, but oh…not on that first day.
Things have changed so much.

Kids start going to school, or pre-school, or pre-preschool so young now, that some of them will NEVER be able to remember when they started to school, like I can. I think that it’s kind of a shame too. Those two girls (It was Sandy and Alma by the way) had both experienced what it was like to be HOME with their Mommas, and to have a “little kid’s” life prior to being rudely awakened one morning and being told they were being taken to this strange new place, full of people they didn’t know and things they weren’t familiar with. They were definitely out of their comfort zone. (So was I, but I didn’t cry. I would have, but as long as I can remember I have had this “thing” about not letting people see me cry. Guess I think it shows “weakness” or something) only by being taken out of our comfort zone could we learn new things, but we didn’t know it at the time, and we sure were not real happy about finding out.

We had these cool metal desks though, that had big old holes in the bottom of them to stuff our books into when we were not using them. That was the other thing too…books! Wow, for the first time in my life somebody gave me a book that didn’t have Scrooge McDuck on it, and said it was MINE. At least for that year anyway. I felt privileged! I took care of my books like they belonged to me. When we had to scrawl our names into them a few weeks later, after we all learned to WRITE our names, I felt bad about defacing that nice new book. It WAS really new, because 1956 was only the second year that the new grammar school had been open, so everything was still in great shape.

I lived in the same town long enough to see that same school go through the metamorphosis of age to the point where it had to be torn down a few years after the river got up and got into it. Both the High School and the Grammar school had been built on a flood plain, because that’s the land which the Mill gave the town to build them on. They knew the land would flood, and that’s why they never had put part of the mill on them. It was good enough for a school though. We had a lot of floods, but the huge 100 year flood that came about 1990 or so I think it was, finished both those schools off.

Anyway, I did feel bad writing in a book. I still feel bad when I see a book that has scribbling and scrawling and writing all in it. Books are sort of sacred things to me, since all the knowledge that mankind has ever been able to accumulate is written down in books. Guess that’s why I like to read them still, and buy and sell them too. Some people get most of their information off of computers and TV now, and don’t bother much with books. That’s ok for them I guess, but I don’t know what I would do in a world without books. Kinda’ glad I will be gone before people totally stop using them.

But, I digress. I think the point I was trying to make was about how kids miss a lot of their childhood nowadays. They are thrust into the world of learning, and really into the adult world itself much too soon. We think of them as little adults from just about the time they can come up with a sentence that makes sense.

“Time for little Tommy to start to School, he just said his first word!”

It’s a little much I think.