back to school 5

Monica hosts today's Back 2 School Friday 5!!!

I haven't played Friday 5 in eons, but school always is fun and easy to write about, and I want to commiserate with the kids in town who started elementary, middle, and HS a couple weeks ago. Commiserate? Back in my day we didn't go back to school until after Labor Day. I also needed to play cuz I've captured a few school bus pics and needed an excuse to blog one. Or two as the case may be, since I well may edit my post and add more images later.

1. I've done an exceptional number of years of formal school that you can read all about on my academic transcripts, but favorite thing about school? I love being on campus! I enjoy and need the structure and expectations of the classroom. I love starting new notebooks. Writing papers.

2. My most memorable and most important teacher had to be Mrs. Hartley, senior year of HS. From kindergarten on, school did not interest me at all. I didn't hate it, but I sure didn't love it; it was what you did, though I did most of my homework and almost always was on the B honor roll. The idea of the required year of US History in order to get my HS diploma distressed me. I didn't know what history really was, and the way early grade teachers had presented it as tame facts, pale figures, and events not connected to any other event bored me into spending most of my class time drawing and designing. Mrs. Hartley taught us to ask why, to find reasons, to cite sources, to make conjectures... she brought history to life; she made learning alive! And the rest of my story with school is history.

3. At lunch I sat with anyone I happened to notice or sometimes someone who noticed me. Generally a time to eat quickly with little conversation and then move onto the next class or activity.

4. Favorite school supply/ies? Probably notebooks. Every late summer-early fall I bought a tall stack of 70 page, wide ruled 70 page spiral bound. Every late summer-early fall I still buy a few spiral bound notebooks and a couple of classic composition books. I also like packs of new pens, and, of course, Crayola® crayons, but my crayon supply typically is sated enough I can't justify buying more just because they're there in the store. Always a few packages of wide lined filler paper and a couple of new vinyl binders. Because of the way I think and work, these days I go through a lot of paper and notebooks, with my adult SS class prep, and use a fair amount for journaling and other life necessities, to a sufficient extent I often need to by more in the spring when none of the school stuff still is on sale.

5. "kids these days" are missing out on fresh air, free and unstructured time, being relatively free agents. They've also gained awareness of the rest of the world and of other cultures.