Slice of Life: Back to School

I am starting my 41st year of school.

If things never changed, I would have a pixie haircut and be wearing a brown plaid dress with a navy cardigan and red Keds tennis shoes just like I did in 1970. I would catch the bus from my babysitter's house while my mother was teaching and my father was studying for his doctorate at Kent State University. I would charge into kindergarten and boss everyone around until Mrs. Montgomery called my parents to complain.

Some things don't change.

We think of change as something negative. But if things never changed, I could still be wearing a heavy metal back brace for scoliosis. The worst perm of my life would never grow out. I'd still be wearing unfortunate orange mock neck shirts with Winnie the Pooh embroidered on them, and the mean girls in 4th grade would make fun of me every day.

Change isn't good or bad. Change just is.

We have many new staff members at my school. Testing has changed. Evaluation procedures have changed. Technology changes. Books change.

So as I start the new year, I will try to embrace change. Change, after all, will soon mean that I am not clunking around in a walking cast. Change means that I no longer have to spend hours cleaning VCRs. Change means that I can call my daughter at college on the phone while I am a passenger in a moving vehicle and talk to her for FREE.

When I was very small, I would cry if my parents trimmed the bushes. I mourned every piece of furniture or toy that was replaced. I sobbed uncontrollably when we moved from one town to the next. I wept over my teachers at the end of every grade.

Perhaps after 40 years of school, and 50 years of life in general, my soul is calloused.

Calloused hands mean we are accustomed to hard work and, in the end, more suited for it.