Warning: This is a Mom Brag Blog, I just can’t
help it. BUT I’m also not one of those annoying moms who think
their child can do no wrong and pretends it was all smooth sailing. Elise and I have discussed writing a
book (when she’s 30) titled My Teen’s Not Perfect, How ‘Bout Yours? So, yeah, I know better. J
So, onward…
I have had many first days of school, my own, of course,
but those for the most part have faded.
I do remember sixth grade when my friends and I had discussed whether
we’d wear dresses or pants on the first day. I am old enough, that even having that choice was a bit new
for us. Until fourth grade, girls
had to wear skirts or dresses, pants were not allowed. Forgetting to wear shorts under our
clothes on PE days usually resulted in that classic poem about European
capitals and underwear.
But, the first days of school
that are more important to me now are those of my daughters. I remember Elise’s first day of
kindergarten, looking at her hunched sleepily over her hot chocolate and thinking
to myself, “This is my life for the next 15 years.”
Well, as they say, The days
are long but the years are short, and those 15 years (plus 2) are over
now.
We still went shopping for
school supplies this year though, not only for Sasha, our college sophomore,
but also, in a very special way, for Elise.
This fall, Elise will be
experiencing the first day of school from the other side of the desk. She will be a student teacher, teaching
math to seventh graders. I look at
the path she’s taken and who she is and I think how lucky these students are to
have her.
Elise has always had a
passion for education and for schools.
She started a major fundraiser for her school district in 5th
grade, she has tutored or been a camp counselor since middle school and
volunteered in multiple schools in Berkeley and Oakland during her college
years.
She ‘gets’ this age and she
gets math (that would be the paternal genes at work) but mainly, she is kind,
loving and intelligent and she realizes that everyone, especially adolescents,
need to feel seen and heard.
Her eventual job goal is to
work in educational research, but she realizes that to do research and to make
recommendations, she needs to have practical teaching experience first.
Teaching, like parenting, is
MUCH easier in theory, than in practice.
