55 First Days of School
Since 1961, I have been going back to school after Labour Day Weekend. That means that Tuesday, September 6, 2016 is my 55th first day of school. As I am retiring in January 2017 from the Ottawa Catholic School Board, this, alas, is also my last first day of school after Labour Day!
On September 5, 1961, I started kindergarten at what was then known as Holy Cross Elementary School at 1119 Lazard St. in Ottawa West. A few years after I began attending the school, its name was changed to St. Andrew's. The building, relatively unchanged in appearance, is now home to Torah Academy.
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| My first school at 1119 Lazard St. |
Indeed my earliest memory is of my first day of school - Well, actually, what I recall of that day is walking to school in the morning. With my oldest brother Michael, I walked the 5 blocks to school from my home at 1159 Adirondack Dr. I recall stopping halfway to school at a home on Checkers Rd, where a classmate of my brother's lived. As my brother's friend also had a little brother starting kindergarten, I recall feeling somewhat relieved that I would have someone with whom I could walk into my first classroom. I also remember that he looked as nervous and excited as I did!
I recall arriving at the school - and being awestruck by the sight of what appeared to be hundreds of children playing in the school yard. The last clear memory I have of my first day of school was of a handheld cowbell being rung by a teacher and all the children coming to a freeze when it sounded. I froze, too, but as much from dread at the now imminent prospect of crossing the threshold of the school as from an apparent school rule.
Odd that I would remember the walk to school that day and the moments leading up to the bell sounding, but not anything about my time spent in the kindergarten classroom that day.
Much has changed about school over the past 55 years - chalkboards have been replaced by interactive whiteboards, desks are no longer in rows, and laptops, iPads, and chromebooks have made traditional notebooks nearly obsolete. However, my observations, as a teacher and later as a principal, of students on the first day of school have revealed to me that this same mixed feeling of excitement and trepidation, or, in some cases, of sheer dread, still dominates the psyche of many young people who are attending a school for the first time.
As a high school teacher, vice-principal, and principal, I have always made it something of a mission to identify, on the first day of school, students who are new and apparently without friends. I would see them wandering around the school self-consciously looking preoccupied either with the books they were carrying or with signs and posters on the walls. At lunchtime, I would see them sitting alone in the cafeteria, closely studying the sandwich they were eating and trying so desperately not to look or feel so alone.
If you are a teacher or other adult working in a school, please be on the lookout on the first day of school for students such as these. Please help ensure that their memories of their first day of school are good memories. Talk with them, welcome them to the school, or even just smile at them. If you are a student, please find some space in your heart to make new students feel a part of things at the school.
Feeling completely alone in a large school is a terrible state of being and guarantees a student will experience neither academic success nor a positive sense of well-being; on the other hand, feeling as though one belongs is a sure-fire way to motivate a student to do well and be well at school.
As an educator for the part 35 years, I know something about the nervousness and loneliness that many students experience on the first day of school. But as a kindergarten student 55 first days of school ago, I also experienced it first-hand.
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September 4, 1962 - My first day in grade 1
- That's me in the gold sweater
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Odd that I would remember the walk to school that day and the moments leading up to the bell sounding, but not anything about my time spent in the kindergarten classroom that day.
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| First day of school - September 3, 1968 I was starting grade 6 |
Feeling completely alone in a large school is a terrible state of being and guarantees a student will experience neither academic success nor a positive sense of well-being; on the other hand, feeling as though one belongs is a sure-fire way to motivate a student to do well and be well at school.
As an educator for the part 35 years, I know something about the nervousness and loneliness that many students experience on the first day of school. But as a kindergarten student 55 first days of school ago, I also experienced it first-hand.
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| My 55th and last first day of school - September 6, 2016 |
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