For the first time that I can ever remember, I didn’t get sad this year thinking about kids going back to school.
Although I excelled in school, I dreaded the end of summer and returning for another school year.
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- Waking up early, sitting still for hour upon hour
- All the rules – when to talk, when not, when to go to the bathroom, how many minutes for lunch, sit still…be quiet…comply…follow the rules
- The homework which was piled on that ruined any free time left in the day.
- The absolutely boring classes where my teachers would drone on and on, explaining for the thousandth time the difference between a noun and a verb to the kids who still didn’t’t get it. (I experienced 12 years of this – in honors classes. Unbelievable.)
- Intense peer pressure – from being the “new kid” to getting bullied to trying to look “cool” to fitting in to just trying to get through each day surrounded by kids I wanted nothing to do with.
- Bad lunches. Hot classrooms with no AC and unopenable windows. Fluorescent lights.
- Pandemonium in gym class. Mandatory group showers meticulously logged by the gym teacher. Assigned seats.
No wonder back-to-school season made me feel blue. Even as an adult, I feel for the kids who are facing another year of this.
But not this year.
And it is because of the pandemic.
While I would have thrived as a home schooled or cyber schooled kid, I know most kids have not.
And I recognize that even I would have missed some fo the social interactions from school.
Kids this year have missed out on human, face to face interaction with their peers for 18 months.
I have a feeling that many are thrilled to go back to in person learning just so they can interact with their peers instead of sitting at home, staring at a computer screen and hanging out with their parents all day.
I am happy for them. I hope that they can find some pleasure and enjoyment at school this year.