School is beginning and changes are upon us

My kids are smart and pretty well adjusted, and they’re going to be fine. Watching them march off to start the new year reminds me of my life back then, though, and it’s always fun to reminisce.

Sixth grade here is junior high, and our son Malachi has mixed emotions about it. He leaves his elementary school, which he loved. Like me, he’s not a big fan of change. He joins his sister at a charter school for junior high and high school, so everything is new for him.

I had no such issue. Elementary school and junior high, for me, were one in the same. I went to Northwood R-IV, and I didn’t know K-8 schools weren’t the rule but the exception.

Sixth grade was a great year for me. Mr. Shelton was my teacher. I played a lot of basketball (so does my son) and I was into the NBA (Malachi won’t be quiet about all the crazy NBA trades this summer). My biggest problem was choosing who to play with when my traveling team (most town kids) scheduled a game against Northwood. I chose Northwood.

It was also the year of Eddie Durham. Eddie and I got into a lot of fights. Scuffles, really. I don’t know that a punch was ever thrown. Mr. Shelton was not pleased. He warned me of it more than once. It was also the year I shared an unfortunate “your mom” joke with a classmate. I didn’t know what it meant, really, and it was quite crude. Mr. Shelton was not pleased about that, either.

I think that was the year I won the Science Fair. I tested the best kind of fertilizer, comparing the waste of various animals against the control variable of some plant stakes. Rabbit won, as I recall.

The big change came for me in high school, when I started getting bussed to town. I always felt like the king of Northwood, or a prince at least, and the size and strangeness of Salem High School scared me.

That was the year I went from having two teachers to seven. Coach Conway taught Current Events. Mrs. Parker taught English. Mr. Swanson taught me Spanish. Mrs. Odom taught me Algebra. Mr. Jeffs handled choir, and Coach Quayle taught P.E. I had science, I’m sure of it, but I don’t remember that. I struggled a lot that year. I got in big trouble for my Algebra grade, and Spanish was a struggle, too. I did manage to get into an advanced English class, where a lot of the time we just went across the hall to the library and did a writing project. I can still remember Mrs. Parker encouraging me to write.

I still feel bad for teasing Coach Quayle about the tufts of hair on his shoulders. And I still feel good when I think about choir. It was the year I dedicated a song on the radio to a girl who could not have cared less. It was the year my dad gave me a bad haircut and, embarrassed, I told kids at school that Mr. Jim did it, because my dad was named Jim and I reasoned that technically it was not a lie.

I won a citizenship award one month with Laura Whitaker. I liked all the town girls but they didn’t like me back. I did manage to get invited to the popular kids party before the ninth grade dance at Sharee Dickemann’s house, but my parents were late getting home and I didn’t make it beforehand for pictures. I did hang out there after, including taking an unapproved trip to the haunted church.

I don’t know if you remember life in sixth grade, or ninth grade, or what grade your kids are headed off to this month. But in the middle of the drudgery of the routine — back-to-school shopping, packing lunches, extracurriculars, and homework — remember that you’re not just making memories, your making grown-ups.

We aren’t raising kids, we’re raising adults.

Encourage them to write. Warn them against fighting. Teach them kindness, and hard work, and that there are more important things in life than getting invited to the popular kids party.

Have a great school year.