"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Your First day of School

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations. - See more at: http://joannfitz.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-book-of-me-written-by-you-topic-1.html#sthash.2TuO2bVu.dpuf

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations. - See more at: http://joannfitz.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-book-of-me-written-by-you-topic-1.html#sthash.2TuO2bVu.dpuf

The prompt for the week is:    

Your First day of School

The Brief:

• Do you remember the day?
• The weather 
• What you wore  
• How you got there
• Who took you to school

• Where was the School
• Any stories?
• Friends
• Teachers
• How old were you?
• Were you perhaps home schooled or taught in a different way to the usual traditional methods - such as were you in a remote area and lessons conducted using the phone etc
• Do you have any other memories or thoughts of your first day of school?
   Or perhaps ask a sibling, parent, child etc
• Caution - do not spend lots of time on your junior school that will be in another prompt!

I don't remember if it was the exact day of starting school, but I remember my mother complaining about school and we were going to be late and nearly pulling my arm out by her tugging while we walked to the school.

I remember her taking me inside to the teacher and then leaving. I was told to go stand on the stairs until everyone else showed up as we were extremely early.

Taken from Walden's website - The staircase leading to the upper level of the school.

According to my report card, I started in January 1978, which made my age to be 6. I do remember wearing a winter coat and had gloves attached to it with a hood.

The school I attended is Walden Elementary School which is within the Valley Central School District in Walden, NY.

Walden Elementary School Building - Image taken from www.panoramio.com

Walden Elementary School's entrance - from www.recordonline.com

Other memories
I remember walking into the classroom. There were areas to paint, play with blocks, and the other side had wooden desks. Each desk had something on it with crayons. We were to go to a desk and use the crayons on the paper it had on it. I remember the crayons being huge ones and we used them, I think, the whole year I was there.

Each day we were to have a quarter (25 cents) and we got a small pint of milk and a cookie to have while we were there. I remember sometimes my mother wouldn't have the money and I would be brought to everyone's attention because I didn't have the money and that meant I couldn't have any milk or the cookie. It made me very uncomfortable in front of everyone.

I do remember the years I attended elementary school being very snowy and cold. In fact, when I looked up 1978, I found there was a bad snow storm, but didn't realize how bad it was.

New York snowed up: the normally congested Northern Boulevard in Queens is transformed into a winter park, 7 February 1978. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis

As I have mentioned in a previous post, even in Kindergarten, I always felt highlighted and sectioned out and that is highlighted in my Kindergarten report card by the teacher where she states "Jo Ann seems to observe what others are doing rather than starting an assignment". Thankfully, I've learned to get past this point and get on in life. In fact, I try and make everyone in my classes I teach, feel as if they are included in the class because I know how it feels to be made an example of when its not a good thing. I try and make my classes as friendly and comfortable as I can, because its been proven the more comfortable people feel the better results you get.


  Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.