BACK TO SCHOOL
It is that time of year again. Children in your area have headed back to school recently or are gearing up to start very soon.
Nearly everyone can relate to what it feels like to be inside a classroom and, of course, we all have memories of preparing for this very special time, we remember the feel in the air, the excitement and anxiety, the new clothes and supplies.
For some of us, going back to school is associated with family or national rituals such as the Schultüte (a cone filled with goodies) in Germany, the new uniform in the UK and countries where the British influence can still be felt, the photos parents take on the first day, the new schedule we await with fear and expectations, or the new school and classmates.
So this week, I’d like you to write about going back to school.
Think about what the first day of school evokes for you. Do you have sweet or bitter memories? Does one particular year stand out? Why? Are your children or grandchildren going back soon? What is or was it like to accompany them on their very first day?
First Day At School
A millionbillionwillion miles from home
Waiting for the bell to go. (To go where?)
Why are they all so big, other children?
So noisy? So much at home they
Must have been born in uniform
Lived all their lives in playgrounds
Spent the years inventing games
That don’t let me in. Games
That are rough, that swallow you up.
And the railings.
All around, the railings.
Are they to keep out wolves and monsters?
Things that carry off and eat children?
Things you don’t take sweets from?
Perhaps they’re to stop us getting out
Running away from the lessins. Lessin.
What does a lessin look like?
Sounds small and slimy.
They keep them in the glassrooms.
Whole rooms made out of glass. Imagine.
I wish I could remember my name
Mummy said it would come in useful.
Like wellies. When there’s puddles.
Yellowwellies. I wish she was here.
I think my name is sewn on somewhere
Perhaps the teacher will read it for me.
Tea-cher. The one who makes the tea.
(Roger McGough)
Introducing a New ME!
There’s a new ME this year,
An on-time ME,
A clean-desk ME,
A first-to-hand-in-assignments ME,
A listens-in-class-to-the-teacher ME,
A teacher’s-pet-for-the-first-time-in-my-life ME,
An-always-willing-to-be-good-and help-out ME,
A dead-serious-get-the-work-done-and-hand-it-in Before-it’s-due ME.
The problem is The new ME Is not like ME At all.
(Kalli Dakos)
What to do after you have written:
• Post your poem to your blog
• Add a link to your poem via the ‘Mr Linky’ below
• Read and comment on other people’s work to let them know it’s being read
• Share via your favorite social media platforms
• Above all- have fun!
dVerse 
Fun prompt, Gabriella–that makes me want to go back to school!
Thank you, Victoria. It is often fun to learn!
Hi, poets! Nice to see you at dVerse today. Have the children gone back to school in your area or are they about to?
The children are going back this week I think.. so just that time as you say,
Poor kids went back last week in the midst of a heat wave. We have a year round schedule now, with 3 week breaks in autumn, winter and spring and a longer one in summer. Supposedly they don’t want the kids to forget what they’ve learned over the summer.
More and longer breaks are a good idea I think. More than two months’ vacation can feel very long, even with summer school. And then the rest of the year seems to drag on.
I would be interested in seeing how the students do on a year round schedule. We have considered it along with alternative scheduling. I am definitely in favor of the alternative schedules, but I am not sure on year round.
we have six weeks in summer and then 1 or two week breaks easter, pentecoast and christmas breaks – 12 weeks all in all – think that works quite well
In Canada, school begins after Labour Day, so summer time is still alive and well here! 🙂
When is your Labor Day? Is it at the very beginning of September?
Labour Day is always the first Monday in September, which is rather late this year….Sept.7, therefore school begins Sept.8. Students attend school until the end of June.
Wonderful prompt.. truly a lot easier to write to then I thought… alas not all memories from my early time at school was good.. but it grew gradually better. 🙂 I will have to take care of my sourdough experiments a little and will come and go..
You seem to enjoy learning so much. Björn, that it is hard to believe you did not like school much. The sourdough experiment sounds nice! I have a beer bread recipe that tastes like sourdough and is far less work.
We’ll see tonight if the experiment will turn to bread.. 🙂
🙂
nice theme… took me back to my first schoolday
just coming into the door from a little excursion to strasbourg and will hit the trail in a minute
Have a nice trip back home, Claudia. You’ll be glad to be home. I think the Schultüte is a cool tradition. I am surprised it has not spread.
yes – it’s a cool tradition indeed – and something that can be held as well on that first day you know…gives some security
I rather loved going back to school and meeting all my friends again – or at least I did in primary school. Later on, it got more complicated…
We still have a few weeks to go here – they start on Sept. 2nd. And alas, I’ve had a lot of work this week and the last, so it’s been hard to keep them amused. So perhaps they’ll be happy to go back to school?
Hi Gabriella,
School here is opening in about two weeks, after our long weekend ~ Two of my kids are going back to school – one in high school, and another one in college for another degree.
We are blessed here to have free Catholic education in Ontario, up to high school. I know its expensive to have that kind of education in any province, much less in other countries where parents have to pay for any kind of schooling ~
Thanks for hosting & Happy Tuesday ~
I enjoyed your angle, Grace. I benefited from free education from kindergarten to my Master’s degree and consider myself very lucky.
Returning to school is not always easy for kids. They don’t know what to expect and can be scared, particularly if they have never had success with school. For others it can be a relief because of their home life. It is the only safe place that they know.
When I worked in a very rural area, there were also those who liked school as it was a place to socialize. A handful also had parents who, during the vacation, gave them a sandwich in the morning and told them not to show up before evening.
Heh. I actually kinda liked that as a kid.
We roamed far and wide.
🙂 I suppose it depends why.
True that.
We played outside all day, roamed the neighborhood. Like a band of gypsies, when it became hungry time, we’d stop at the nearest house (not always one of our own) and get fed. We’d knock on the kitchen door and be told by the lady of the house or the maid or the cook to dust off, take our shoes off and go wash our hands and faces. Sometimes we’d be in the kitchen scarfing down sandwiches or with the family for “dinner” – noon meal in the south is “dinner” and eating a fine meal of fresh garden veggies with cornbread or hot biscuits, or dainty tea sandwiches or beans and franks, all washed down with sweet iced tea. we’d help wash dishes and then roam some more. Several times a week I stayed home to read in my special tree spot. I hated going back to school. None of the kids had traumatic family lives but most had annoying older/younger siblings. Rainy days were spent on someone’s side porch playing board games.
I had a special tree for reading as well – still think back on it fondly!
This post certainly had me scratching my head in the afternoon sunshine. School days were definitely not the best days of my life! Mostly because as a family we moved house about every two years so I never had a settled education. Thankfully it did me no lasting harm!! Cheers all
I always felt the kids who moved a lot did not have the same kind of fun as the other children who knew everybody as well as how the school functioned. I am glad your displeasure with school had no lasting effect though!
Hi Gabriella – it’s a beautiful prompt and I enjoyed writing – thought of finishing earlier but took longer as I am down with cold….
I am sorry, Abhra. I hope you get better soon. Thanks for writing anyway.
oy – hope you feel better soon abhra
Thanks Claudia – took the day off and feeling much better now….
Glad to hear that abhra
Always enjoyed getting brand new school supplies for a fresh start to a new school year 🙂 My youngest graduated from high school in June so this is the first year I don’t need to get anyone ready for back-to-school routines! Feels a bit strange.
I an sure it does! I still love to get new supplies.
gabriella – a very cool side effect of the prompt was that i searched a big box for that pic of my first school day and found so many pics of my childhood and youth – and each had a story attached to it that i told my girls then yesterday evening…so much fun
This makes me smile,Claudia. A very cool side effect indeed!
That must have been fun for both them and you! The problem with being spread out amongst countries is that I don’t have access to my old photos at this point in time.
ok – off to bed now… did so much walking in strasbourg that i feel slightly exhausted – ha
will catch up with those who read tomorrow morning
Good night!
off topic…but today in strasbourg i had the first macaron in my life… it tasted divine…
They are divine, aren’t they? Did you just pick up any place or were you recommended that particular one?
i read about them in a book recently and then i saw some in the window of a small patisserie today… i picked a yellow one with lemon filling… it melted into sunshine on the tongue… i wanted to try them all…. sigh
sunshine on the tongue.
Nice.
Once in Budapest I tasted one with poppy-seed and lemon.. divine.. love Macarons
That would be delicious!
Bedtime here as well,..
Good night to you too, Björn.
An enjoyable prompt, Gabriella. I have a lot of memories of going back to school….both as a student for many years and then as a teacher for many more years. Smiles. Now I am spending the last bit of summer with my grandchildren who will be going back to school in about two weeks. I always get a bit nostalgic when I see school supplies, and there are so many cool ones nowadays!
Yeah to cool school supplies! I love them too.
The little girl in the picture is crazy-cute!
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Thanks Gabriella.. i needed this prompt.. smiles..:)
Thanks for sharing your story brother.
The little girl in the pic is so very cute. She looks happier than I ever looked about school in those years.
She is very cute and as the elder child was glad when she started going to school.
My best friend’s granddaughter starts school this year. I don’t know which is happier or more excited.
Good prompt. I don’t know when school starts or if it has started. having no children takes one out of the school loop.
I suppose the number of children in the streets and stores might be an indication.
I guess. I don’t notice about the children though. I’ve noticed the school supply displays up in stores.
Hi Mary….I tried to comment on your poem but Blogger keeps kicking me out and Google is acting like a recalcitrant mule. I liked the poem and the fact that private citizens are doing the right thing to help people instead of sitting back and waiting for the government o take care of things. The form is a lovely form and suited the subject so very well. I always believe: kindness wins.
Thanks, Toni. Thanks for trying to comment on my blog. I know you have been able to do it in the past, but I do appreciate you having tried.
I used commenting via Google account when trying to comment via url failed. With my google acting up, it keeps me ftom using that. I’ve never had any problems with Microsft/outlook. Google is the problem child. I’ve updated to windows 10 so I hope that isn’t causing the problem. Many churches in this area also provide snacks and sandwiches to help the kids during vacation. Too many of them rely on the school lunch and breakfast as their main source of meals. It vreaks my heart. Many of the local churches have also been gathering supplies of items for school lunches, like peant butter, jelly, honey, individual canned fruit, and several if the local stores donate bread and such to the food banks instead of sending to outlets for sale. I like it that people care enough to help others jn need. School supplies, backpacks are great as well. A local cleaner takes gently used coats, jackets and mends and cleans for distribution and several stores are doing buh one pair of shoes, get a second pair of shoes for $2 for the second pair to be given out to kids. I am so pleased by all of this. It is sad it is neecessary, but I am glad we private folk are taking care of this on our own.
Oh, dear, you are not having much luck with your technology… I also sometimes have problems with Blogger, find my comments don’t ‘take’ or disappear after a while. I have found that commenting with Google ID rather than WordPress helps, but sometimes it makes things anonymous. Good luck!
NOTE TO THOSE IB BLOGGER: I am reding your poems but blogger isn’t letting me comment because Google, yet again, has gone berserk on my computer. I am sorry but I have read your poems. If I can get Google to behave, I’ll go back and read and comment.
Maybe Björn could help. He has a WordPress account too. I do too. I have a blogger identity/sign-in which is linked to WP.
I initially tried that which didn’t work for me and didn’t work this time. Bjorn had initially suggested using the goohle account to comment. So I got a Google account, which started glitching last week. Google dislikes me. But I did lijd your poem. The little girl in the pic is adorable. I think people had fjn with this.
Thank you, Kanzensakura. I hope you can soon solve your issue.
If the Blogger blogs have the open comment setting (like I do, and I think Grace does) you can use the Name/Url setting in the drop down menu on the comment box and all you have to put in is your name and web address.
I tried that and it didn’t take the comment. It’s done this before and Bjorn told me to use the google signin, so I had to create one. and google is just acting so….so….I cannot say in real words.
I tried that before and it wouldn’t take the comment. Bjorn suggested using Google account so I had to create one and now, Google is misbehaving. I do not like Google. I never have problems with Outlook.
what a lovely prompt Gabriella!!
Thank you, Sumana!
Late to discussion, as I usually am, I apologize for writing such a long poem…the prompt gave me several ideas but I could not get them off the ground or onto paper and I slipped into a totally different thought…all efforts to alter or reduce it were lost to me….the mind wanders..
Thanks for the prompt.
Thank you for taking part, Kathy. I will soon go and read your poem.