Yesterday, I spent the day at the beach with MR and BD. I’m still getting to know BD and discovered she was a teacher, kindergarten last year and 3rd grade coming up this fall. I had to ask what it was like – teaching was my lifelong dream until I realized just because I talk a lot doesn’t make me qualified.
Her stories centered around the first couple months of school – saying that was by far the hardest, once the kids got the idea of ‘school’ and ‘schedule’ it was a good time. But I didn’t even think of some of the things she was able to say she’s seen – children unable to take their ‘potty breaks’, and teachers nervous about lawsuits if they helped. Crazy stuff. I love talking to people in all lines of work and learning the things you’d never assume.
The day also gave me cause to reflect. As I was going to bed last night, I noted that I can vividly remember kindergarten. Not just from stories I’d heard, but my own consciousness. I have memories from before that, we moved when I was 5 or 6, and I remember the apartment prior to the house. I remember the kindergarten room, the test of knowing your shapes and colors, and my mom telling me how well I did. My grandmother was a teacher and she was helping me learn any time I was with her. I remember milk and snack time, and the little walls made of these cardboard “bricks” to separate us at our six-sided tables, the crayons that were the same shape as the table.
Thinking of BD teaching 3rd grade was different. I tried to remember 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on as I fell asleep. Some vague ideas of things happening are there – the teacher who gave me “A Secret Garden”, the boy of my dreams moving to town, the meanest teacher, getting glasses - but not as vivid as my recollections before that time. I might remember that better than high school – I’m still trying to forget some of those! 
How about you? What are your strongest or oldest memories?
