First Grade
by Ron Kortgee
Until then, every forest
had wolves in it, we thought
it would be fun to wear snowshoes
all the time, and we could talk to water.
So who is this woman with the gray
breath calling out names and pointing
to the little desks we will occupy
for the rest of our lives?
I read Ron Kortgee’s poem and I was taken right back to Miss Kempster and Clarence Street Junior School with the high windows so we couldn’t be distracted by looking out and the desks bolted to the floor and the seating arrangement by test results. It was actually the equivalent of second grade and I joined mid-year. Alliances and loyalties and friendships were already established. Class size: 48. Misery index: High.
It’s September and back to school, the summer’s over, and shades of the prison-house close in on the growing child. It doesn’t have to be that way. Best wishes to all those children and adults starting and returning to school at any age.
Featured image: Timberland by Daniel St-Amant:
nice. are you aware that this idea is from Gerhard Richter. though he painted a deer this way.
Which idea? Do you mean this https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/art/paintings/photo-paintings/animals-2/deer-547https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/art/paintings/photo-paintings/animals-2/deer-5476 ?
The link doesn’t work here but I guess we are talking about the same. For me as an artist it is clearly the same idea.
Googling Gerhard Richter and deer brings up his 1963 image. Do you feel it connects with the poem in any way/
Seems there was a misunderstanding, sorry! I was referring to the image, the dog between trees.
The first few years of school were wonderful for me, but starting in 4th grade it was a different story. Thank goodness for school librarians and the outdoors! And I still consider September a starting point in the year.
The new year begins late August/ early September Over sixty years of going to school taught me that too. January? That’s the halfway mark. And libraries were a saving grace for me too.
When I was sent to America, “they:\” had a hard time deciding what to do about my education….straight to college, but I was only 16, so no, she had better do Senior Year. If I had known the awfulness of it, I would not have come. It changed my image of who I was (which, to be honest was already a little confused) and wrecked my self-confidence.
Gosh! Sounds awful. Would love to know more but don’t want to push you down a dark unwelcome memory hole.
I remember vomiting into the waste straws basket, prob. after downing ?compulsory State milk! Mrs Rose, 1st year teacher not sympathetic, had v. florid complexion. This was 1952 London, I was 4 years old An older girl, June took me under her wing and often took me home to look at her rabbits and meet her kindly family. How important kindness was and is, always!
For me, the food issue was the scolding I received because I wouldn’t eat the meat at school dinner. To them, it was probably inexcusable fussy and a wicked waste. To me, I couldn’t imagine what the stuff was – we were vegetarian. I also didn’t like milk so never drank it. However, I don’t remember that being a problem. And of course – in terms of public health and the wellbeing of children that daily milk was a great nutritional bonus (for those who could digest it.)
Yes, kindness matters and we could all do with spreading more of it about.
None of the above, early nineteen fiftieth class sizes 24, modernism had arrived! I could not wait to get there every morning, trailing besides the creek playing, not to mention the creatures I encountered. Learning was exciting, I must have had good teachers I guess.
None of the above, early nineteen fiftieth class sizes 24, modernism had arrived! I could not wait to get there every morning, trailing beside the creek playing, not to mention the creatures I encountered. Learning was exciting, I must have had good teachers I guess.
I began school when I was 4 and three quarters. How I hated it. A nun made me turn a somersault in the staff room to demonstrate my bad behaviour. My school days were a combination of boredom and fear.
I experienced the contrast: The joyful classroom where I was respected and where I learned to love to read and write and learn. And then the place where I learned to be fearful and understand that I was essentially a failure. But fortunately no nuns.
It all had a lifelong influence. I became a “restitutional” teacher – or tried to be. Meaning – a teacher who worked to ensure that no child had to endure the miseries of what she had experienced.
It was the most important time of year, until we were all grown up. Took a long time, before I felt like a year began on January 1, not sometime in late August. The line in the poem about thinking we could talk to water made me remember something I had totally forgotten: for a long time in childhood, I thought I could see air. I could see the molecules of air! No one else admitted to seeing it, and no one believed me. Eventually I just quit telling anybody. — Elizabeth
How interesting (the air I mean). And who is to say you couldn’t see it? Just wondering whether it was dust-motes dancing in sunbeams that gave you the idea.
My memories of Infant school (5 to 8) are mostly gone. I imagine I was initially overwhelmed as a country boy, having to travel into town!
I remember those years. Some scenes and situations etched/ seared in my memory bank. I went from what seemed in retrospect to be a kind of rural paradise – albeit a strange one in an old army encampment – to the prison-house of baby boomer crowded, traditional school. Culture shock of major proportions.