Back to School

I'm making my syllabi today for the fall.

And I'm thinking about Back to School. When I was a kid, much more than any day in January, Back to School symbolized the start of a New Year.

(And, interestingly - just like January being named for Janus, the two-faced god that looks ahead and looks back - the Back to School new year was a time of mixed feelings. On one hand, I was eager to get back into a schedule, to start learning again, to have the fresh slate symbolized by new school supplies. But on the other hand, it was HARD to leave behind the freedom of summer for the regimentation of school. Even for a kid that, like me, enjoyed school).

The back-to-school ads usually started (IIRC) in August (in the district I was in growing up, we didn't start back to school until after Labor Day - which seems like a sane practice to me. Where I live now, the kids started back to school TODAY. Yes, the schools are air-conditioned and all, but it doesn't feel right to me for school to start in August. Especially so early in August).

There were a couple of back-to-school shopping trips: one, to the mall (this would have been Chapel Hill mall in - I guess it would have been Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio? Somewhere like that. All I know was in that day, "the mall" meant Chapel Hill.) We'd go to Penneys (or somewhere like that) for clothes, and Miller's for shoes.

I remember getting a new pair of jeans and a new pair of cords and maybe a new top. Sometimes, some years (especially when I was younger and less conformist), my parents would buy me a dress or jumper to wear. (And some years my mom made my back-to-school dress. I appreciated that when I was a kid, but once I got older - conformism again - I didn't appreciate it so much any more. And it wasn't that it was badly made or anything - my mom is an expert seamstress - it's just, it wasn't what the other kids were wearing).

And then it was time for the shoes.

It's funny, but I don't remember having worn tennis shoes (which is what we mostly called them) to school much as a kid. I usually had some kind of lace-up or loafer type shoe - I don't remember now if it was because my doctor warned my parents that my "flat feet" needed more support, or if the schools didn't allow tennis shoes outside of gym, or if it just wasn't the fashion (this was fifteen years before Air Jordans....Keds were about the only brand out there, except for Adidas, which were 'rich kid' shoes).

Buying shoes seemed like kind of a ritualized process. First, there was the Brannock device, to measure how much my feet had grown. Then there was a lot of debate - with some input from me - on "what shoes should she have." Finally, the young man got the shoes out, put them on me, had me stand up, and then he began an arcane process of poking the toes and feeling the fit. (I was a difficult-to-fit kid - I had very narrow heels and frequently the process of "breaking in" shoes for me included getting massive blisters on my heels). I was made to walk around the store while the grown-ups debated on whether my feet were "slipping" or not.

Finally, when the right size was found, they were paid for, and we got to go home. No trip by the toy store, no movie, but once in a while a stop for ice cream or some other treat. (I don't think I'm alone in remembering that pretty much the only times I got toys as a kid were Christmas, my birthday, and if I saved up my allowance long enough to buy what I wanted...I'm always amazed at how for some of my friends, every trip out with their kid ends in them buying a toy.)

The second trip was for school supplies. I guess we bought these at the local Acme-Click, or maybe the Gold Circle. One of those kinds of stores - kind of a proto-Wal-Mart, with cheap stuff stacked deep.

I don't think the school-supplies lists were quite as detailed when I was a kid as they are now - I've seen lists lately that even specify BRANDS. (I do remember, however, being told how many crayons - what size package - to get. I guess they didn't want some kids lording it over others, with their 96 crayons to the other kids' 16.)

There were the infamous Trapper Keepers (I think those came in when I was about 10). Pencils, erasers, those weird plasticky zippered pouches to keep them in.

Folders. I remember when I was 9 and 10, the only kind of folders I wanted were the plain, solid-colored kind: they were made out of a heavy cardstock, kind of like oaktag, with a matte finish. I had found - sort of by accident - that these folders were great for drawing on with pencils. So I made my OWN decorated folders. (Again - when I got older, not so cool, and I got the plain red-and-white or blue-and-white Trapper Keeper folders like everyone else). But when I was a kid, still, I loved being able to design my own folders. See, I had a series of humanized animals I used to draw - a couple of them (Mimi the rabbit and Cleo the cat) were like animal versions of fashion models - so I drew them on my folders, wearing fabulous outfits I designed for them. (And I thought I had the coolest folders in the school. Fortunately, none of the kids in my class that year had yet reached the point where they thought it would be cool to point out to me that they thought I was wrong.)

I also remember saving the Sunday funnies to make book covers. Except they didn't last as well as the book covers made out of grocery bags, which my parents used for book covers also. (I drew on those, too.)

The best part was buying the supplies for Art class - I used to kind of vibrate with excitement as I read the list, thinking about all the fun things we'd do in Art that year. (And - needing a big old shirt of my dad's for the class - well, that could ONLY mean we were going to get to work with clay.)

And then there was going to school to find out your homeroom and your teacher - the suspense. Were you going to get the "cool teacher" or the "mean teacher"? Which of your friends would be in your class? (I found out, much later, that one year my parents and my best friend's parents colluded to go to the principal and ask that we not be placed in the same homeroom - the same teaching team even - they were afraid we'd talk in class and get in trouble. They were probably right, but I was mad at them for that.)

The first day of school was a big day - oh, kids complained about it, but secretly I was excited. I always dressed up - when I was "little" it was in my new dress or jumper, with ribbons in my hair. When I was in junior high, it was in my most acceptable pair of jeans (this was the first wave of designer jeans and so you had to be very careful about brands: Lee or Levis were acceptable, Jordache or Gloria Vanderbilts were exceptionally good, store brands or Wranglers or some other "cheap" brand was basically a "kick me" sign*) and my coolest t-shirt.

(*It strikes me, that in supposedly class-unconscious Middle America, we had VERY rigid codes - almost a U and non-U sort of situation. Unfortunately, those of us with frugal parents were pretty much doomed to be non-U, because the whole class issue hinged on how you dressed.)

It was exciting - even despite worries about having the right jeans or whether you got the "mean" teacher or whether you wound up in something other than the top reading group...it was the start of a new year, with new books, and new, unchewed pencils, and new, unwritten-in notebooks.

I still feel a little bit of that now, even though I really don't do back-to-school shopping (I don't need any new jeans - I didn't grow any this last year [thank goodness]), and I still have pens and notepads left over from last year, and I reuse the "instructor copies" of texts until they fall apart or until the publisher revises and sends out new copies.

I just hope I'm not seen as the "mean teacher." (Or worse, the "dumb teacher.")