I had the privilege of visiting three second grade classes this week as teachers in our system complete their Science of Reading modules required by the State of Georgia under its new legislation.
In the first class, one student asked, “Have you ever been in a classroom?”
That should have been my first sign.
I replied that I had, and it all started once upon a long, long time ago and lasted for many years.
She looked at me suspiciously, then asked with a hint of sass, “So you can handle us?”
Oh, the joys of second grade. They tell it like it is, and nothing gets left unsaid.
Forget any “Real Age Test” your insurance company has ever asked of you. There’s a real-er one, and here’s all you have to do: step into a primary school classroom for three hours. Three hours is all it takes to get yourself into real trouble, as any of the guests aboard the SS Minnow would remind us. Ironically, being shipwrecked on a desert island seemed it would be paradise by the time I slugged back out to the parking lot each morning.
How did I ever do this when I started teaching in the late 1990s with a full class of second graders, three children and a husband and so much laundry at home, when one played soccer on a travel team and we traveled most weekends as a family and stayed in hotels AND I didn’t have Clicklist at the grocery store where I could click my order in and pull up and wait for them to come running out with the cart and load me up?
How?
HOW??!!
This, my friends, is the Real Age Test. I passed with flying colors as someone who is really aged.
I slumped back into the driver’s seat, one building away from my office and allowed myself five minutes’ peace, hoping no one walked by and saw me in such a state. I wrapped my arms around the steering wheel and let my head rest on my forearms. I prayed. I prayed I hadn’t pulled a muscle bending over to sit down in the tiny chairs or, more likely, hefting myself up out of them. I prayed there were still 19 heads to be counted in the room I’d just left and that there were not a few running loose in the building somewhere and that I wouldn’t get a phone call shortly, asking about any missing children.
The Real Age Test. Like cheese, I’ve discovered my moldy edges and the holes I didn’t used to have. My denial has come to an end, and I have accepted that I am truly aged.
I feel it in my bones.
But I did take away a great compliment: when I was doing a read-aloud, they were mesmerized. They said, “You do it so good.” Apparently, I sparkle as a picture book reader. And that makes it all worth it.
Common Threads 