A short while ago, the buses rolled off campus and the first day of school for 2007-08 had ended. I always look forward to these first days. While I am as ready as anyone else to pick up my feet just a bit at the end of a school year, it’s not too long into a summer before the buildings empty of kids and teachers leave me feeling a bit lonely.

Just as happens in most CWA family households, I got up a bit extra early today, to be sure that I would arrive on time. By 7:45 I had taken up my position near the entrance gate to welcome everyone on the first day. 30 minutes of waving and smiling later, I hightailed it to the Upper School to make a few remarks at the opening assembly.

The phrase “the first day of school” conjures up many images in the minds of most adults. There are so many first days…we remember our own as children, but probably remember most poignantly those of our children. Leaving one’s child off for the first time in preschool or kindergarten is often more difficult for parents than it is for kids. At that age, my older daughter tended to be somewhat clingy, and leaving her off at preschool was a traumatic event for both of us (although her preschool teacher said that as soon as I left, she was invariably fine). There were times when I was sure that I was committing child abuse! As I write this, 20 years later, she is traveling alone in Eastern Europe; that clingy child has matured into an independent and capable adult, the trauma of her first days at preschool notwithstanding. Leaving one’s children off for their first day in college is also difficult for parents, this time clearly much more so than it is for our offspring.

The existence of first days of school speaks to a rhythm that is found in my profession, but found in few others. Each year there is a beginning, a middle, and an end, followed by a new beginning a few months later. As I have spent my entire career in education, it’s difficult for me to imagine what it must be like to work in an environment without that kind of rhythm. Each school year begins on a high note, full of hope and optimism, seemingly a blank slate to write on. There is always a sense that we can make this new year what we wish it to be. We are not always right, of course, but the hopefulness of that thought sustains us.

For me, my most memorable first day was the first day of high school. I had just moved from the Boston area to Washington, DC. I have no memory of any orientation, picnics, or any other way of helping a new student make the transition to a new school. I woke up that September morning to the sound of heavy rain on the roof, rain that would not let up all day. I was soaked by the time I got to school. During the 10 minute homeroom period, I got my schedule, and the bell rang for the first class period. My schedule said Biology, but there was no room number written. I asked someone who told me to go to the northeast stairway of the building and just go down as far as I could go, and the biology class would be there. I got to the bottom of the stairwell, and all that was there was a door leading into the downpour. I went back upstairs and asked somebody else, who gave the same instructions. There was no biology class down there the second time either. By this time, I was quite late, and in a bit of a panic. A new school, and very late for my first class! I went to the office, and the Phyllis Kriese of Sidwell Friends School explained what others had omitted, which is that the biology class was in a separate building accessed via a path beginning at the bottom of the now quite familiar northeast stairwell. By the end of the two minute run through the deluge, there was not a dry square inch on my body. As I opened the door to the building, Mr. Biggs interrupted whatever he was saying to the class, turned to me, and said in a kind voice, “Come in Robert, we’ve been expecting you.”
That act of kindness instantly turned a remarkably inauspicious beginning into a reasonable rest of the day, which, unbeknownst to me at the time, would take another unfortunate turn when I got home. I burst into the house, eager to tell my mother about my experiences, and found her down the basement dealing with 4 inches of water, due to a blocked up floor drain. There was no time for debriefing, as my mom, my brother, and I bailed water for hours.

In an era when many feel that technology will and should change forever the way children are educated, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that at its heart, education is a human endeavor that begins with the connection between adults and children. It is that connection that motivates and inspires. Not surprisingly, from the first day of the 1966-67 year to the last, biology was by far my favorite class.