Many of us spend the New Year with family and friends, staying up until midnight and watching the glittering ball descend over Times Square. When I was a child, my brothers, sisters and I grabbed pots and pans and wooden spoons, stepped outside the front door into the cold darkness and made a racket, shouting “Happy New Year!” and pounding away on our makeshift drums. As a mother, student, and educator, I have long observed another “new year” when falling leaves, not falling snow, were in the forecast.
I celebrated and in some cases mourned the beginning of a new school year with its own rituals. When I was a child, uniforms eliminated much of the clothes shopping that I would do later with my children. The big-ticket item for me was new shoes, often black-and-white saddles, and an occasional green school sweater. We had to order it, and it arrived with my name and school embroidered in white on one of the pockets.
The smell of a new box of crayons and freshly sharpened pencils resides in the recesses of my brain, and blank pages of an unused notebook or journal still make my heart beat faster as I consider what thought will have the honor of being recorded on the first page. Books are another part of this new year celebration. In grade school, the ritual was covering them. We could buy colored book covers, but most often we used old brown paper grocery bags; folding them to fit neatly on our texts was an art.
Those are good memories. As I said, I also mourned the return to class. To the surprise of many who know me as a teacher and author, the first time I truly enjoyed school was in high school, and even then, only a few select classes: English, Latin, and music. The rest was tolerated. I spent a good deal of fourth grade staring out my classroom window and brooding over my powerlessness: Who had the right to make me sit there, day after day, when time would be better spent at home?
My attitude improved slightly in some college courses, but not until I began a post-degree program in education can I say I enjoyed school. The study of theology was the same: I loved it. Too bad I needed 16 years to get there.
Perhaps that is one reason I mourned the beginning of the school year for my children. I also enjoyed them so much at home that I did not want to send them off every morning. We filled summer with the type of learning that sticks in young minds: playing in the creek, checking out bugs, exploring the beach with cousins and grandparents, and wandering through museums. One of the nicest things about summer was the opportunity to become “bored” and then reaching deep inside to find some way of entertaining one’s self. Libraries full of books were read and bedrooms filled with projects and inventions as a result.
Despite its shortcomings, however, a new school year also offers promise: reconnecting with friends; opening minds to the past as well as the future; encountering new literature; learning new skills; learning how to learn and to solve problems that will face us in the future. What children study and the questions they ask can enrich their parents as well, if what is being talked about in the classroom spills over into family conversation and activity.
The world is filled with beauty, suffering, and joy. The start of a new school year can remind us of the call to interact with this creation, to transform it and take pleasure in it. School must be not only about learning skills that will someday translate into a job and money, but also about developing a sense of self, discovering our gifts and the joy of using them to celebrate the world and make it a better place.
The world and its people are God’s gift to us. May we find ways to encourage one another to be learners, no matter our ages. Perhaps most importantly, may we nurture the sense of wonder that is born in us all, but often becomes jaded and eclipsed by the hard work of meeting life’s challenges. Happy new year!