Kids are going back to school and I always feel a little nostalgic when this time of year rolls around. When I was a little girl, I loved getting a new pair of shoes and the clothes my mother made for me to start school. But most of all, I loved the new pencil box I got each year. They were only made of cardboard, had a drawer in them and contained pencils, an eraser, a pencil sharpener and a pen, one you dipped in the ink well.
I always loved school either as a student or a teacher. Speaking of teachers, I think each one should either have typed and put on their desk or else made into a large poster and tacked on the wall, part of a poem by one of my favorite poets, Walt Whitman. It is A Child Went Forth . I will post it here before I comment on it.
There was a child went forth every day;
And every object he look'd upon, that object he became:
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of
the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.
The early lilies became part of this child,
and grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and
red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,
and the Third -month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter,
and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf,
and the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side,
and the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there --and the
curious liquid l
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads--all became
part of him.
The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him;
Winter-grain sprouts , and those of the light-yellow corn, and the
esculent roots of the garden,
and the apple-trees covered with blossoms, and the fruit afterward,
and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road;
and the old drunkard staggering home from the out-house of the tavern,
whence he had lately risin,
and the school-mistress that pass'd on her way to school,and the friendly boys that pass'd--and the quarrelsome boys,
and the tidy and fresh-cheeked girls--and the barefoot negro boy and girl,
and all the changes of city and country wherever he went.
I will end it here as I think by now you see what I am getting at. I hope all teachers realize that every thing they say and do, everything they teach, evevy new object or idea they present to their students becomes a part of that child. Wow, what a great responsibility.
This makes me wonder. When a teacher has your child nine months of the year, five days a week, do you ever think what a great influence the teacher has on your child? And do you ever wonder why movie stars and athletes get paid millions of dollars for one performance and yet teachers, who have such a great influence on your child gets paid so little?
Just food for thought. Happy school days.
Till next timer,
Be kind to one another.
