3rd Grade: Day 1 (6)

It was my first day at my new school. Weimar Elementary had no school-teacher so I was now getting to be shuttled back and forth with the other Weimar kids to Pine Hills Junior Academy. The fruitless search for a teacher had delayed our enrollment, and now we were arriving several weeks late. As the classroom door opened before me, 25 pairs of 9-year-old eyes locked onto me. Oh joy.
I launched head-first into the task of learning the do's and dont's of grade school life. Class began with a battery of ITBS evaluatory tests. My nose was starting to run and I was starting to worry. The scrap of tissue in my pocket wasn't going to last 15 minutes if I started falling sick then. Jason, a guy I knew from Weimar, suggested I ask the teacher to send me home sick. I waved my hand.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Tucker?" I called out softly.

"Now open the test booklet to page 4 and wait until I tell you to begin." Mrs. Tucker was finishing reading the test instructions. I waved a bit higher and harder.

"Begin the test. There will be absolute silence."

This will not do. The faucet on my nose was slowing unwinding. I stood up and purposefully strode to Mrs. Tucker's desk at the front of the classroom.

"Excuse me - " I started.

Glancing up with a horrified look on her face, Mrs. Tucker hurriedly shooed me back to me seat.

"Stay seated. You're supposed to be taking a test," she whispered. I tried to protest, but she turned back to her desk. This tissue's just gonna have to do.

By trial and error I was introduced to the "important" aspects of life, as stressed by my fellow 3rd-graders. Don't walk across the grass in front of the school. Don't play with the 5th-graders at recess. Finish lunch by 12:00: you're required to go play during the next half hour. When you're swinging, never let your swing line up with the girl's next to you: it means you're married. Etc.

The large life or death matters of 3rd grade have become the silly trivialities of yesterday. I have matured. Somewhat. But isn't it the same way for teenagers as well as grown-ups? Wouldn't you say so? If you said no, just remember that it's the people who deny this reality who started the whole dilema anyway.