My husband likes to tell a story about his first day of kindergarten.
His family spent weeks getting him ready for the big day, telling him that he would go to school that day just like his big sister. That there would be a teacher and other children and he should be good and have fun.
When the day came, he was a champ. He walked into school for morning kindergarten without a fuss, stayed the whole session and behaved at least well enough that his parents heard no complaints from the teacher.
It wasn’t until his dad took him to get something for lunch on the way home and said something about how the next day would be easier that he stopped, aghast.
“You mean I have to go back?” he asked.
Or at least, that’s how he remembers it.
I get it. Our household has survived 26 consecutive first days of school, and they’re usually pretty good days. Everything is fresh and shiny and new, from shoes to school supplies — at least when the kids are little — and everyone, students and teachers alike, puts their best face on.
It’s Day Two, and all the subsequent days, that get hard. That’s when the assignments become more involved than filling out an all-about-me sheet or getting a parent to sign the syllabus. You know, the one that says the teacher only accepts work in blue or black ink, and anything else will be given a zero.
Yes, that happened to one of my kids, who forgot both the syllabus warning and a blue or black pen, wrote in red ink and suffered the consequences. My youngest hasn’t had much of that until this year, when several teachers told students they’d be going analog, writing essays and exams by hand to avoid the temptation to use AI.
It’s the second day that starts the grind of science-math-English — Oh, no! I left my history notebook at home and will I be in trouble?
For our youngest, a junior in high school, she’s also hearing from just about everybody that this is the year her grades are most important. At least, by now, she’s used to her high school, was pleased to know at least one person in all of her classes, and walked in with at least a passing familiarity with all of her teachers, if only from talking to other students who had them before.
And, truth be told, the homework for her started over the summer, as it has for the past several years, with a book to read and written assignments based on it. Written assignments that were due on the third day of school, making, once again, the second day the toughest one of the first week.
So as we close out the first couple of weeks of the new academic year, I hope everyone’s second days and second weeks went well. I pray that everyone’s second month, and all the months following, will continue to be productive and even fun.