Milestone

 As an adult, as a parent, I have often felt the need to be the repository for other's childhood memories. Happily there are vast warehouses full of servers whose specific purpose is to store the digital photos of the adventures of our only son. Each time one of those ancient scrolls unrolls onto my cell phone, I feel compelled to forward it along to my son who is busy with his present day concerns. "Remember when?" I prod. 

Then there's the matter of the memories of the students at my school. Two hundred some burgeoning brains into which we are trying to cram reading, writing and 'rithmetic, whatever that is. This past Monday I was part of a crew that raced around the school with banners and streamers, decorating the halls and doorways in anticipation of our 100th day of school. Later I was charged with putting batteries into a series of bubble blowing machines in anticipation of the celebration that would be held at the end of the day. All our classes emptied out onto the playground and the upper grade students shared books with their lower grade counterparts. There were balloons. And there were bubbles.  

As the dust was metaphorically settling, a colleague wondered on the way back inside the building, "I wonder if that's all they're going to remember from today." I understood. At some level, we would like them to be able to recall the math lesson from just before lunch. Or the upper case Q. When they go home, will all they want to tell their parents about is the bubbles?

I get it. But at the same time I can remember very little about my own discovery of long division. By contrast I have a very distinct and vivid memory of the luau my second grade class held on the lawn when I was in elementary school. I can remember most of the assemblies held in cafeterias. And all those exceptions to the bell-oriented schedules that drove my life for all those years. 

Now I'm back, and I am happy to bring those little spoons full of sugar to our kids to help the medicine go down. I won't stop trying to convince third graders that adverbs are easy to spot because of that ly at the end. I will happily explain to a fifth grader why decimals are so easy if you already get fractions. But I'm guessing that when the week is over, they will remember the bubbles. If they have a glimmer of a memory that connects it to the number 100, then our work here was done. 

On to the next milestone.