First day of school

Today was the first day of school. Not for me, or my students, as we started a week ago. Today was the first day of school for the elementary street across from my apartment.

What does this mean to me? Let's take a look at the difference a week can make.

A week ago my commute, consisting of a 35 minute walk, began by going in the convenience store, grabbing a juice and a pastry, paying for it and on my way outside the walls of my gated community in about 2 minutes. I walked along a fairly empty sidewalk and crossed the street. Again, maybe 2 minutes depending on how the street lights were treating me that day.

This morning I walked out the front door to see children all around the courtyard, wearing their standard blue for boys and pink for girls. Both, when in full uniform have scarves. Either sex can wear track pants with a white strip down them. I've seen girls wearing black skirts, and boys wearing various shorts so I'm not sure how strict that rule is. Maybe it isn't a rule. Regardless, the pink and blue polo shirts alerted my mental clock, which told me this must be the first day of school. The convenience store with its narrow shelves can be a little difficult to maneuver anyway, but now there were school children and parents to get around. This took 5 minutes. Once outside the door I was greeted with a sea of pink and blue in front of me. Remember that this is a primary school, so parents are outside the gate saying good-bye to their young ones and filming them and taking pictures. Vehicles dropping the children off pack what was a relatively quiet street at the same time one week earlier. Luckily this only delays me a minute or two. Believe me, it can be worse. A professional video camera is filming, possibly to get stock footage for a news report.

On the way home a week ago I came near my apartment building to a moderate flow of foot traffic. The local shops were mostly empty. It was pretty much uneventful.

Today? I felt like a misguided fish swimming against the school. Two blocks from my apartment I was having the students in their myriad uniforms of pink and blue, their parents, and their grandparents dividing and reforming around me. Learning centers of all kinds have taken the opportunity to send employees out with flyers to hand to parents and try to talk to people. This this adds to the congestion on the sidewalk. Small temporary stalls promoting the same learning centers, selling odds and ends, cooking food had arrived and decreased the amount of walkable sidewalk yet again. They would all be gone about ten minutes after the children stopped buying and went home. The tiny stationery shop, normally empty at that time, had a line to get in. Convenience stores suddenly had a new shipment of stationery items that they could not be contained in already existent shelving. On wanting to buy a large bottle of water from the local convenience store, I entered to the crowd of pink and blue. An employee was standing on a chair to monitor the goings on and keep an eye on all the children. I gave up the idea of the water, figuring it would just be easier later. (note: it was)

Was I angry that my world had become so much more complicated and crowded? Not at all. As an educator it feels wonderful to see all those children, and parents, excited for school to start again. As a person I can remember that excitement I felt at the first day of school, and I appreciate the nostalgia seeing the children today brought about.