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There were three aspects to my first day at school: the anticipation and dread, the wonder of class experience of the first class itself, and my overwhelming desire to go back the next day to the classroom. I have found that this pattern of foreboding, exhilaration, and renewal has been the persistent motif of my education. An education that really began on a sunny September day in 1959 as I entered my first formal classroom—kindergarten.
First, there was the buildup of anticipation for the watershed day—the first day kindergarten. It is almost as if everything else was forgotten before that first day of school and the transformation that I was about to undergo. My mother had built up the day throughout the lazy days of summer, preparing me and herself for the day in which I would be leaving the comforts of home. When we drove by Floyd School, she would point out the brown brick building and announce that is where I would be going to kindergarten in a few months. Of course, I wasn’t sure that I liked the idea of going into that gigantic building. On the appointed day, my mother and I walked the mile to school, passing familiar landmarks like the barbershop and bar that my father frequented. I recall vividly the last cross walk and the red light at which we stopped. I held my mother’s hand tightly, dreading that final descent into the looming edifice of learning. Finally, the light turned green and we entered the school. Fortunately, the kindergarten class was on the first side and faced the sunny east side of the school. The classroom was filled with kids and mothers, but soon my mother departed, and I had a momentary twang of despair, perhaps almost betrayal.
Next, in the class itself, I realized for the first time that someone other than my mother was the boss—the teacher. And her authority was apparent immediately. For example, she had a list of rules, mostly safety rules that we were to follow. I remember feeling a sort of social uneasiness in the classroom filled with children who I did not know. We had nice wooden desks, a long shelf filled with wonderful illustrated books. The windows of the classroom were high, with small panes of class set in wood. The blackboard was really black and not green or white like current schools. There was, in my child’s eye, a huge play traffic light which changed colors to indicate stop and go. We practiced in a line by stopping and going according to the light. This was a first lesson that has endured forever. One of the first projects that we did in class was to plant bean seeds in milk cartons to accompany reading Jack in the Beanstalk. In my imagination, I hoped that my bean sprout would go as large as Jack’s so I could escape into another world. But I was experiencing another world during my first day of school after all. There were so many protocols, such as raising hands, asking permission to go to the restroom, and not fighting or cursing. At first I thought that nap time was ridiculous, I was so wound up with excitement of the new surroundings. But soon, I really liked nap time and listening to the music. Kindergarten was probably the best class that I ever had. In the class we learned with our hearts and minds to sing songs like Frere Jacques which penetrated deep into my soul. Of course, one of the best parts of school was being let free during recess to run helter skelter on the playground and explore the jungle gym, carousel, and basketball hoops. The class was all preparation—for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the Christmas recital in the fall; Easter and May Day in the Spring. I recall my first real encounter with the alphabet on the blackboard and numbers, scrawled in thick white chalk.
Finally, the post classroom experience is a series of events which we now call “life-long learning.” And I can draw a mental arc from that kindergarten classroom to the present classroom that I occupy as a teacher in a community college. That kindergarten classroom led to a series of other classrooms that constitute the real education of myself, Steven Donahue. I went on to write my first book in 1968 at the age of 12: a crazy compilation about St Joseph Hospital which stands across from my original school. From public school kindergarten I went on to St. Joseph’s Catholic parochial school and shuttled from the first grade classroom all the way to the eight grade one in as many years. In those eight years, their were educational triumphs and tears, but in the end it was a solid grounding in learning how to learn. I picked up the violin in grade school and joined the Heelan High School string orchestra when I entered high school. There the fruits of an education began to pay off with the delights that an education can bring: chess club, computer programming, trying to prove the trisection of a triangle over the objections of our geometry teacher, and joining Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training.
But for a long period, my classroom experiences ended, but not the learning process. Eventually, I went on to graduate college and acquire a masters in teaching English. And so the learning-teaching circle is complete (not really as it is lifelong).
In conclusion, my education has continued to follow this pattern of dread, wonder, and renewal. I am still apprehensive every time that I enter a classroom and nervous about my preparation for learning or teaching. But then the magic kicks in and I am filled with a sense of wonder about the transformation taking place within me and students. I have learned to live for that “learning moment,” though rare, is what makes all the drudgery of attending classes worth it. And that is the sense of renewal and rededication to the teaching profession, and my own learning, that I feel kindled everyday that I enter a learning situation whether it be a building of higher learning , the Internet, or an old-fashioned book.
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