A time for trading in the beach vacations for the parent-teacher conferences.
For most families, it’s a joy to get children back in stride and on a schedule as they head towards the days full of reading circles, arts projects, school programs, and a line-up of after-school happenings. New uniforms, school-supply swag, fancy backpack and lunch-bag duos, are all part of the novelty list of must-haves for the first day of school.
Whatever your routine, just know there is a community of others—principals, teachers, fellow carpoolers, grandparents, neighbors, and a host of others in your village—ready to challenge, contribute, and sacrifice alongside your family’s journey this school year.
Education and the overall school community has certainly changed since my time in grade school in 1980-ish. We walked to our local neighborhood school campus, crossing paths with peers as they met us at the edge of their walkway, and there was no such thing as a carpool in sight. Well, unless you count the buses lined up for designated students being dropped off and picked up. Nowadays, my entire schedule (and probably yours) is built around carpool timeframes to avoid the potential messiness of traffic and aggravated drivers ready to take flight as quickly as possible from the controlled chaos.
Aside from the before- and after-school driving adventures we face today, the operational perspective of a school’s day-to-day seemed reasonably easier back then for administrators and teachers—at least from a kid’s-eye view. I mean: students arrived full of energy and ready to learn (most had already eaten breakfast before the trek to school); we completed our bellwork and assignments (wrote complete sentences with accuracy, discovered differences between the Pacific, Atlantic and the Gulf, solved a few math problems, and so on), then settled the growls of our stomachs with a hearty lunch; jumped rope during recess to burn off what we ate for lunch; enjoyed gaining some skills in music and art; packed our backpacks, and we were off to tackle chores at home. Oh, and we had the Homework Hotline for those whose parents were taken aback when trying to help with studies other than reciting spelling words. Okay, it was a little more complex than that, but I’m just saying.
The livelihood of parenting has become drastically complicated when it comes to making the best decision for your child’s education and learning opportunities. I could go on forever about all of the modern-day approaches to education —which, don’t get me wrong, has definitely seen immense progress—and how it has impacted the equipping of students from the classroom to adulthood, and well, becoming parents themselves.
This issue of Memphis Parent is packed with all sorts of stories centered around diversity and inclusion in education, intentional family time, tips on school preparation, and the impact that parents and their support systems can have on children’s futures. We certainly hope you enjoy, and cheers to a wonderful 2023-24 school year!
Later, my friends!,
— Erika Cain, Editor