Back to School

While there's no doubt that football is in the air, so to is another season. As I was browsing my local Stop & Shop the other day I noticed the good old back to school aisle. This initially made me sad as I have now been out of college for a resounding 15 months. I glanced down the aisle and saw plenty of spiral notebooks, Harry Potter folders, lunchboxes, etc. I was reminded of that bittersweet, anxious feeling of the summer ending and the new school year beginning and I became extremely jealous of my friend's who are going back to school this month or the next in some capacity.

I had another run in with back to school nostaglia during a departmental meeting yesterday at work. I see a handful of my co-workers on a semi-regular basis, but because most of us work different days and different hours, sometimes I go weeks without seeing someone. I would compare that to hanging out with your friends regularly during the summer while occasionally seeing other classmates elsewhere. This departmental meeting was like that assembly on the first day of school. Our boss spoke just like the principal always did. He told a few terrible jokes that only the adults laughed at. The troublemakers/funny guys sat clumped together in the back of the room and horsed around the whole time. The suck-ups sat in the front and asked stuppppid questions. Everytime the door in the back of the room everyone's head instinctively turned to see who was walking through the door. And there was that nervous excitement about the year ahead.

This reminded me of a website that my cousin's friend started about 5 years ago. On the site he offers observations on a variety of topics that we all experienced growing up. From quips about instant messenger to common occurrences at the ballgame, his one liners bring you back to your formative years. I'd link to the site, but despite my hopes that the sections labeled "Under Construction" would one day be completed, the site hasn't been updated since the time I originally read it.

Here is his section titled, "In the Classroom"


Ever since the age of five, a substantial portion of our lives has been dedicated to the education process. From elementary school to middle school to high school to college, you have grown physically as well as mentally, never missing an opportunity to point out visible perspiration circles around your teacher’s underarms. Thousands of agitated hours have been spent confined to a single desk, rapidly peering at the customary white clock. The only thing that keeps you going is knowing that somehow, someway, someday you might be the chosen one assigned the duty of “Line Leader” for the whole entire week.

How American Classroom is...

-the thumb and index finger pinch to get down to the popular warn down crayon in the box that is smaller than all the others

-playing “guess what color crayon this is” while holding your hand over the crayon name

-knowing that the number 5,318,008 might not be funny on paper, but upside down on a calculator it’s a whole other story

-clapping erasers

-dragging the five prong wooden and metal chalk holder across the chalkboard to make multiple strait lines

-twirling a protractor around a pencil

-a teacher reading a page in a book then turning the book around and making a slow back and forth semi circle so all the children can see the picture on the page

-the one kid in the back that whines, “I didn’t see…” after the two semi circles have been completed

-the teacher doing the slight raise up of the book so the whiner in the back can see

-D.O.L.

-rushing through your work so you can go in the back of the room and play Oregon Trail

-making the “ooooooooo” noise when someone gets called to the Principals office

-pulling the hair of the girl sitting in front of you

-wondering if there actually is a fire this time when the fire alarm goes off

-holding your ears while exiting the school during a fire alarm

-being impatient and writing on un-dried whiteout, leaving a sloppy grey indent

-the sawdust like product that the janitor spills on vomit to make an easy cleanup

-seeing who can say “penis” the loudest without getting caught during a lecture

-bringing in Dunkin Donuts Munchkin’s on your birthday

-being mad that your birthday is in the summer

-going to the nurses office after a tooth falls out

-the anxious feeling the day before a field trip

-not wanting your mother to be a chaperone on a field trip

-the trauma of having homework over the weekend

-attempting to pass off a previous homework assignment as the one that is due today

-not getting full credit for a math homework assignment because you didn’t “show your work”

-trying to fool a math teacher into believing you “showed your work” by rewriting the numbers and variables in the problem a variety of ways

-answering Spanish homework assignments by just rewording the words in the question and taking out the question marks

-hearing a teacher inform you that they were not born the previous day

-waiting for the ideal time to sneak out a fart

-getting points taken off a test because you didn’t round to the specified amount of decimal places

-getting points taken off a test for not circling your answer

-collecting Campbell soup labels

-looking up and circling words in the dictionary such as “penis”, “vagina”, “ass”, and “sex”

-having to get a test in which you showed no effort signed by your parents and returned

-a xylophone or x-ray being the only possible pictures next to the “Xx” part of the alphabet above the chalkboard

-having your syllabus signed and returned, resulting in a 100% on your first quiz grade

-having to use classroom supplied “ARMY…Be All You Can Be” or “Got Milk?” book covers because you forgot today was hold-up-your-books-and-let-me-make-sure-you-all-remembered-to-cover-your-books day

-wrapping your book in the most makeshift way, with no tape and holding it up on the above day, hoping for the best

-hating those people who used the tight, fluorescent, sticky book covers

-drawing a penis on someone’s book cover

-writing your initials over a heart and the person you like’s initials under a heart on your book cover

-three weeks later violently crossing out the initials under the heart and replacing them with other initials, which will go through the same process after the duration of three weeks

-still not knowing which one is the numerator and which one is the denominator

-still having to think about whether “non-fiction” means true or made up

-a teacher inquiring if anyone in class is "good with electronics"

-covering your hands in glue and anxiously waiting for it to dry so you can peel it off

-being grossed out while glancing at someone peeling glue off their hands and quickly remarking, “I thought that was skin”

-convincing a friend to let you cut his hair with the plastic, safety scissors

-the “What is popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular” banner

-mistaking the dark purple crayon with no wrapper as a black crayon

-drawing a sun in the top left corner of your page with a smiley face, inferring that if the entire sun had been present (not just the bottom right quarter) just that fraction of the sun would have the face

-drawing long yellow beams shining from the sun, and shorter orange beams in-between the yellow ones

-sitting Indian style

-wishing your last name was shorter while filling out a scan-tron

-wondering if it is okay to have six B answers in a row on a scan-tron

-wondering why “Only A & C” had to be thrown in there with “All of the Above”

-freaking out because the person next to you has a scan-tron with a pattern that looks nothing similar to yours

-taking the time to remember 5 letters at a time while cheating off of someone and putting little dabs on the corresponding bubble to be completely filled in later

-a teacher using the last question on an examination to portray his/her sense of humor and kindness (i.e. Q: Which of the following is NOT an element on the current Periodic Table? A: oxygen B: helium C: potassium D: hot dog buns

-words on a test such as “NOT”, “always”, and “ONLY” being bold, italics, capitalized, or all three

-feeling uneasy when the person you are cheating off of uses his eraser

-pretending to use your eraser just to toy with the person you know is cheating off of you

-using minimum motion and maximum speed to flick a crinkled up note on the desk of your friend

-deliberately knocking your pencil onto the ground so you can fetch a note that has just been delivered in the above fashion

-playing MASH

-asking someone for a pen and getting the response, “no, but I have a pencil”

-shooting an elastic band off of a pencil

-breaking a pencil on purpose so you can walk to the pencil sharpener

-your pounding heart rate during the entire duration of a test you are cheating on

-the stickiness of the glue stick cap

-beginning to slowly zipper your backpack with three minutes left in class, letting the teacher know it is time to let you leave

-a teacher saying “Woah! Woah! Woah! We still have three minutes” when the above takes place

-“We are not leaving until everyone is quiet”

-every child in class saying “Shhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!” in response to the above quote by their teacher

-the hardships to come if one of your friends gets a hold of your locker combination

-how awesome having a locker was those first few days

-forgetting your locker combination the first day back from Christmas break

-rounding up to the nearest hour when looking at the clock to boost your morale

-complaining to your friend that the teacher never calls on you

-trying to make your friend laugh while he is in front of the camera on picture day

-everyone hunching over the window sill when it is snowing outside

-pointing out the window and yelling “Oh man, it’s snowing!” when it really isn’t to catch everyone in bewilderment

-doing so miserably on an exam that you have no choice, but to pretend you can care less

-telling your Mom that “everyone in the entire class did bad”

-coloring in the white blotches on your white and black composition notebook

-putting tape on someone’s back

-knowing you will do at least 20% better than you actually did on your quiz when a teacher says, “Grade the paper of the person next to you”

-hoping that the new seating chart seats you next to the girl/boy you like

-a boy-girl seating arrangement

-receiving a sticker on your forehead for receiving an outstanding test grade

-making a Christmas ornament out of everyday household products

-wanting to be the person that clicks the button to change the slide during a film strip

-realizing that the picture shown on the projector does not match with the audio, surmising that you have failed to keep up with the “Beep” noises

-shooting a crumpled up piece of paper into a wastebasket

-getting caught missing the wastebasket with the paper and having to properly dispose of it

-feeling guilty when you stick a flavorless piece of gum under a desk

-playing “7-up” and cheating by putting your head in your arms, but opening your eyes and taking note of the shoes the person that puts your thumb down is wearing

-complaining that the classroom fan “isn’t getting you” on a scorching June day