The great paradox of school is teachers always tell you to follow your dreams, yet you aren’t allowed to sleep in class. It’s something I always found difficult to understand. Just let me doze off for a few minutes and I'll start following my dreams.
I mention this because the start of a new school year looms less than two short weeks away. Summer vacation and all its grandeur is approaching its final days of face time. The summer of endless texts is about to be over.
That means it’s time to battle crowds for back-to-school shopping in order to save 50 cents on a three-ring binder. It’s time to update your cellphone because no self-respecting teen wants to be seen roaming the halls with last year’s model.
Undoubtedly, the single greatest thing about the first day of school in Warren County is I don’t have to be there. I always had a contentious relationship with school in that I enjoyed learning, I just didn’t want to be there, or be awake.
I had a running joke when teachers would holler at me and proclaim I couldn’t sleep in their class. The punchline would always be, “If you would quiet it down just a bit, then maybe I could sleep.”
Growing up, I always heard how it was important to pay attention in school and to soak up as much knowledge as possible because history always repeats itself. Maybe so, but it’s all new to me because I wasn’t listening the first time.
I should probably keep all of this information to myself because, now as a “responsible adult,” I need to develop a different mindset when it comes to school. I’m not exactly sure why I put "responsible adult" in quotes.
But now that I’m more mature, and with children of my own, I should set a positive example. I should talk about the importance of education, maybe even rifle off a couple clichés. After all, education is something no one can ever take away from you. And he who opens a school door closes a prison.
These are valuable sayings, but I believe President Theodore Roosevelt put it best when describing the significance of education: “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car. But if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”
Probably the biggest challenge in today’s classroom is maintaining discipline. I realize it can be tough, but I’ve never understood it when I get a call from a teacher saying one of my sons is misbehaving in class. My answer is always the same: I don’t call you when he misbehaves at home, so show me the same courtesy.
Yes, another school year is upon us with magnificent windows of learning ready to open. Of all the things I learned in school, this trivia question might be the one thing I remember the most.
Q: What's the only word in the English language that gets shorter when you add two letters?
A: Short.
Standard editor James Clark can be reached at 473-2191.