First Day of Pre-School

For a year Ava's been watching the construction of the new Durham Elementary School (grades k-8). The tiny old one-story white school had been demolished, and in its place grew a multi-level, multi-wing palace of a school, with a big new playground and several new ball fields. She's been kind of proprietary toward the construction, because it was "her" school that was being built.

We've been telling her that she'll start school when she's five - kindergarten in the fall of 2011. So on August 24th when we went to the Open House, she was still thinking that she had another year to wait before she'd be walking the corridors of her new school.

Gram and Gramp met us at the school for the Open House, and we were led on a guided tour by two eighth grade boys in white shirts and ties, with little notes on recipe cards that they read (in 12-year-old-boy-monotones) in each area they took us to. They were cute - took the job seriously, and came to life when they weren't reading from the cards but rather were telling us their own knowledge of the school and its features, and I even learned quite a bit about their social lives while Gram, Gramp, Patrick and Ava would wander off to look at something.

We were amazed at the beauty of the school, and how well-designed it is. The school has many large south-facing windows to harness natural light, and the boys showed us the reflective system that sends light into the room when the sun is high. A sensor adjusts the interior lighting accordingly. A solar panel on the roof heats the water for the building. The boys also told us that the classrooms are equipped with hearing assistance systems — speakers mounted in the ceiling to ensure that teachers, who will wear special voice enhancement devices, can be heard throughout the classroom.

All the classrooms also are equipped with projectors (hanging from the ceilings) and interactive white boards - the days of slate and chalk are long, LONG gone! We happened to find a real teacher in one of the rooms, and she gave us a demonstration of the white board - she was still learning how to use it herself, so we had a few laughs with her while she stumbled around with it. Of course, it was one of the 12-year olds who finally figured out the step she needed to take to get it to work, and then she was able to show us the capabilities of the system.

The whiteboard is connected to the teacher's computer, so she can display images from the computer screen onto the board, and using a special stylus can mark up the board during the lesson - and then actually save the work onto her computer. This will be helpful for going back to review lessons and also to share with kids that may have missed school that day. Very cool! Of course, Grandpa, being an old professor himself, was extra fascinated by all the new technology, and I think could have stayed much longer chatting with the teachers!

The large library, the art and music rooms, the computer lab with 23 new computers, the gorgeous gymnasium, and the state-of-the-art laboratory with a second-floor balcony so kids can do experiments outside - we were awestruck. The school has a wonderful energy, also, probably owing to the teachers and students feeling so happy to be out of that dank, old school into this bright, shining example of modern education! During the tour, the boys took us by a room called "Laugh & Learn" and told us that it was a pre-school that would be starting after Labor Day. On the way out, Patrick and Kay stopped by the office to find out more about it. They were given a phone number to call, and later that day Patrick had Ava enrolled!

We decided to start her out with two 3-hour sessions (9-12) on Weds and Thurs mornings. In her 4-1/2 years of life, Ava had always been with either Patrick and me, or Gram and Gramp. She had spent maybe an hour or two with a handful of other people - Kerry or Nannie - but these had been far and few between, and we were concerned how she would handle being separated from us.

A packet of information came in the mail, inviting us to an ice cream social at the pre-school the Thursday afternoon before Labor Day, and included within was a letter to Ava from her new teacher, "Ms. V". In the letter, Ms. V tells Ava that she her favorite activity is snowmobiling, and that she camped on an island this summer, and that her favorite food is lobster. This letter was very helpful in warming Ava up to the idea of having a teacher, especially a teacher that enjoyed the same things she did!

On the afternoon of the ice cream social, she picked a cucumber to bring for Ms. V (but then forgot it at home). She dressed in her best school outfit - her purple knit shirt with the big black buttons and her lavender skirt. Gram and Gramp met us there, and we walked down to the Laugh & Learn room. It was chaos. There seemed to be a thousand little boys running around and building ramps to race cars and bumping past timid little girls and knocking past parents who were just standing around not knowing what to do, smiling politely at each other. In the midst of it, Ms. V emerged and came over to meet Ava.

Ms. V is very young and pretty and we could tell that Ava liked her instantly. She showed Ava where her cubby was, and then we kind of lost her in the crowd again. I took Ava over to a little table, where we sat down until we saw the ice cream was being served over by the cubbies and we ventured over. Ava timidly accepted a bowl of ice cream and we carried it back over to our table. This was where all the sprinkles, chocolate sauce, and cherries had been staged, so there was quite a crowd elbowing and jockeying for the condiments. Ava quietly watched the action all around her, not wanting any of the toppings, and daintily ate her little bowl of ice cream. I was thinking to myself, Oh my Lord. She's NEVER going to want to come back to this!

After ice cream, Kay and I walked around the room with her, looking at the books and some of the toys. She was happy to stop at the little toy kitchen and go through the plastic food and appliances, but seemed relieved when it was time to leave. She didn't talk too much about it that evening, and we let the subject drop.

We purposely didn't talk about school in the days leading up to her first day, but we had to discuss it with her the day before. She got very anxious, and tried to tell us that she wasn't 5 yet!! So we were wrong; it wasn't time to start school yet!! We did our best to explain that this would be "pre-school" and that she was the right age for that, but she didn't quite buy it. She said that Ms. V really wasn't as pretty as she had been in her picture on the letter, and all those kids were too wild.

The next morning, she woke up at 7:30 on her own, and we were glad we didn't have to wake her up to get ready for school. She said many times that she didn't want to go ("I'm SCARED!!"), but we managed to get breakfast into her between bouts of tears. But then when it came time to get dressed, the melt-down began in earnest. She was in her underwear and curled up in a ball so I couldn't put the rest of her clothes on, sobbing that she wasn't going to go.

I walked away and left her in the bedroom while I put away some things in the kitchen, letting her calm down. When I went back to her, I said, "OK Ava - you're going to school. You can either get your clothes on, or you can go to school in your underwear, which would be very embarrassing." Then there seemed to be a turning point, like when a person finally acknowledges that they have no choice but to walk to the gallows.

She calmly put her clothes on while her tears dried, and walked to the car wiping her nose. I asked her if she'd like me to put some tissues in her backpack in case she cried again later in school, and she said that, yes, she would. So with Teddy on her lap and a backpack full of tissues (and baby carrots and apple juice), we drove off to school. We put in "Shady Grove", her favorite song, and all three of us sang out loud until we pulled into the parking lot, and Ava didn't say a thing about having to leave Teddy in the car.

By this time, Ava was cheerful and excited, and marched happily down the hallway to her class. Ms. V was there to meet her, and only a few other kids were in the room. We had told Ava that the class wouldn't be as wild as it had been during the ice cream social, because brothers and sisters wouldn't be there, and this seemed to be the case. The room was calm and quiet. We went in and hung her stuff in her cubby, gave her a hug and a kiss, and then she happily went off with Ms. V.When we picked her up at noon, we found her busily putting things away and helping Ms. V pick up the room. It was so cute to see her go to her cubby and sling her backpack onto her shoulders, just like a real schoolgirl. She wouldn't even take it off when she got into her car seat, and chatted all the way home and off and on through the day and into the evening about how the day had been, and about the rules she learned (she liked them; they made sense to her), and about the boys that had gotten in trouble, and about playing on the playground. She had thoroughly enjoyed the day, and was looking forward to going back the next morning!