Second Grade Lessons

Ah, the first day of school. The photos are flooding my Facebook feed as children across the country head back to school in droves. There have been many tears shed by parents as those tiny kindergarten kiddos have climbed the steps of the yellow buses and headed off into the gaping mouth of the educational system. There are muted cheers as well, as the somewhat rudderless days of summer fun and patched together child care give way to the semblance of order that the school year brings to us. With the first Ashland Arrows football game under our belts, all is right with the world!

The lovely Madelyn Simone is now officially a second grader who no longer wistfully looks back at her sister and Nana as she boards the bus. Since Teacher Becky joined our family last summer, our daughter-in-law has become the go-to person for questions pertaining to school. “So what will I learn in second grade, Aunt Becky?,” Madelyn’s enquiring mind wants to know. “Story-writing, more sight words, earth systems and life systems in science, and maybe even a start at multiplication,” Becky suggested.

What did I learn in second grade at Fletcher Elementary School in the 1960s? Memory is hazy, but a couple of lessons come to mind. First was the love of reading, instilled in me rather than taught. When my mom went to school for a parent-teacher conference, apparently Mrs. Gretzel commented on my choice of reading materials: Dear Ann Landers. Yes, I was reading the paper each day in second grade, and I was probably telling my friends about something I’d read in the advice column. Oops.

I’m sure our teacher emphasized the memorization of addition and subtraction facts, engaged us with the magic of simple science demonstrations, and entertained us with the exploits of the characters in “The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew,” a book I haven’t thought about in more than half a century. She also encouraged our on-going literary efforts, including the requisite “what did you do this summer?” essay. In our family circle, I’m best known for my report on the summer of the broken arm, writing and illustrating the discovery of worms (maggots) in my cast when it was removed.  

Another lesson from second grade was a much more difficult one, learned in the context of a classmate’s diagnosis with leukemia. My mother and I visited her once or twice, and in our helplessness in the face of her devastating illness, we created a sunshine basket for her with a little surprise for each day. Cindy Doel was seven when she died. “Life is difficult,” M. Scott Peck tells us in “The Road Less Traveled,” and Cindy’s death was heartbreaking proof of that truth. 

As a former Tonawanda resident recently noted in his Facebook post, there was one lesson we didn’t learn in that school, in that community, at least in real life. He lamented the fact that he never really knew a black person as a friend until he went to college. Yes, really. Even though we were only a few miles from the Buffalo city limits, we could have been in another country, as our community was not integrated at all. The only person of color I remember from those days was Calvin Twoguns, a Native American boy in my class. In the early 60s, it’s just the way it was, at least in our community. Until I experienced the world beyond our suburban enclave, both through literature and experience, I just didn’t know of the richness of connection with the “red and yellow, black and white” we innocently sang about in Sunday School – but never met.

We may learn all we need to know in kindergarten, as author Robert Fulghum suggests, supplemented by our second grade accomplishments. Yet our ability – and desire –  to learn doesn’t end in elementary school. Since I’m not up to tackling physics or learning Chinese, I’ll claim Queen Noor’s words for what I’m seeking out this school year: “If we are to prosper together in our increasingly small world, we must listen to – and learn from each other’s stories.” Over coffee or the back fence, I’m listening.