It’s Labor Day, and as someone who writes a Monday column, I know all about holidays. On Memorial Day, New Year’s Day and Columbus Day, I am lucky if my son e-mails, “Good column, Mom!”
So here it is, Labor Day, and there is no one to commemorate the renewal of the school cycle. Well — there’s me. HELLO OUT THERE!
Silence.
When no one is out there, a speaker has a certain license. I can say things I would normally not say, like: I HATE THE BEGINNING OF SCHOOL!
See? I have not yet been fired, yet I have uttered a truth shared by both students and teachers.
All those new crayons and composition notebooks and sharpened pencils just make parents happy;they hold no magic for students, who clutch them like lifelines. They are sleep-deprived from anxiety and the knowledge that this year, at last, school will win and they will lose. Failure — this is the existential anxiety attacking eager-eyed students as they step off the school bus, all smiles, after Labor Day.
What a sham. We all pretend that knot in the stomach doesn’t exist, but it is as predictable as sleeplessness the night before the first day. Student ennui? Check back in May; there is none in September.
So students agonize alone, in silence. Perhaps it is appropriate that no one is reading this column, because teachers are as anxiety-ridden as students. Will our classes rise to the challenge? Will they be difficult? Will they do well on the test? Will they like us?
Those are, ironically, the same questions students agonize over. They wonder: Will I do well? Will my teachers be unreasonable? Will others like me?
We have the same unspoken anxieties, teachers and students, kindergarten to 12th grade. We return with a smile plastered on each of our faces, but we know what’s behind that smile: abject fear.
So on this day when no one is reading my column, I would like to say that, despite these fears, most teachers are reasonable, and most students thoroughly endearing. They meet one another with distrust, and end up supporting one another’s efforts.
Sometimes teachers even inspire their students, and vice versa. If my former student Stacey is one of the five people reading this right now, she should know that her courage in illness and adversity made me think I could do anything, too.
So — welcome to the new school year, students, parents and teachers. Even though you may not see this, take heart in the fact that all that pretending won’t mean that any of us wish other than the best for schoolchildren.
After all, someday they will be the ones not reading this column on holiday Mondays!
Erica Jacobs teaches at Oakton High School and George Mason University. E-mail her at [email protected].
