Wednesday, September 1, 2010

On the Outside Looking In

Spot! Congrats on your very first day of school this year! One down and 182 to go, but who's counting? Certainly not me. I love my new doggies already this year.

On the way into school today, I saw the sweetest thing...and it really stuck with me all day. Two very young guys were cutting the lawn early this morning as I pulled into school. One, backed up his tractor and tipped his hat and waited for me to pull my car all the way in. The other, a kind of big guy, but also very young too, stopped what he was doing lifted his shades, smiled broadly and waved. And then his expression changed, and I could see a kind of sadness in his eyes. I am a storyteller, so it may have been my imagination or my teacher's intuition, but I think I knew what was going on here.

Both of these guys were recent high school grads, I think. I'm pretty certain it was the very first day that they weren't going to school. They may have even been two kids that hated school, were outside, hands-on learning types who were trapped for twelve years in school. Or maybe they were all of the above and yet somehow because of their very sweet teachers, they managed to have a fondness for school. Whatever the truth is, I'm sure I'll never know. But it made me think about all the kids that struggle in school, and how I can make it better for them here. When I left school today, I stopped and admired the beautifully manicured lawn.