HOLLADAY - The bell at Crestview Elementary rang at 8:45 a.m. Miss Sander's first-grade class was already waiting outside. I pulled up short when I saw them. They were standing in line.
It's been 50 years since my own first day of first grade, but it came back in a rush. I hated standing in line.
Unfortunately it turned out to be an essential part of first grade. This was going to be way tougher than I thought.
It was my editor's idea that I spend the first day of first grade all over again, and as a student.
Miss Sanders cheerfully pointed me to the line. Twenty-two 6-year-olds turned and stared at me. Loaded down with backpacks and water bottles, they looked like a Hobbit infantry platoon. I could read their minds: "Wow, I hope I don't fail as many times as that kid."
Every genetic marker for disobedience in my body was vibrating. Waiting to file into class, I had an unsettling thought. It came to me that school may change but students don't.
Then it was time to go in. Miss Sanders' classroom was in the bowels of a school built during the Eisenhower Administration. It doesn't have air conditioning. By 10 a.m., the temperature in the classroom was in the 90s.
The remedy for this was to allow students to have water bottles on their desks - with water in them. If I had a water bottle on my desk in '58, the kid next to me would have been soaking wet the entire day.
The heat was miserable. Take the most eager-to-learn kid you can find, stuff him full of carbs for lunch, and then put him in a boiler room and you'll be lucky if he isn't unconscious in a minute.
Class began with a public address announcement from the principal just like in '58. Principal Venieta Hunt welcomed kids to school. Then we said the pledge of allegiance, took time for a personal happy thought that was definitely not a prayer, and got down to business.
Each of us received a name tag in a plastic sleeve on a lanyard. We were given specific and lengthy instructions to not eat them.
Miss Sanders has the patience of cast iron. Despite ample provocation (including some from me) I never saw an inkling of irritation in her. The closest she came to discipline was a "Thank You" list she kept on the blackboard.
Actually, it was a white board with Dry Erase markers. I wondered how a chalkless education system could even function. What do you threaten bad kids with if you can't keep them after school to pound erasers?
Our first assignment was to draw a picture of ourselves, write our names under it, and then, put our pencils down and wait quietly for the rest of the class to finish.
"Don't yell out that you're done," Miss Sanders said.
As soon as we finished our pictures, we yelled, "Teacher, I'm done!"
It went like that the entire day. Miss Sanders said only a half a dozen things, but she said each of them about 500 times.
We made Graham cracker feet with marshmallow toes. Each of us got a cracker we nibbled into the shape of a foot. Five marshmallow toes were then distributed to each student to affix to the cracker. After that, we ate them.
As the day wore on, I looked around for a kindred spirit. Every class in every school has a Kirby.
Every teacher spends 50 percent of her energy and 90 percent of her patience on him. When I finally spotted him, it was like seeing myself 50 years ago.
If the rest of the class was sitting quietly and listening to Miss Sanders, Ernie was off to one side, kicked back, arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Or he was whacking some hapless classmate for revenge or just entertainment.
I scooched my desk next to Ernie. He loaned me his crayons. We drew pictures of the class favorite getting hit in the head with baseballs. Then I helped encourage him to behave by telling him that last year Miss Sanders bit off a kid's ear.
Class ended about the time my spine gave out. At four times their size and seven times their age, I didn't fare as well crossed-legged on the floor as the other kids.
Leaving the building, I thanked Miss Sanders and each of the teachers I saw. That they do their jobs at all is amazing. That they do them for what we pay them is a miracle.
Note to state Legislature: "Do not build another school without [a word I didn't learn until third grade] air conditioning!"
Robert Kirby -Salt Lake Tribune
