September has always heralded a new beginning for me. A season of renewed energy. As a child, the new school year brought a new teacher, perhaps a new classmate, and certainly a chance to do better academically.
This feeling of excitement continued through my high school and college years. Later I taught English in Thailand as a Peace Corps volunteer. In that tropical climate there were no turning leaves or crisp air to signal that special time. But there was the same anticipation, and a challenge that I must do my best.
When my sons were enrolled in school, that anticipation was doubled with my hopes for both of them to make life-long friends and excel in their studies. They were still in elementary school when I was hired by a small college in my neighborhood.
Each September in my position as the director of international students there, I welcomed young men and women from all over the world who I’d communicated with only by mail. It was an exciting and satisfying time for me as I spoke each of their names for the first time and shook their hands. I gave that greeting with hope that each of them would make a smooth transition from their country’s culture and system of learning into the American culture and system.
Even after I retired from that job I’d get a pang of nostalgia and a surge of energy each fall when I saw schoolchildren in my neighborhood, neatly dressed with freshly combed hair hurrying to school in the morning, and returning in late afternoon, sometimes with clothes in disarray and messy hair after a sports program.
Throughout the central plains, the corn is ripening and will be picked, and the leaves will perform their annual magic trick of turning from green to vibrant colors, but this September, in the age of coronavirus, all is in question. Will there be that feeling of new beginnings? Will I hear my grandson’s excitement about his new classroom? Will I watch the schoolchildren in my neighborhood?
In DC my nine-year-old grandson is about to begin a new year in a new school. Will he be learning online for a full day at home? Or will he attend school physically for part of each day or of each week? Or will his school’s initial plan have to be jettisoned as the flu season begins?
Everyone I speak to, in person or on the phone, no matter where they live, or whether they have young children or young grandchildren or no children at all, echoes my question. What about the students?