This past week I spent some time in an elementary school, training teachers in the use of my company’s reading software. The training went well, although nagging childhood nostalgia constantly threatened to decimate my attention. Elementary school: that magical time when the classroom teacher is beloved and her favor is curried, when it’s cool to be a good student, and when you don’t have to take a shower after gym class. Recess is taken for granted, doodling is a legitimate academic pursuit, and the social scene is fueled by cupcakes and pool parties, not by a fraught tincture of hormones and peer pressure.
When I entered the school, a taut line of children filed past me, silent and purposeful, conjuring instant memories of that weird time in life when you and your classmates could not transition from place to place without forming a line. (Sort of like living in Japan, I guess.)
The training was held in the school’s computer lab, which provoked wonder instead of nostalgia. Why, when I was in elementary school, the school had exactly one computer, and it sat in the library as if on exhibition. I have no idea if it served any practical purpose. We learned exactly three things about computers in elementary school: “This, children, is a computer,” said the librarian, pointing at the behemoth hot mess of plastic and fans. “This is a floppy disk,” she explains further, holding one up for our inspection. And, “You must never, ever touch the shiny parts of the floppy disk.”
This modern computer lab was well-furnished with 20+ compact personal computers and various audio-visual equipment. A color-laden bulletin board displayed grade-by-grade benchmarks for computer skills, such as “Kindergarten: learn to use mouse, logon, logout, start programs.” I felt vaguely threatened by these cyber-savvy kids, getting a 10-year head start on me. I remember my big challenge in kindergarten was using scissors.
It was a little surreal dealing with the teachers and school administrators as an equal; I felt residually cowed by their authority. The shoe was on the other foot — I was teaching them — and it wasn’t a shoe that I’d like to wear every day. Things went well, although…. teachers. Once they get to chatting, they are incorrigible.
When the training was over, the magnificent principal accompanied us out of the building. We passed lines of students as they snaked their way through the corridors. The kids looked at the principal with God-like respect, and — how pathetic am I?– I felt kinda cool for walking with the principal: that’s right, kids. I’m important. Then I felt truly cool because I realized that I’m playing some, tiny part in teaching these kids how to read. And I haven’t been that cool in school since the second grade, when my mom made ice cream cone cupcakes to celebrate my birthday with the class.
