Me and my bestie Anne. My kindergarten teacher died a few weeks ago. I was shocked, not only because I’m no spring chicken, but because if you’d asked me when I was 5 how hold I thought my teacher was, I would have guessed 110. But that was 40 years ago, and it turns out she was only 56 and lived to a whopping 96! There’s not much I remember about the age of 5 or before that, Virginia Reeder I remember. I was a very shy 4 or 5 year old who didn’t say much. I refused to remove my Holly Hobby hat that I wore to school the first day. Virginia didn’t care, she held my hand and made me feel like I was the only kid in the class. The school, Esperanza (meaning hope in Spanish) was a wonderful outdoor school full of playgrounds that I could probably draw from memory to this day.
It’s a gift when something can bring back those earliest memories. The ones that we lose so quickly in our rush to become “grown-up.” I have two photos from my time at Esperanza, they were from my last year there in the 4th grade. Happy-go-lucky might describe me looking at these pictures, and I was. I can look back and laugh at my "kid stress" from those days. When I broke my foot and was terrified of going to school with a cast on because I’d look different than everyone else. When I had to be Hansel in the school play of Hansel and Gretel because I was the only girl with short hair and no boy wanted to do it :) Even in Kindergarten I recall the terror that I felt when Virginia said she was going to take down the alphabet lining the top of the blackboard because we should know it by now. The fear that gripped me was real, but admittedly I did manage to remember all 26 letters.
I would trade those days at Esperanza for nothing. I have had a lifelong love of learning and school and I’m sure Virginia had no small part in that. If you haven’t done it in a while, dig out some old Kindergarten photos and thank your teacher while you still can.
Thank you Virginia Reeder.
Copyright (c) 2016, Family at Your Fingertips, Jodi Bash
It’s a gift when something can bring back those earliest memories. The ones that we lose so quickly in our rush to become “grown-up.” I have two photos from my time at Esperanza, they were from my last year there in the 4th grade. Happy-go-lucky might describe me looking at these pictures, and I was. I can look back and laugh at my "kid stress" from those days. When I broke my foot and was terrified of going to school with a cast on because I’d look different than everyone else. When I had to be Hansel in the school play of Hansel and Gretel because I was the only girl with short hair and no boy wanted to do it :) Even in Kindergarten I recall the terror that I felt when Virginia said she was going to take down the alphabet lining the top of the blackboard because we should know it by now. The fear that gripped me was real, but admittedly I did manage to remember all 26 letters.
I would trade those days at Esperanza for nothing. I have had a lifelong love of learning and school and I’m sure Virginia had no small part in that. If you haven’t done it in a while, dig out some old Kindergarten photos and thank your teacher while you still can.
Thank you Virginia Reeder.
Copyright (c) 2016, Family at Your Fingertips, Jodi Bash
Our losing soccer team, The Esperanza Oranges...really, Oranges.
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