A grown-up returns to kindergarten in pursuit of learning and happiness
I’m officially done with third grade — high five!
It’s a good thing, because I’m out of scary stories. I had to mine the Internet for stories like “The Hairy Toe” and “The Hook.” After three days of constantly performing, I felt like the kids’ little trained monkey, dancing on command. Turns out, that kind of popularity is exhausting. I hid out in the teachers’ lounge at lunch and enjoyed some grown-up conversation that didn’t conclude with the words “And she was never heard from again.”
I’m still not sleeping much, 5-6 hours per night. I’ve been going nonstop since school started and tend to write until the wee hours of the dawn. I may be the most workaholic elementary school student that ever lived. Tomorrow I’m stopping in at school to check out Picture Day, and then I’m taking the rest of the day off to do errands and pick up my boyfriend Darren, who’s visiting from Mississippi.
Here are a few highlights of this week, which I’ll try to expand upon in later posts:
Next week, I’ll move on to being a big 4th grader, then a top dog 5th grader. It’ll be my last week of elementary school, and then it’s on to become an angsty, pimple-faced middle schooler. I see much eye-rolling and crying in the bathroom in my future.
Reschool Yourself is a year-long exploration of how school shaped the person I became, and how I decide to educate myself from now on. This fall I'm returning to my old classrooms week by week, to understand how school influenced my identity and to regain the happiness and creativity of childhood. In the spring I'll pursue learning opportunities in the U.S. and abroad to become as autonomous as possible. I'll share my experiences of "reschooling" and personal development through this website and provide a forum for readers of all ages to exchange their own. This site is a place to tell our stories about education: our experiences past and present, and our vision for future generations.
— Melia Dicker
Margaret
September 12th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
1. Yay for the dragon illustration!
2. I can’t wait to hear the boy crying reaction story- you know how I’m into gender issues!