Granddaughter Megan and I text each other usually over weekends. When I inquired last Sunday evening how the first four days of her seventh grade classes went, her response sentence included the word “difficult.”
I can close my eyes and recall both Carrie and Kevin’s integration into seventh grade. Ya, difficult was a wise choice of words from Megan. Changes in classmates, routines and even physical locations all add up to many adjustments.
If I go back even farther into my memories of my seventh grade it seemed like the same-old, same-old. All eight grades of us were in the one school room of Renville County Rural District 34. Mae Podratz returned as the one and only teacher for the 40 plus of us students.
In many ways I believe Megan and many other kids might have enjoyed the experience and the comradery of kids of various ages all pooled together. There were no “clicks” or “the in group” or “nerds.” We were one just like the other. Each of the eight grades had one on one with the teacher while the remaining grades were assigned work. The teacher floated throughout the day from grade to grade, to child to child.
I am not sure how it all worked when it came to lesson plans that needed to be approved of by the County Superintendent. For myself, when I entered public school for my ninth grade there was no catch up from what their curriculum had been. Amazing.
Megan . . . Grammie hears you. There is way more to school days than the academic pressure in this day and age. That is all I have to say about that. I assured Megan that I believed in her and that in time things would level out. That being said, it doesn’t mean my heart isn’t breaking for her and so many children finding their ways during the first weeks of the new school year.