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Child Item

How was your first day at school?

freshpopcorn

Some of the local secondary schools are back this week.
My first day of junior infants was in the mid 1990's!
I just remember lot's of people's parents being around and meeting people from play school.
I also remember having a bag/lunch box/etc which was all new to me.
I had a terrible habit of walking in the door and dropping everything and sitting down. I was all over the place for those two years.
When I started first class I went to the CBS and I was delighted I was all grown up going to big school and I liked my teacher. I really settled down.
Secondary was fine. I wasn't really pushed about the whole thing. Having loads of new subjects/teachers/junior cert/etc didn't really bother me. I was just happy we could go down town for lunch!

How was your first day at school?

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Salary Negotiator

I barely remember what happened 30 days ago never mind 30+ years ago.

r93kaey5p2izun

I was disappointed to discover it was all playing and colouring and not proper school work. I idolised the teacher. There were 44 in the class, I don't know how she coped. I was just gone 4 and so excited to start. I remember my first day of playschool the previous year I had bawled crying and was devastated to leave my mammy. Soon discovered I loved it and was only dying to get to big school.

Dial Hard

I was 4 starting school, so 33 years ago. Remember it so well. I'm the youngest of five so I was DYING to go to school like everyone else. The teacher was Miss Murphy and she had black hair with a white stripe in the front like Pepe le Peu. I got put outside the classroom door for talking the very first morning and have a crystally vivid memory of thinking how unfair it was, that I was just excited. The headmistress came down the corridor while I was standing there, asked me why and I pretty much told her as much.

I got put at a table with a sign saying "Chatterbox" on it in the first few days of Senior Infants too, so to be fair to her, Miss Murphy may have been onto something.

Junkyard Tom

I can imagine aliens looking at humans and thinking 'What the fuck is this shit'? when we march five year old kids into education centres.

It's just not right.

Gregor Samsa

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

I can imagine aliens looking at humans and thinking 'What the fuck is this shit'? when we march five year old kids into education centres.

It's just not right.

Screw what they think. As long as they keep on with the anal probing, I’m not going to be lectured on what’s appropriate by damn aliens.

KathleenGrant

Over 50 years ago for me (and more) remember being scared going in but meeting a friend. We were best friends for 19 years. Then she died of cancer. Have never had as good a friend since.

ToddyDoody

I think I spent some of it hiding under my mother's dress.

[Deleted User]

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

I can imagine aliens looking at humans and thinking 'What the fuck is this shit'? when we march five year old kids into education centres.

It's just not right.

Hadn't really thought about it before, but I'd have thought school socialises children rather efficiently, tends to teach them resilience.

Having said that, boarding school for under-12s is a preposterous idea that was once seen as an ideal method of youth formation, so perhaps you have a point here.

AllForIt

I was quite enthusiastic about it. I remember I wore a pair of blue shorts. Not that it was my choice what I wore. I remember I was jealous of my older sisters school bag and I wanted one which I eventually got. I don't remember much about the day in class itself. I defiantly didn't brake down in tears or anything like that.

Arghus

Terrifying.

Zaph

Not a clue. It was 1971, there was a lot of acid dropped in the late 60s, and my recollection of those few years is pretty hazy. Obviously the two things aren't connected, I just have a crap memory.

HorseSea

45 years ago and remember it well!! At least I remember first day at Infants and Secondary, don't remember 1st day at Primary though - weird.

Infants was not too bad the head was a nun Mother Consulata and she took a shine to me for some reason, I was let home an hour before everyone else for the first few weeks. Being overheard telling my mother that she had "sh!te shiskers" meaning white whiskers to describe her beard didn't seem to cause any lasting problems :-) but I remember a few parents laughing and my mother going scarlet!

123654789

Not specific to Day 1 but I remember shiny greaseproof paper as bogroll.
It'd take the arse off ya

[Deleted User]

Arghus wrote: »

Terrifying.

Why?

It's a little bit disconcerting that many people (not everyone, but a lot of people) seem to have negative memories of their first day in a place of education. If a child is frightened and crying going to school, something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong.

paleoperson

phutyle wrote: »

First day of Junior Infants was in 1978. I remember it because I was put into the wrong class, then taken out half way through the day and put into the right one. I was 4 (almost 5), but I remember thinking “if they can’t get my class right, how the hell can I trust them with teaching me anything?”. I was put sitting beside a kid called Alan who became my friend but tragically died of a brain haemorrhage in 1st class.

Ms Roper was my teacher. She was old and kind. Retired at the end of that year.

I'm gonna call bs. There is no way a person 4 or 5 thinks like that at that time. At that age your biggest concerns are if other children will accept you and your parents will come to collect you, if you can do the work you're given. You're not sitting back and critiquing the teachers.

[Deleted User]

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Why?

It's a little bit disconcerting that many people (not everyone, but a lot of people) seem to have negative memories of their first day in a place of education. If a child is frightened and crying going to school, something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong.

Some kids just develop that separation from their parents later than others, it's not a bad thing it's just that everyone develops at their own rate. I wasn't particularly independent, but other kids were running in every day.

It's not necessarily a sign that somethings gone wrong.

[Deleted User]

paleoperson wrote: »

I'm gonna call bs. There is no way a person 4 or 5 thinks like that at that time. At that age your biggest concerns are if other children will accept you and your parents will remember to collect you, if you can do the work you're given.

That's simply not true and very unfair on that poster.

Just this morning, my daughter (aged 19 months) looked up from her Times Literary Review, swirled her spectacles in her fingers and, with her other hand, drummed her fingers impatiently on the bureau. "Daddy!" she enquired with her most refined Mid-atlantic accent, "Daddy is it part of the human condition to glorify one's past achievements, or to live vicariously through one's own children, to compensate for a failure of responsibility in one's own life, ie resort to 'bad faith', if we must invoke Sartre?"

I gotta admit the little tyke had a point.

Athdara

Only Remember getting on the big yellow school bus on my 1st day in Primary school, don’t remember anything else.

Will never forget my 1st day of Secondary school- my Mum collected me as it was a half day and told me in the car that my friend had died that day of meningitis. I idolised him & to this day I get a lump in my throat when i think of him 32 years later.

[Deleted User]

People don't remember things in detail from before the age of four and clear memories aren't formed until later. Usually what we think is a memory is a visualization of something we were told, and all memories of early childhood are unreliable as when we remember something, we are thinking of how we thought of it the last time we remembered. It's a sort of Chinese whisper situation.

It does seem unlikely that a four year old was assessing the future teaching ability of unknown persons based on a misdirection on their first day in a strange place, but who knows.

BuboBubo

It was in 1978 and I remember I couldn't wait to go home because I hated it!

[Deleted User]

Candie wrote: »

People don't remember things in detail from before the age of four and clear memories aren't formed until later. Usually what we think is a memory is a visualization of something we were told, and all memories of early childhood are unreliable as when we remember something, we are thinking of how we thought of it the last time we remembered. It's a sort of Chinese whisper situation.

It does seem unlikely that a four year old was assessing the future teaching ability of unknown persons based on a misdirection on their first day in a strange place, but who knows.

it could well be adult words for a child's feeling as well

[Deleted User]

Candie wrote: »

Some kids just develop that separation from their parents later than others, it's not a bad thing it's just that everyone develops at their own rate. I wasn't particularly independent, but other kids were running in every day.

It's not necessarily a sign that somethings gone wrong.

Separation anxiety isn't "normal"(that is, objectively normal, it is normative).

You're absolutely correct that everyone develops at their own rate. When I was a child, i barely spoke (and have been making up for it ever since) -- was allowed to develop at my own pace and everything was alright. Great, but we're talking here about children being alarmed and in distress, or fear.

In other words, we're talking here about a manifestation of anxiety. I don't think it should ever be deemed normal for a kid to descend into a deep level of distress because of a choice that an adult has made. I also don't want to hold other parents up to impossible standards here. But if you're going to send a child to school, would you not at least make sure their socialisation has begun and they are prepared? Otherwise, it's just stress the child doesn't need.

Junkyard Tom

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Hadn't really thought about it before, but I'd have thought school socialises children rather efficiently, tends to teach them resilience.

That's how it should function ideally. A more critical appraisal might view schooling as obedience training, as selecting rule-followers.

That's before we even consider the morality of separating children from their nurturers at such a tender age.

Sweaty Balls

First day was a disaster. Had to get up in front of the entire class and introduce myself. Nervous AF and started to stutter. Entire class laughing at me. One little boy is practically having a fit laughing at me.

I honestly just lost it and smacked the little prick as hard as I could in the face. Entire class goes silent. The kid I hit starts balling, a couple of the girls start screaming. The teacher next door rushes in, looks at me and screams 'what did you do??' And runs off to get the principal.

Long story short, I was never allowed teach again and had a lot of explaining to do down the station.

[Deleted User]

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

That's how it should function ideally. A more critical appraisal might view schooling as obedience training, as selecting rule-followers.

That's before we even consider the morality of separating children from their nurturers at such a tender age.

The first thing school teaches is conformity, and four or five seems tragically young to have to conform to anything.

L1011

It was two weeks late, because the schools heating system collapsed, flooding the building badly and it didn't reopen until mid September. That is about all I can remember of it weirdly and it was clearly something I was told after the fact

They had at least one acclimatisation day for junior infants; and the teacher had been a classmate of my mother in secondary elsewhere in the country some decades beforehand so was introduced like some auntie basically. That probably removed any shock for me.

[Deleted User]

I remember very clearly my first day at infant school, a 10-15 minute walk from our house. On the way we came across a dead curly haired black dog on the road, with a pool of blood coming out of its open mouth. I pulled my mother over to examine it and asked why an ambulance had not come for it...going on to say I would become an animal doctor to fix poor dogs. Mum said that was Dr Coffey’s dog, she being the pediatrician who looked after me when very young. Mum said “I’ll have to call into Dr Coffey on my way back and tell her the bad news”.

We continued to school and I insisted on wearing a white poodle mask into class. I told my mother to go away and sat at my little desk. The teacher started asking our names and I thought it would be fun to make up a name and confuse her, so I said “my name is Foxy”. The whole morning she was calling me Foxy, and I was laughing my face off behind the poodle mask.

Some kids around me started crying and bawling, and I turned to the boy next to me and said “Im bored, listening to all that screaming and crying. Why are they crying? I’m fed up”. The boy responded “you’d better get used to it, you are at school for the rest of your life”. I was most disappointed that teacher never started teaching that morning as I was eager to listen and learn as long as it was interesting to me. Next day they put me into a more advanced class as Mum had already taught me the basics of reading, and at age 4 I was very ready to learn everything. Pity I didn’t remain the eager pupil later in my school career!

[Deleted User]

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Separation anxiety isn't "normal"(that is, objectively normal, it is normative).

You're absolutely correct that everyone develops at their own rate. When I was a child, i barely spoke (and have been making up for it ever since) -- was allowed to develop at my own pace and everything was alright. Great, but we're talking here about children being alarmed and in distress, or fear.

In other words, we're talking here about a manifestation of anxiety. I don't think it should ever be deemed normal for a kid to descend into a deep level of distress because of a choice that an adult has made. I also don't want to hold other parents up to impossible standards here. But if you're going to send a child to school, would you not at least make sure their socialisation has begun and they are prepared? Otherwise, it's just stress the child doesn't need.

Sometimes things are achingly simple, and kids are just frightened of strange places. It's a natural and good fear for the most part, but usually at that age they encounter strange people and places in the company of their parents - at least for a time until they're settled, but not once they walk through the classroom door. I think my nieces and nephews had two orientation mornings at their schools, the boys were fine (twins, who had each other) but she, a more sensitive and attached child, took weeks to settle.

Most kids will cope well, but those that are distressed might simply have more difficulty in dealing with strange scenarios without a parent. It doesn't mean the parents didn't try to prepare them.

[Deleted User]

Candie wrote: »

Sometimes things are achingly simple, and kids are just frightened of strange places.

A child of four years encounters strange places all the time. They have been almost nowhere.

There has to be something else, perhaps the exchange of parental control from the parent to a stranger -- whatever it is there is something, for some children, that makes the first day of school very distressing.

That's unnecessary, as most of us know who liked school. It seems avoidable via properly socialising a child to new experiences, with adults as well as with other children.

I just cannot get my head around the idea that a child would be reduced to tears and even panic on what should be one of the most exciting days of their lives. It is not normal.

Peregrine

I started school more than a month after everyone else. That was tricky. I was 3 years and 9 months old. Terribly early age to be going to school, I think. I took to the learning side very well, the socialising not so much.

I'm told that I cried a lot on the first day and that I was fine after that. I can't say I remember much. A memory that I have of crying outside the classroom is in the kindergarten building of the school that was built several years after I started so I don't exactly trust those 'memories'.