I learned through my parents and former classmates, many whom are now among my Facebook friends, that the elementary school where I went for kindergarten through fifth grade is closing at the end of this school year.

The closing of Plainfield Elementary has left me a bit nostalgic, and all sorts of memories have been coming back, reminding me of the wonderful,  relatively innocent times when we were all wrapped up in learning the times tables and the state capitols and didn’t even yet know about the existence of things like politics and credit limits. We certainly learned a lot of important basic things during those years, but it’s interesting how, reflecting on it now, what really sticks with me is the really important life lessons I learned without knowing it at the time. I guess maybe Robert Fulghum was really on to something with “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”

In kindergarten, I learned that it’s not always a good thing to be the smart kid. I came to kindergarten a bit advanced. My parents had done a great job teaching me to read before I got there. Mrs. Perkins knew I’d be bored sitting around while everyone else in the class learned to read. So, a few times a week, she had the rest of the class do group activities while she sat down with me to help me write books. While this did do big things to advance my language skills, it also had an unexpected side-effect. When I started school, I was a painfully shy kid and I had a tough time making friends simply because I was too afraid to try. And now that I was being separated from my classmates to write books, I was missing out on valuable opportunities to improve my social skills. In fact, that ended up negating much of the benefit of the special attention I got from the teacher: I’m pretty sure the plan was for me to get good enough to skip a grade somewhere along the line. But, a few years later, although my language skills continued to be more advanced than most of my classmates’, my social skills were behind enough that it wasn’t worth the risk to jump me forward a year. It took me until around my junior year in high school to catch up socially with the rest of my class. I don’t blame Mrs. Perkins for what happened; she was only trying to help me. I remember her as one of the kindest, most patient people I’ve known and she gets credit for kindling the kind of passion I have for writing that drove me to write this.

I also had my acting debut in kindergarten and learned that it’s important to make the best of whatever situation you find yourself in. Due to my chronic shyness, I was given the silent role of the cat in our production of Peter Rabbit. Well, it wasn’t completely silent–when my scene came up, I let out the best meow I could muster and actually became that cat. The role was small but I made it mine.

In first grade, I learned two very important life lessons: 1) when you do bad things, it usually comes back to bite you, and 2) you need to choose your friends wisely. I must have been going through a kleptomania phase or something, because one day, coming back from recess, I snatched the pristine Pink Pearl eraser from Tammy’s desk before she got back. Back at my desk, I leaned over to one of my best friends, John, and showed him my catch. As soon as everyone had returned to their chairs, John immediately raised his hand and yelled, “Mrs. Lewis, Brian stole Tammy’s eraser.” That effectively ended my potential burglary career.

That year I also learned the related lesson that trying to get even often backfires. At recess one day, someone reached down and scooped up a big pile of dirt and threw it at me. I retaliated by doing the same back at the offender. Of course, the playground monitor only saw me throwing dirt, so I was the one that spent the rest of recess standing against the wall.

In second grade, I learned that it’s often best to cut your losses. One morning each week, we typically watched the educational TV program “Big Blue Marble“. One of those times, though, I realized part way into the show that I seriously needed to pee. But, still being painfully shy, I didn’t want to call any attention to myself, and so was determined to wait until the show was over to ask to go the bathroom. Well, the pain was getting serious. I wasn’t sure I could hold it in until the show was over. I came up with a ingenious plan: I’d wedge my ruler between my desk and my crotch to create enough pressure to mask the pain of my nearly exploded bladder. The plan backfired when the ruler loudly snapped in two. Everyone looked back and I finally got to go the bathroom, but now with the added task of trying to explain why I broke my ruler.

In third grade, besides finding out I needed glasses and that 6 times 7 is 42 (I’m not sure why I had so much trouble learning that particular part of the multiplication tables but I guess Douglas Adams would be proud), I learned that hair can be powerful and dangerous. Miss Clevenger had the most amazing long hair. I seem to remember it trailed behind her on the floor when she walked, but I’m sure there’s a bit of a false memory at play there. Suddenly one Monday morning, she arrives with her hair chopped short. She explained that she had been swimming at the beach that weekend and that at one point her hair was so heavy she couldn’t lift up her head and so she almost drowned. I had heard of the power of hair from the stories of Samson & Delilah and Repunzel, but this was scary!

In third grade, I also learned that some people don’t know how far to take things. We had a day called “Colonial Day” or something like that. Everyone was supposed to dress up like they did back in the 1700′s and we all switched classrooms. The teachers acted like it was back in the days of the one-room school house and we learned things relevant to life in early America. I was in Miss Ledane’s class, and she really played up the role, even to the point of smacking some kids’ knuckles with a ruler when they got out of line. Imagine a teacher doing that sort of thing today!

In fourth grade, I learned that my father is a comic genius. He was a district administrator at the time and one of his many responsibilities was planning the bus routes. His office had these impressive detailed maps of the area with penciled lines drawn on top of the roads and little numbered markers denoting busses. Because he was familiar with information about the school district, Mrs. Moul invited him in to our class as a guest speaker during our unit on local geography. He explained about how areas are divided up into townships, counties, and states using real-life examples. Everyone knew Mr. Houser was my dad, even though he and I were both trying to ignore that fact. At one point, I raised my hand to answer a question, and when my dad called on me as, “yes, the boy in the second row with the striped shirt,” the class erupted in laughter. Although I was embarassed, I’ll never forget how my dad made everyone laugh so hard with a little remark made in just the right way. My dad ended up as Principal at Plainfield for several years before he retired.

In fifth grade, I learned that the most effective way to change behavior is with understanding and respect. Although I had Mr. Long as my main teacher, we occassionally switched classrooms for a subject or two. In this case, I think it was reading, and I had completed my assignment ahead of the rest of the class. My mind started wandering into my elaborate imaginary world and before long, I was “flying” my pens in the air all around my desk. When Mrs. Swift caught sight of this, rather than embarassing me in front of the class, she quietly said something to the effect of, “when you’re done flying those pens, you might want to start reading the next chapter.” She had gracefully let me know what she’d rather I be doing without making me feel like an idiot.

I also remember what I learned from Mrs. Lesher, the music teacher. I still vividly recall her forceful downstrokes on the piano as she prepped us for each song with, “Ready, sing!” But the main thing I learned from her is that it’s a cool thing to choose your style and to stick with it. I’ve heard that all the way to retirement, she kept the same very distinctive look of moulded jet-black hair and fifties-style pointy glasses.

Aside from everything I learned, I have plenty of just plain old good memories of my times at Plainfield.

There was the rumor about Principal McCarter’s sneaker with nails in it that would be applied to your behind if you got in trouble. As far as I know, no one had ever seen it, but we knew it must exist.

Although our school days postdated those of the “duck and cover” era, we still had an occassional drill to visit the school’s basement, designated as a fallout shelter, just in case.

The annual “field day” where we spent a whole day outside competing in various activities. It’s there that I received my first and last award for anything sports-related. I think it was for second place in the sack race.

The band concerts where we got to learn and play songs like Hawaii-Five-O.

Assemblies with Tony Saletan singing his donkey song and Chuck Rhodes, the local meteorologist.

Trying to sneak a peak through the papered-over windows in the doors when the fifth-grade girls were having their assembly about “growing up”.

Field trips to McDonalds, a shoe factory, a dress factory, a local dairy farm, and a potato chip factory.

Spending many days in fourth grade learning the metric system and being excited that we would be switching to it soon.

Taking a long walk to the several-hundred-year-old big oak tree and seeing how many of us it took to surround the trunk. [Sadly, the tree has since died.]

And it’s really interesting how the smells stick with you. I can still smell those big fat pencils and paste from kindergarten, the clay and chalk dust from first grade, the chicken corn soup cooking in the cafeteria, the fluoride tablets we chewed up each day before lunch, and that stuff the janitor put down every time someone threw up that actually smelled worse than the vomit.

For everyone involved, thanks for the memories. Realize you’ve had a big impact on the lives of many, and although the building is closing its doors, the memories will always be with us.

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