School Daze – Bruce’s Back To School Nightmare Returns

Back to School. It's been a while since those words mean I actually had to go back to school but they still send shivers up my spine. I guess it's because of my position as a semi-professional child that I still dread the smell of a freshly waxed gym floor and the sound of teacher shoes echoing through a locker lined hallway. School is supposed to start in Lafayette Parish on August 10.

I am apprehensive.

My kids are fine, for the first time in 5 years they will actually both be attending school at the same campus. I also have a kid that has been granted the privilege of driving by the State of Louisiana so that means no more carpool waiting for me.

I am an even more apprehensive.

School is going to mean football games, parties, dates (not with my daughter until she is 50) and other things that high school age kids do.

Why am I so apprehensive?

Because I remember how I acted in high school. You might find this hard to believe, but I was the class clown. I know you are totally shocked by that revelation. I was that kid that rearranged the cardboard letters on the bulletin boards in to phrases that weren't allowed in school. I was the kid whose biology experiment would occasionally find its way into the school cafeteria. I was the kid that demonstrated electricity and the class aquarium should not be used in the same demonstration. I was the kid that locked an opposing football team in the locker room by shoving a chair under the knob. I told the authorities it was a physics demonstration and not intended to disrupt the game. I was the kid that got elected to a lot of offices, I was a really good politician.I was the kid the teachers made sure graduated on time because they didn't want to deal with my creative energy any longer than they absolutely had too.

For my friends in the education profession I am eternally grateful for not giving up  on me. I am grateful that you understand that kids learn by doing, even if they aren't doing what they are supposed to. I am grateful my kids are more like their mother than they are like me.