You can spot parents of young children by the small blisters and graphite stains on their index fingers from sharpening dozens of pencils and pencil crayons.
New binders will be filled with stacks of loose leaf carefully separated by colourful plastic dividers, and yet another geometry set is on the stack of supplies ready to be transported to school and carefully placed in a locker to begin another year.
Laptops are purchased along with USB sticks in multiples.
With the supplies ready to go, students are ready to soon head to school. Or are they?
What do we need to do to prepare our kids for school? Yes, we can make sure they have adequate calculators and crayons, along with a backpack that needs to be equally fashionable and functional, but does that mean they are ready for a year of school to begin? What are the necessities we need to focus on before our children head into the hallways? Grades? Bullyproofing? Exam stress? Their food allergies?
Depending upon their ages, this may be the year children are learning how to walk to or from school on their own, or perhaps are dealing with the responsibility of a driver's licence and car, and what that means as a student. The passing of each year brings with it transitions, transformations and experiences resulting in new lessons.
Of course, many of those lessons are ones we want our children to learn but there are others we wish we could protect them from – for now – or perhaps forever. But we have no way of knowing all the things our children will encounter this year and it's hard to prepare for what we can't anticipate. Still, we need to get them ready.
Perhaps some lessons can be gleaned from school supplies themselves. Just like the many glue sticks that will be used, children will get into sticky situations. Things said and done and decisions made have consequences that can adhere them to positive or to negative influences. But with a little help pulling them apart from the wrong fit, and binding them to the things that are edifying and encouraging, we can help children stick to a better path.
Just like the graphite shavings from pencils that discolor our fingers, children need to get their hands dirty. They need to put their fingers in soil and discover how things grow. They need to submerge their hands in paint and learn about color and hue, as well as the importance of cleaning up afterwards. Those hands need to hold musical instruments, play with sports equipment or handle artistic tools and engage different parts of their brain. Life lessons require hands-on learning.
And then there is the item, in either digital or print, that a lot of students hesitate to use. A dictionary. That storehouse of words, definitions, pronunciations and etymologies. Students have all kinds of reasons why they don't like using dictionaries, but discovering and employing new words is an important part of learning. Children need to find their voice. So it is important we let them talk, discuss and debate so they learn how to express themselves.
Our children's backpacks will be overflowing soon with all the supplies they need for another school year. But before they head out the door let's take a moment to remind them that the most important things they will carry into the school with them are their hearts, kindness, honesty, work ethic, curiosity, attitude and character. When those traits are affirmed, children can point to maps on their screens or on the walls and see it as a first step in finding their place in the world. That's my outlook.
