by Mark Zeiger

Created on: March 08, 2009

Kindergarten, what a foreign concept! The town we lived in had no kindergarten program when my older brother entered school, so he began his formal education in first grade. I knew this to be "The Way Things Are." I confidently anticipated starting school in the first grade as well, attending "The School" directly across the street from our house, just as my big brother had.

Imagine my confusion when I learned that my formal education would begin with kindergarten. "Kindy-Garden" was a vague concept to me, a rather pejorative term indicating babyishness. Now my parents spoke of it as if it were somehow desirable! Even more confusing, I would not attend "The School" across the street. Instead I would go there to board a school bus, which would take me to the outer reaches of who-knows-where, to a school I'd never known, nor even suspected might exist.

Things didn't clear up for me much once we arrived there. The teacher was kind and gentle, but wasn't one of the schoolteachers I knew. She would bear watching . . . . Even more confusing, the class was full of strangers from other nearby towns. One was even the grand daughter of the first grade teacher at "The School," the archetypal First Teacher who, by ancient right, should have been the one to introduce me to the Sacred Halls of Learning. This couldn't be right!

Eventually I settled in. A stream of new experiences earned my trust. Each day our teacher would produce a new color of chalk, make a circle on the chalkboard, fill it in, and then write the color's name beside it. The next day a new color joined the list in the same way. It was almost too good to be true.

The best part was learning to read and write. I'd begun the process at home a year or two earlier, but now we worked at it for extended periods. These people meant business!

Kindergarten offered social education as well. We learned etiquette, including the mysterious rule that a gentleman must excuse himself when going before a lady. Going before? How? In what way? It was a mystery, one I've thankfully solved since then.

Each day's schedule included a rest period. We would spread our mats, which we had brought from home, on the floor and lay down on them for a while. This activity could be unpleasant thanks to Perry. A chubby bully, Perry had an odd way of whiling away rest period. His mat was woven from thick fibers, which he liked to unravel in long strips. When the teacher wasn't looking, he would rise up on one elbow, dangle the strip over his wide-open mouth, and lower it as if eating a spaghetti strand. He'd chew and suck this gob of fiber until thoroughly saturated, then pull it out and fling it at some unfortunate classmate. I soon learned that as nauseating as this practice was, it was far better to lay my mat close to his and endure the show than to maintain enough distance to become a target! This may have been the most important lesson I learned in kindergarten. The daily snack tied into this somehow. I don't recall if it came before rest period, lending an additional element of horror to the proceedings, or if, coming after rest period and its repulsive floor show, I had no appetite for crackers and milk.

I lived to enter first grade the next year, in "'The School" across the street, taught by my beloved and proper first grade teacher. I entered that grade wiser in many ways, ready to face new challenges in academics and social situations, thanks to my experiences in "Kindy-Garden."

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