First Day of School

Submitted by: Because I Said So

Well this weeks prompts for Slice of Life just didn’t do it for me… being Canadian we don’t celebrate Memorial Day, we have Victoria Day which I don’t think has the same patriotic feel like Memorial Day. Wasn’t quite sure what to write for the other prompts - My Testimony (?) and teenage defiance, well wasn’t sure about that one. I was looking at some of the older prompts and came across my first day of school. I remember telling this story just the other day, so here it is…

I come from a mixed marriage, my father being Ukrainian and my mother Spanish, and in our household we were only allowed to speak Ukrainian. My mother tried to teach us Spanish but every time she tried my father would tell us to speak Ukrainian. So pretty much growing up we were not exposed to any English what so ever. I don’t even remember watching any TV, so basically my English was non existent. So when my mother brought me to school, my first day was a disaster. I did not speak one word of English, my mother spoke only French and Spanish and my kindergarten teacher only spoke English ( but I’m sure she understood French), so basically no one understood each other! To this day my mother tells me that I was talking a mile a minute to the teacher and the teacher had no clue what I was saying. I vaguely remember talking and talking but couldn’t understand why the teacher would be talking back to me in this strange language that I didn’t understand. Apparently my teacher and I had created our own system of communication with lots of sign language until I finally started to master the English language. To this day every time I tell this story people laugh since they try to picture little me standing in front of my teacher babbling away in some foreign language and the teacher desperately trying to understand me. I remember when I graduated from Grade 6 having my kindergarten teacher tell me that she will never forget me, since she had never ever had another student like me, who had absolutely no knowledge of English on their first day of class. I’m guessing that most probably there were other kids that came from ethnic backgrounds in her classes but they at least knew some English… So my first day of school must have been quite an experience! Too bad I can’t remember more details about it!

Submitted by Jen’s Humble Opinion2

First day of school.

I don’t remember much about my first day of school. After all, I was only five years old. However, I do remember one particular moment. I remember meeting my best friend. Her mom walked in pushing a stroller and she was sitting in it. She didn’t want to leave the stroller and I remember her mom telling the teacher how shy her daughter was. I went over and said, “Hi, I’m Jen. Wanna play?” She replied meekly, “Okay”. We’ve been friends since.
She teaches high school art now. I guess she isn’t shy anymore.