School Days Then and Now
It’s That Time of Year Again
It’s that time of year again—back to school. For students and educators alike, the first day of the new school year is akin to a second “New Year’s Day.”
Much of how we do things has been highly influenced by our school experiences.
How we handle new learning, the way we interact with others, the challenges of social situations and the physical and emotional changes we go through all make for an interesting personal history.
School Reunion
I just experienced my 50 year high school reunion! What a trip down memory lane that was. It was great to see past classmates and to find out what we have all been up to the past half century.
When we are young and in school we don’t often think about how we will reflect back on our school experiences.
My perspective on this changed when I became a school teacher. It was later in life career change. I was 55 when I had my first classroom following a couple of years of substitute and student teaching. Now I was looking at school in a whole new way. Instead of my own education I was focused on helping students learn and grow.
Believe me, there was plenty of learning and growing for me too!
I taught for about a dozen years before retiring and focusing more of my efforts on helping others with their life story writing. It is something I am passionate about and I’ve been involved in this endeavor for over 20 years.
So, how I approached school and how I approach life story work have a lot in common.
There are preparation and organization tasks at the start.
There is a lot of getting to know those embarking on their memoir journeys.
There are conversations involving first and next steps, how to proceed, how to stick with it, and what to do to get a manuscript to the finish line.
In the end there is the satisfaction of completing a very important and often difficult journey that connects the past to the present…and beyond!
