Moving Up

"School's out, school's out!

Teacher let the monkeys out!

One flew east, one flew west

One flew up the teacher's dress!"

--(Traditional grade-school chant)

Today is the last day David walked out of Silverbrook Elementary School as a student.

It's hard to believe that the little tiny boy who clambered so readily onto his first school bus seven autumns ago--without even looking back at his parents over the enormous backpack he was carrying--is now leaving Silverbrook and will be in seventh grade at South County Secondary School in the fall.

Over the last few weeks there have been ceremonies and signs and events heralding the coming change.  His SACC class put on the sixth-grade play of Wizard of Oz; David was the narrator and the Wizard Himself.  His Scout troop had its summer Court of Honour, bringing to an end the formal part of the Scouting year and readying the boys for summer camps and Jamboree.  And of course there was the sixth grade promotion ceremony yesterday.

The kids filled four ranks of students across the entire gym wall; some looked so grown, some looked like they still had some growing to do, and all of them looked just SO ready to move on.  They sang a song about turning thirteen, with the changes they're going through; our still-11-year-old son looked a little left out.  Cameras and handheld video were in overdrive, and parents embarrassed kids with exaggerated waving and blowing of kisses...just like any other such ceremony.  And some present (and I'm not naming names) had a few tears in their eyes as the class DVD was played and parents could see all the adventures and memories the kids had in their last year at the school.

Much as seven years ago we thought David was just SO ready for school, he gives every indication of being SO ready to move on to SCSS.  He understands it will be harder, there will be more work, and that he has to spend a year as a dreaded "sevvie" (or seventh-grader--the lowest form of life in the Universe).  But behind the studied nonchalance and pre-teen boredom he projected during the ceremony yesterday (oh come on, like no other pre-teen ever put on that show in public??), there really and truly is a pride in having made it this far, and an expectation--even perhaps, if you catch him in the right mood, and enthusiasm--for what comes next.  It's been a tremendous ride with him for the first half of his public school career.  Buckle in tighter, because it's doubtless another level of excitement soon to come.

"School's out, school's out!

Teacher let the monkeys out!

One was jailed, one prevailed,

Both asked God, How have I failed?"

--(Traditional grad-school chant)