First day of school
Thursday, October 14, 2004
A day in the life of a four year old boy in 6 points. His real name is Gabriel.
1. When he was enrolled for school for the very first time, someone at the office made a mistake and enrolled him in Senior Kindergarten.
He's four, so he should be in Jr. KD.
2. Because he is a bit taller than some of the other kids, his teacher didn't question his presence in her classroom.
3. In the introductory parent-teacher day, the teacher asked him if he's been in school before.
Gabriel cheerfully says "Yes." The teacher believes him.
Later that day, Gabriel's mom made clear to the teacher that he's never been to school before, hence, he is now evaluated as Jr. and not Sr. This is important, since he seemed a bit immature for Sr. KD. and his scholastic evaluations would have indicated his age and progress deficiencies.
4. In the first day of classes, as the bell rings announcing that play time is over, the children walked into the classroom and were met by a table with name tags spread all across it.
Each child was to pick a tag corresponding to his or her name on it. All kids did so, except for Gabriel. Two tags are left and he picked up one at random. Gabriel doesn't know how to read yet, so he grabbed the one that read "Tyler." His name for the afternoon will be "Tyler."
The teacher asked Gabriel, to confirm, "Is your name Tyler?" Gabriel answered, "Yes, Tyler". The teacher looked back at the table and saw the last tag with the name "Gabriel" still left on the table. She now has a Tyler, but there is no Gabriel. The question is: where is Gabriel?
5. In Canada, attending school is mandatory until you are 16 years of age. Gabriel's (Tyler's, rather) teacher called his house and left a voice message asking why Gabriel was not in school.
Tyler's mom came home and checked the answering machine. Panic stroke her while hearing the message, as she personally had dropped him off earlier that afternoon. She continued to review the voice mails and to her relief there was a second message, which said to disregard the "absent notice."
6. What happened?
As the lazy afternoon wore off, the teacher kept calling Gabriel "Tyler." And why wouldn't she, his name tag said so.
In one of the occasions, the teacher called on our "Tyler." This time Gabriel looked at her and said: "My name is not Tyler. It's Gabriel."
The mystery of the missing Gabriel was solved and from that day on for a whole week, Gabriel arrived home with a sticker on his chest with 7 letters in it: "GABRIEL."
Maybe, it wasn't a typical first day of school, but it was certainly one to remember.
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