#kindergarten – Sittin' Ugly Sistahs

The Late Start

Posted on August 7, 2025 by Nancy Malcolm

I think I’m a good person. I play fair, clean up after myself, wash my hands before I eat, and I don’t take things that aren’t mine. I think I turned out okay even though I never got to go to kindergarten.

Robert Fulghum wrote a little book entitled, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” He advises that we all learn lessons about life in kindergarten. My lessons might have come a little later, but their importance is still the same.

When I was four years old, my mother died from a brain tumor. My father, brother and I were left in the sad and lonely predicament of trying to live our lives without her. During the long summer following her death, I turned five, and my dad made the decision to keep me home and not send me to kindergarten when the fall came. Later in life, when I asked him about this resolution to keep me home, he said, “I thought it would be too much change for you, after losing your mama.”

And change it was. That summer he employed a live-in-housekeeper, Mrs. Fish, and when September rolled around, my brother went off to 4^th grade while Fishie (as I called her) and I stayed home.

I remember very little about that year at home except our black and white tv and Captain Kangaroo. Captain Kangaroo would read me a story every day. He had puppet friends like Mr. Bunny Rabbit, Mr. Moose, and Miss Frog. Even though I was not alone, I felt lonely because our neighborhood friends were all at school and I was left behind. So, I colored page after page in my coloring books, played outside on my red swing set, and had my hour with Captain Kangaroo and his sidekick, Mr. Green Jeans.

Time did pass, as it always does, and when the next September came, I went to first grade. I was as shy and awkward as a new fawn, yet when I met my teacher, Miss Ruth Hooper, I knew I would be safe. She was a handsome woman, standing six feet tall in her functional black flats. A ‘spinster,’ as my dad would say, and more than capable of corralling a feisty group of six-year-olds. In fact, Miss Ruth Hooper ruled with an iron hand and a soft heart.

Miss Hooper understood my gangly ways. Having been a tall girl herself, she could feel my angst at being the tallest child in the class. She knew what I was going through with my abnormally long arms and legs. She was able to nurture that motherless part of me that needed extra care, while attempting to never show favoritism. And even though Miss Ruth Hooper never married or had a child of her own, she was just what I needed when I needed it the most.

At seventy-two years old, I can now look back and confidently say that I turned out okay for never going to kindergarten. Somehow, I caught up with my colors, and numbers and memorizing the months of the year, but occasionally I like to use it as a crutch. At family gatherings if I am slow to catch on to a joke, or have trouble finding 18% of a number or even when I just plain need an excuse… “well, after all, I didn’t get to go to kindergarten,” and everyone will just nod and accept that as the reason I am the way I am.

I find it no coincidence that during my professional career in education, I was lucky enough to teach kindergarten for seven years. In spite of the fact that I never got to go myself, I enjoyed every part of teaching that formative year. I relished the songs, found wonder in a growing lima bean seed and learned right along with the children about community helpers, insects, and farms. I have taught hundreds of children the alphabet and seen their faces light up when sounding out a word. I have held many a tiny hand in mine as we attempted to walk in a straight line in the hallway. I have more than made up for that one year I spent at home with Fishie and Captain Kangaroo. Lucky me, in so many ways.

“Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. And when you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.” Amen.

#Confessions, #Teaching, Contemplations, Relationships, Teaching

The Long Year

Posted on July 3, 2025 by Nancy Malcolm

For one long-fast year of my life, I taught kindergarten in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Estes Hills Elementary School was nestled in a mixture of pine and oak trees and was an older school with character, and lots of other characters who worked there. Each of the classrooms had a back door that opened into a lush courtyard and a front door that lead to a winding sidewalk that circled the school.

The year was 1991 and was one of the most interesting, AKA hard, years of my adult life. 1991 involved a marriage, a move to North Carolina from Texas, a job change and a pending divorce. 1991 was dashed dreams, sour grapes, and a river of tears all rolled into one. Twelve months of shock and awe. 365 days of “What the hell?”, yet there was a calm, deliberate sweetness that awaited me every morning when I greeted my 25 little charges. Estes Hills and the 25 Honeybees (our class nickname) gave me purpose and life.

Estes Hils was a neighborhood school that was also near The University of North Carolina. Many professors’ children attended our school and for that reason, most of the teaching staff was a mature, seasoned group, able to provide the level of learning our clientele demanded. Each teacher was assigned a teacher assistant to help facilitate classroom learning and discipline.

I was one of several kindergarten teachers that year, and we were each assigned 25 students. While you may not think 25 students is a lot, 25 five-year-olds is.

My students were eclectic, coming from varied backgrounds and nationalities. One such student, a handsome little boy named Xolani, came from Africa and had a click language dialect. While he spoke perfect English, his P sounds had a click, which made his language both fascinating to listen to, and hard to understand.

My teacher assistant, Violet, had her master’s degree in art. Every day she planned an art project for our students and during that hour, she took over and I assisted. She was talented, creative, and best of all, patient with a great sense of humor.

Being new to this school that was so steeped in tradition and culture was like being drop kicked through the goalpost of life into another era. It didn’t help that I was from Texas. The North Carolinian women were Berkenstock wearing, clean faced southerners who sounded like they used a question mark at the end of every sentence, with slow paced, elongated v o w e l s. And even though I had the usual slow, Texas drawl, they proceeded to make fun of my y’all’s and fixin to’s, like I was the one with an accent.

It didn’t help that in 1991 I was still sporting big hair, red lipstick and against the wholesome scrubbed look of the other teachers, I looked, well… a little on the trashy side. A little too made up for their taste.

“You Texans,” and they would just shake their heads.

“You Texans think everything is bigger in Texas.”

Quite frankly, my self-esteem was already in the toilet because of my horrible, no good, very bad year. But it was hard to make friends, and by the third day of school, I was feeling like the Lone Texas Ranger and would probably be eating lunch by myself for the rest of my life.

But on the fourth day, my back door swung open and the teacher from two doors down popped his head in.

“Hey, Miss Texas, want to join us for lunch?” Bryon asked.

And a friendship was made.

Bryon and Chris were the two gay teachers from two doors down. They were charming, hysterically funny and comforted my shaky soul like a bowl of chicken and dumplings. We ate lunch together, chatted at recess and they even invited me to some of their fabulous weekend parties. At a time when I felt very little mercy from life, they gifted me friendship and laughter. And when the end of school came, and the end of my marriage, Bryon and Chris helped me load my U-Haul trailer for the long drive back to Texas.

My 25 Honeybees were sweet with not a stinger among them. The parents and students even surprised me with a cake and gifts on my thirty-ninth birthday, and as their joyful voices sang happy birthday, I held back tears from the sheer preciousness of that moment.

One particular day I was leading a lesson about North Carolina as a state, and we were coloring pictures of the flag.

One student raised his hand and asked, “Teacher?”

“Yes, Samuel,” I said.

“Are you a Democrat or a Puerto Rican?”

“You mean Republican?” I asked.

“No,” and he shook his head, “I’m pretty sure its Puerto Rican.”

“Well, which one are you?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m black,” he said

“Cool.” I answered. And I gave him a big hug.

The hug seemed to suffice him as an answer, and we finished coloring in silence.

My long-fast year in North Carolina was a blessing in so many ways. I found out that some people aren’t who they say they are, and that actions really do speak louder than words. I learned it’s ok to be from Texas and proud of it. I marveled at the resilience of the human spirit and the inherit kindness that restored my faith in man. And with great fondness, I remember 25 little Honeybees who needed me as much as I needed them.

#Confessions, #Teaching

A Room With A View

Posted on March 2, 2025 by Nancy Malcolm

Just like everyone in the corporate world wants a corner office with widows, every school teacher wants the perfect classroom. Perfection is of course, according to the individual, but I can guarantee that every teacher wants a classroom with a working thermostat, the correct number of tables and desks, a filing cabinet that locks, and is in close proximity to the restrooms.

My career in education lasted thirty-six years, seven of which were teaching kindergarten. During my seven years in kindergarten, I was lucky enough to have the perfect room two years in a row. Room 102 was the most coveted room of the school and had not even come available until the tenured teacher who inhabited that room finally retired.

Even though I’m pretty sure it was luck, I felt like royalty the minute I found out I would be moving into room 102. It was like Kensington Palace and The Taj Mahal met Clifton Park Elementary School. I felt like the Queen, or at very least, a lottery winner.

As you stood in front of the school, it appeared to be in L shape. My classroom, number 102, was the second room at the beginning of the L. By school standards, it was spacious. My classroom had one whole wall of windows with a wide window sill and bookshelves underneath. The windows looked out onto the front of the building, and we could see the flagpole, and every visitor who parked and walked into the front office. The light coming in from the windows was so fantastic that I rarely had to turn on those loud, garish fluorescent lights.

Room 102 had a wall full of closet storage opposite the bank of windows and shared a boys and girls restroom with classroom 101. Our rooms were close to the cafeteria, easy outside access for fire drills, close to the custodian’s closet for those accidental accidents, and close to the outside door for recess. For a kindergarten teacher this is prime real estate on the boardwalk of life.

I had big plans for room 102 and the huge window sills. During the spring seed unit, I could envision twenty lima bean seeds, planted in Dixie cups, lining the sill. My students would have the tallest sprouts, and every child’s plant would grow with all of the natural light. Spring seed unit would be every child’s favorite, and I would be smug knowing our classroom ruled!

In the fall when the firemen came to teach us ‘stop, drop, and roll,’ we would be the first classroom to see the fire engine pull into the parking lot. In fact, when anyone arrived or left school we could potentially be the first to know.

However, in life there is a yin for every yang, and a pro for every con, and room 102 turned out to be such a contradiction. If room 102 could talk, it would remember the day Mrs. Flintcraft parked her big, peach colored Buick in front of the school to bring her son’s forgotten lunch box. She parked and hopped out of the car and as she walked down the long sidewalk, past the flagpole, and into the building; five other students and I, who were in my reading circle, saw that Mrs. Flintcraft had the back of her yellow, spring dress tucked into her pantyhose, exposing all of her goods, so to speak.

My reading center was a horseshoe shaped table with five chairs.

I glanced at my five ‘readers’ and all of us had wide, surprised eyes.

“Her underwear is showing,” one little girl reported.

“It sure is,” I said. “Maybe I should go tell her.”

And about that time, Mrs. Flintcraft came back out of the front door, down the sidewalk, past the flagpole, to her car with her yellow spring dress untucked.

“I think someone told her,” another student said. And we all got back on task.

The allure of classroom 102 and being close to the front office, wore off pretty fast. I realized the principal liked to pop by with visitors wanting a tour of the school. I would look up during a lesson, and my principal would be standing in the doorway with a school board member or a parent. “Do you mind if we observe for a little while?” he would ask.

“Of course not. Come on in.” I would say, while I silently prayed I could keep my twenty, five-year-olds under some semblance of control.

“Organized chaos!” my principal would say. “Your classroom is so much fun to visit.”

My dream of the superior lima bean plants disappeared one Monday when we arrived at school to find half of the plants had grown too much and toppled over, while the other half burned up because of too much sun. Upon this terrible discovery there were many tears, questions, and meltdowns. The wall of windows turned out to be too much heat for our delicate seeds and we had to start over, which meant planting seeds during the spring farm animal unit. I was losing momentum.

Have I mentioned the ant farm? Let me say that sometimes a five-year-old is not as responsible as we might wish. Sometimes little fingers touch things or move things and do not put them back. Like the top of the ant farm. On our classroom chore list, one item is labeled: Ant Farmer. The Ant Farmer is to check the ant farm every day to make sure everything is running smoothly. No escaping ants, no dying ants, etc. However, one day..

“Teacher!! Come quick! Somebody took the lid off and didn’t put it on all the way. The ants are gone!” my Ant Farmer said.

“Maybe they are sleeping or hiding in the dirt,” I suggested.

“I don’t think so,” another student said. “I see them going out the window. See? Look! Our ants are lining up to go outside!”

My first instinct was to grab the bug spray, but I knew this might be a delicate situation, so we built a suspension bridge out of popsicle sticks and lured the line of ants, or what was left of them, back into their glass farmhouse.

I made a vow to myself that next year I would try a worm farm instead of ants.

That outside door that was so near our classroom became a source of contention. We could hear all the classrooms going out to recess and coming in from recess. At various times during the day, we could hear that heavy, metal door clink shut. It was just a reminder that someone was having recess, and we weren’t.

The huge wall of windows that I loved so much were hard to cover when we were showing a film strip. They were drafty in the winter and smoldering in the spring. And as much as we enjoyed looking out at the comings and goings of the school…they enjoyed looking in on us. Occasionally we would look up to kids waving to us from outside. Or we would see the face of an older sibling pressed flat into the window looking for their brother or sister.

There were good days and bad days in room 102 but by and large I did feel like a rock star for those two years. I was living the dream, challenging young minds, creating a strong foundation for learning, and I had a room with a view. It doesn’t get much better than that.