Back-to-School Night -- and I feel like I'm going back to school

I’m worried that I won’t be able to find my classrooms. I’m apprehensive that I won’t recognize the teachers. I’m anxious about getting to each class on time. And what on earth am I going to wear?

No, it’s not a stress dream recalling my first day of middle school. It’s me getting ready to attend sixth grade Back-to-School Night as a parent. But I from what I remember of my first day of middle school – which at that time was called junior high – I can’t see a great deal of difference between the two, at least in terms of my state of mind as departure time approaches.

So I’ve laid out my outfit ahead of time, smoothed my hair as much as possible, and asked my son at least three times to recite detailed directions to each of his classrooms (he therefore has the role now that my elder sister did in 1978). Next on my Worry List? That I’ll mispronounce a teacher’s name (fortunately, Liz Gray is at the top of the schedule) or trip in the hallway while changing classes.

In truth, I love Back-to-School Night, and have ever since my very first one when Tim was in the toddler room at Sudbury Small World. It was ten years ago, but I vividly remember a long discussion at that event about why the kids come home with their sneakers full of sand from the sandbox and what parents could do to reduce that problem. (One wonders.) Because while Parents’ Night may be full of the same anxieties as being a student, it also carries some of the same thrill. Will I get called on if I raise my hand? Will I like this teacher? Will any of my friends want to sit next to me? What will they be wearing? Who broke up over the summer? (Actually, while that one may be a thrill in middle school, it can be heartbreaking at our current age. But it still falls under the category of information that can be gleaned via a quick glance around the room at Back-to-School Night.)

Besides, there’s something I know now that I had no clue of when I was a student, and that is this: many of the teachers are just as nervous as we are. And they have to go through both events every year: the first day of school with the kids and Back-to-School Night with the parents. While most of the teachers I know are warier of the second date than the first, it still constitutes two separate occasions of looking out over a sea of curious faces and trying to succeed at this critical first impression.

For some teachers, Back-to-School Night can be a game-changer. Many years ago, my father, a school administrator, had a faculty member on his staff for whom it was so emotionally fraught that she literally could not make it to the event sober. And when I was in prep school, where instead of Parents’ Night we brought our parents to a full day of classes, there was an infamous occurrence in my first-period pre-calculus class that resulted in my math teacher getting fired before Parents’ Weekend was over. (Interestingly, last I heard he was a partner at a major Boston law firm. That strikes me as a little like closing the barn door behind the horse, in that he certainly would have benefited from a better understanding of the law back in his early teaching days, particularly where the legal definition of a minor is concerned.)

In any case, I’m raring to go. I’ve put together an outfit, combed my hair, chosen the right shade of lipstick and brushed my teeth. And if my friend Nicole doesn’t want to sit next to me, I just might come home in tears, but barring that possibility, everything should be just fine.