DAYs 51 and 52

It could have been Dixon Elementary School.

I was overwhelmed with nostalgia when I entered a Detroit school today. It is basically the same building I attended for elementary school so many years ago. These buildings were built well, to last, and if anything, the heating system works too well at this school. The cinder blocks and beige tile and heavy wooden doors were enough to reduce me to my 6th grade self (I even located where Mrs. Greenblatt’s room would have been). But when I peeked inside the auditorium at the wooden seats and inside the gym at the fold-out tables and benches and saw some of the original 2-level dark green lockers in the corner, I was a 6th grader all over again.

The job for these two days at a charter school in Detroit was in the resource room so I enjoyed helping some students take their exams. I also had a lot of down time and at the end of the second day I “pushed in” which means going to a classroom to assist the teacher. These particular kids had terrible behavior. My help mostly consisted of taking names and walking kids to the in-school suspension room (called Student Management there). Not sure if I would like to be in charge of one of those 6th or 5th grade classes – though I would take the job if it was offered.

There was more nostalgia in that the school was near 7 Mile and Meyers – on Outer Drive, which means it was about a mile from where Detroit Bible College was located – how often I used to drive down that road back then! It’s not very far from where I lived when I was ages 1-7 and where I first attended elementary school. I wanted to see if Noble Elementary was still in use (Dixon has been vandalized) but didn’t want to take the time to drive over there.

I don’t know if anything noteworthy happened in these two days. It may be that some of the encouraging words and some of the challenging words and some of the helpful hints given to various students will take root and make a difference in their lives. I always hope so.