Fall and Nuts and Bolts

For those folks who bury themselves in matters of policy and politics and educational pontificating and punditry, it's goos to remember that when fall rolls around, the educational world is filled with people who aren't thinking about any of those things.

For parents and teachers, there are a hundred practical concerns. Do I have enough books for each class? Do I have enough seats? Will my lunch and work periods overlap with those of the colleagues I want to see during the day (or will I be eating lunch in my room just to escape Jerky McLoudface this year)? What will be the required pick-up spot for parent pick-up, or, barring that, exactly what time will the bus be at the stop? How are we supposed to pay for lunch this year? Where do I get the proper absence forms?

And that's just the adults. To remember being a young human in school is to remember worrying about the thousands of details that shape your existence for the year, but over which you have no control. Will my locker be someplace convenient or inconvenient, and when during my day will I actually be able to stop there (and, in related concerns, will I have to carry 147 pounds of books during my day? Where will I sit for lunch, and who will be at my table (or whose table will I be at)? Will my classes be easily located, or will I get lost? Will I have to make a daily impossible trek across the school for a class change? Will I be in a class with my friends? Did my folks get me the right supplies? 

Some of these may trace their way back to matters of policy. Certainly right now in Florida and some other states, some folks are wondering what exactly they can and can't say, or just what parts of their authentic selves they can safely reveal (and in many schools, it didn't take a new law to make them wonder) and that just boils down to nuts and bolts decisions about what to wear, how to walk and talk. 

It is the noise of nuts and bolts that drowns out all other sounds in these first few weeks, and those who travel at the level of philosophy and political theory do well to remember that it's not "who cares about that stuff" overshadowing policy "concern" as much as "I've got to find three more folders for third period" and "Do I have enough juice boxes to get through the first week of packing lunches." 

Education, like many other fields, is a world of giant sweeping ideas undergirding a vast array of details and specifics, a world where we look at tectonic plates and the shape and shift of mountains and forests resting on them as well as not just the trees, but the dust on the antennae of the bug on the back of a bird on the branch on the top of an individual tree. Back to school time is a good time to remember the detailed side, and especially to remember that the nuts and bolts and antennae and bugs are the bulk of many people's daily experience, and not just irrelevant, inconvenient picky stuff.