GOING TO SCHOOL by Eleanor Shepherd

  It was 1952.  The little girl who lived in the swampy part of North Carolina was in the shack alone when the Truant officer came looking for her, to take her to school. The family had lost everything during the depression and engulfed by debts, when her father returned from the War, they had taken refuge in a shack on the soggy coastlands. 

 

            Survival seemed impossible so they family members concluded one by one that they would have to take their destiny in their own hands. Her parents had a serious fight and the next day, her mother covered her bruises and walked down the road, never to be seen again. Each of her brothers came to the decision that they too must leave and finally there were only the little girl and her sometimes sober father left in the house. Knowing the threat he was when he was drunk the little girl was careful to give him a wide berth. 

 

            Thus it was that the Truant officer came into the house and helped the little girl to find something that she could wear to school. Then she put her in the car and took her to the school. The little girl wanted to go because she wanted to learn to read and to know what number came after 29. She was also told that she would have chicken pie cooked for her lunch and she was hungry because at age seven all that she had learned to cook was grits. 

 

            The other children were unkind and made fun of her. At the end of the day she returned home and vowed she would never return. Thereafter, when the Truant officer came, she would take to the woods and hide. 

 

            I felt sad as I read the story and realize how different the experience of school was for this little girl from what I had lived when I was at school during this same time period. Even though I went to many schools because my parents were often transferred to other parts of the country, I never experienced the kind of treatment this little girl knew. 

 

            I read her story in a novel called Where the Crawdads Sing. For me, growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s, school was a magical place where I learned so many new and exciting things about the world, about myself and about other people. 

 

            My children in the 1980’s and 1990’s also enjoyed the experience of going to school and like me they would play school when they came home or whenever they had free time. 

 

            For my grandchildren too, school is synonymous with making friends and having fun together as you learn. It is a place that played an important role in their lives until six months ago, when Covid arrived and schools had to close down. 

 

            Now they are opening up again, and although parents are often nervous about what will

happen, they have been reassured by the protocols that have been put in place to protect their children. As I looked at the photo my daughter sent of her daughter, masked and ready to head out to get on the school bus, I thought about children who live in places where all of the protection we have been able to provide for my grand-children, may not be available for them.   

 

            It hit me when I picked up the denominational magazine for our clergy. There I read about rural communities in Tanzania where poverty is preventing children from getting an education. Despite efforts of non-profits to eliminate child poverty, there it is rare for families to have even a single daily meal or to get basic necessities. Most of them drop out of school at an early age, their dreams of education shattered by the gnaw of hunger that makes the daily walk of 20 kilometres to school seem insurmountable. 

 

            We know that our schools along with parents and teachers are facing challenges, because of the worldwide Covid epidemic. Yet we know that in spite of this there is still a possibility for our children and grandchildren to resume their educational journey. We will be transported to a higher level of gratitude and hopefully generosity when we realize that the economic downturn is going to make it impossible for other children in our world, like those in rural Tanzania to even dream of escaping their lot. “They need you. They need me. They need Christ*.” And we are His hands and feet.   

 

* https://www.facebook.com/SalvationArmyIHQ/videos/206792417226317/

  Allow this song to touch your life.