I  loved my elementary school. Even there, I was sort of a loner. Creativity and stubbornness led me to often play by myself because I wanted to do everything my way. Part of it, too, is that I went to a tiny Christian school where I was the only girl in my class until the second grade, so I had to play with the older girls (this phenomenon occurred at church, too, oddly enough). A lot of development occurs in a year, so I was socially less developed than my peers. When I was no longer the youngest, I played with the younger girls who were not as developed as I was, so that led to some interesting relationships as well. Even though development eventually evens out, I think that the friendship patterns I had in kindergarten and first grade still follow me to some extent to this day.

Nevertheless, I felt accepted, even if I did get on people’s nerves occasionally (it’s okay, they all got on my nerves occasionally, too!).  I have so many good memories from that time. I remember getting in trouble every day in kindergarten because I wouldn’t stop talking in class. I remember the time our fifth grade teacher took us on a surprise field trip to eat pizza and go swimming. My parents never watched the news, so everything I remember about the outside world I remember learning about in class. I remember my tenth birthday when the entire class plotted to write “Happy Birthday, Laura” in HUGE letters on the white board. That meant a lot to me, and still does. And on and on and on.

It’s interesting to see what happened to those people. Our school only went until the fifth grade, so people kind of scattered after then. When I was in the sixth grade, they started a middle school at another location, but not everyone followed. The next year when they moved the school out to the middle of nowhere, we lost a lot of people. In eighth grade, I started public school. In a way, it makes the dynamic really interesting, because we didn’t have time to form cliques like other people who go through all twelve grades together do. Because we were so small, we never had multiple teachers for our grades and were all stuck together in the same classroom the entire time we attended school. We also had similar backgrounds, so we were all nice to each other for the most part, even though we had our spats and our group of best friends. I don’t recall anyone being hated, picked on (on a regular basis) or consistently left out, though I could just not be remembering correctly. Then we got to skip the high school drama and reconnect when we were older.  So now, we can be pretty friendly toward each other without the resentment of feeling discarded in junior high or high school. It’s really fun to find someone you haven’t seen since the fifth grade on Facebook. I had a friend add me yesterday that I haven’t seen in nearly thirteen years, and somehow, we kind of just picked right back up where we left off. It’s sort of weird because it’s not like I was older and haven’t changed much. I was 12 and now I am 25.  I have changed a LOT since then! (At least, I hope!)  I wouldn’t say we are all really good friends now, it is nice to be able to jot an email to someone when you think of a funny memory you share.

It is interesting to note that attending a Christian school doesn’t mean that everyone is going to be a conservative Christian in the long run. (It’s important to mention here that our school was not like some other Christian schools where people attended because they were kicked out of public school. Most of us came from fairly conservative backgrounds, though some more than others of course.)  I actually think that we ultimately became more diverse in our viewpoints than those I know from my public school. It certainly didn’t insulate me against secular viewpoints in the long run, but it did give me some great relationships that I can look back on and smile.

Tags: facebook, friendship

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