First days of school, K to 17

First days of school, K to 17

Posted on June 30th, 2023 by Scott Warnock

My daughter, Elizabeth, is enrolled in a Nova Southeastern M.S. in Counseling program with a concentration in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. It is a low-residency program, meaning that most coursework involves rigorous online study while several times her cohort will assemble at Nova Fort Lauderdale for onsite, in-person practice and reflection.

Last week, near the end of term two, was her initial in-person experience. Preceding this visit, she had meticulously planned a two-week trip to a music festival and to visit friends in three states, building an itinerary that allowed to her to spend time working hard on school in friends’ homes, cafes, and other wi-fi sites. She would “grind out work,” she told me.

A few months ago, she asked if I wanted to join her in Fort Lauderdale. What an opportunity! Sure, she’d be immersed in school most of the time, but I was coming off another busy academic year and thought some downtime sounded pretty nice.

She set it all up, reserving cheap flights and a rental car via whiz-bang apps (these kids today!), and we even got a Marriott Courtyard for a great price. While she was in class, I finished a novel and cleaned up an issue of The Atlantic. Then we spent a day at the beach and another on a swamp tour. (We both held a scorpion.)

The campus was only a few miles from our hotel. I toted her around in this black Nissan SUV that made it look like she had a secret service escort.

That first morning of class, we drove over to campus. We strolled the beautiful campus–it really is sweet–and checked out the Nova bookstore. We soon found her building, and…

… we sent Elizabeth to kindergarten a few weeks after her fifth birthday. She was young for her class, but she was ready for school, we thought.

She certainly was a spirited child, a characterization that would last about, well, forever.

I remember that first day of kindergarten. She was all of 35 pounds and had this oversized backpack. We walked the few blocks to school, and my wife and I didn’t know what to expect. The Riverton School schoolyard was a chaotic mix of kids laughing and eager for school and others hanging on their parents’ legs, moaning and weeping.

At one point, while my wife and I were talking to someone on the playground, we turned around and realized Elizabeth was coolly walking into the school. We followed her and found she had hung up her backpack.

Okay, so much for needing us …

… and here we were, years later, in “17th grade.” As she and I parted ways in her Nova building, she smiled and said, “I’ll see you this afternoon. Love you!” and walked toward her classroom.

I felt an ache of parental love as this self-assured, proud young woman, still with a backpack, although one more appropriately sized, strode away from me, and before I turned a trick of the atrium light almost had me believing I saw a blurred image of her as that tiny five-year-old confidently entering school on day one of kindergarten: Moving to that next big challenge, a decade-plus later.

My daughter–my daughter!

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Scott Warnock

Scott Warnock is a writer and teacher who lives in South Jersey. He is a professor of English at Drexel University, where he is also the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences. Father of three and husband of one, Scott is president of a local high school education foundation and spent many years coaching youth sports.