Proper tattoo for a first grade teacher
Remember your first day of school? Remember your first grade teacher?
It’s that time of year. Pictures are shooting all directions, phone to phone. Daughter-in-law Kristin just shared one of our granddaughter Emily with her first grade teacher. Times have changed.
My first grade teacher was way too old to kneel down for a picture with any kid. I don’t think she would have anyway. Somewhere I have a black and white snapshot of the two of us taken in the schoolyard. Her hand was resting on my shoulder in an uncharacteristically affectionate gesture.
Mrs. Payne wouldn’t have worn camo either. And if she had a tattoo, it was her secret. She did wear earrings, but her nose was free of ornaments.
I can’t read all the wording on Emily’s teacher’s T-shirt. I’m just know Mrs. Payne didn’t have one in her wardrobe.
The smile on Emily’s teacher’s face warms my heart. And her eyes are twinkly. I think they’re going to like each other and learn a lot – both of them.
Oddly enough, throwback Emily could slip unnoticed right into my first-grade classroom, except her slightly frilly dress is no-iron knit cotton instead of the starchy kind we wore. And it doesn’t have a sash.
Emily’s glittery shoes look like what we kids all wore to church on Sunday, except ours were black patent. Penny loafers were de rigueur for school.
Emily even has an old-fashioned hairbow. Or do bows never go out of style? She’s wearing a necklace with a tiny key. Maybe for her locker? We didn’t lock our lockers.
The teacher is wearing a ton of stuff around her neck. Zoom in on the image and you see a police-lifeguard whistle, a bottle of hand sanitizer, an identification card and what looks like another such card. I think she’s also wearing keys. All that stuff is hanging on a long necklace of spherical beads in bright colors and five little square ones that say TEACH.
In case you’re wondering about her tattoo, the one you can see is a nice crown. Here’s hoping she doesn’t have another equally viewable skull elsewhere. If I were on the school board, I’d press for a no-skull policy for first-grade teacher tattoo motifs. But that’s just me.
Skulls, of course, are nothing new. When I was Emily’s age, the Jolly Roger flag and skull and crossbones labels on poison were part of our realm. Skulls meant death back then.
As for Emily’s teacher’s camo pants, they’re the fashion. When I was in the first grade, camouflage was just for soldiers. We knew about war. The one in Korea had just ended. Hunters, by the way, wore red. Check out Elmer Fudd’s cap.
But if you’re headed into a yearlong challenge to teach all the right stuff to a classroom of first-graders, you need the stamina and courage of a soldier. You’ve got a battle to win plus parents and top brass to please.
Here’s hoping that crown portends an ultimate victory.
Hanaba Munn Welch is a correspondent for the Times Record News who divides her time between Abilene and a farm north of Vernon. Her columns, as a tribute to the Childress Engine 501, always contain, amazingly, 501 words.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Proper tattoo for a first grade teacher Hanaba Welch column
