Songbird writes:

My late mother-in-law thought of September as the “real” New Year because of the number of programs and classes starting. By Labor Day, school is back in session for most of us in the U.S., although there is great variation by region (my children don't return until Sept. 7th!). To mark this, we bring you the Back to School Friday Five.

1. What is your earliest memory of school?
First day of first grade. (There was no public Kindergarten where I grew up until 1970.) I marched up to my teacher, Mrs. Pavy, (who had been my older brother's teacher--the only teacher we ever shared!) and said,
"My name is Cheese Q. Head. My phone number is 867-5309, I live on Rural Route 3, and I'm adopted." That was my full self-identity at age 6. Go figure.

2. Who was a favorite teacher in your early education?
My second grade teacher, Mrs. Schwipps. She was young, pretty, and groovy (probably about 23, and brand new). She was the antithesis of all the other teachers at my tiny country school, who were all old (40-ish). She was the first person to tell me what I had already figured out: that I was smart and that being smart was really fun!

3. What do you remember about school “back then” that is different from what you know about schools now?
The parents. My parents (or my friends') would have no more argued with the principal that I should be allowed to skip school to go to an amusement park than they would have cut off their own arm. Neither would they have done a project for me and let me turn it in as my own work. Nor would they have argued against school authorities who had tried to discipline for a clearly broken school policy. Many of today's parents are raising little Bentleigh and Snotleigh to be convinced that they are the center of the school universe, and as such, as extremely entitled. I say society is the worse for it. But maybe that's the country schoolin' talking.

4. Did you have to memorize in school? If so, share a poem or song you learned.
I was the only kid in third grade to flawlessly memorize "Twas the Night Before Christmas", and as such got to go to all the other classrooms and recite it on the last day before Christmas break. I'm sorry, but I'm not typing it here.

5. Did you ever get in trouble at school? Were there any embarrassing moments you can share?
Not while I was in school, technically. On the night of graduation, really the wee hours of the next morning, my friends and I were caught by the sherriff standing outside the school in the rain trying to dig up the "Senior Rock". We honestly didn't know the thing was set in concrete, or that a gang of recent graduates does this every year, so the sherriff was ready for us. Luckily, I was still 17, so no record. No 2:00 am call to my parents, either. (Nice deputy, who had done the same thing five years earlier!)