Starting this year, Mason is attending Open Door, a program at Shedeck that allows you to drop your kids off a little early and pick them up a little late. It costs money, but it costs less money than it costs Susan and I to drive separately to work, and Mason loves playing with his friends both before and after school so it’s a win all the way around.
This blog entry, however, has very little to do with Open Door. Instead, it has to do with the room (portable building, actually) that Open Door takes place in. It is the exact same room that I attended Gifted class in during the 1983-84 school year at Shedeck.
Prior to 1983, Shedeck was a school for fifth and sixth graders only. Due to a population growth in Yukon, the school was expanded that year to hold K-6, the same as every other elementary school in the district. (It just so happens that I was going into fifth grade that year and probably would have ended up attending Shedeck anyway, but that’s neither here nor there.) Shedeck wasn’t meant to hold this many students, and so portable buildings — four of them, I believe — were purchased and placed out behind the school. Band, Physical Education, Learning Disabilities, and Gifted were moved out of the school and into these buildings.
Over the years the Shedeck building has expanded and everything’s moved back inside the brick building. Two of the portable buildings have been removed. Of the two that remain, one looks like it’s simply being used for storage. The other is being used for Open Door.
Five days a week, twice a day, Susan and I walk Mason to Open Door and I step into that same room I used to enter twice a week back in 1983. It’s amazing that I don’t even have to close my eyes to see where the desks used to sit. Mrs. Leatherwood’s desk sat in the back right-hand corner. The chalkboard was to the right and our desks were on the left, arranged in a “U” shape. Every time I walk into the room, old stories pop into my head. The Robot. The Gift. The Mobile. The Puppet Show. The Comic Book. The Mix Tape.
I officially declared this week “Shedeck Gifted Week.” Each morning I’ll be posting one of the above stories, and on a couple of days I’ll be doubling up. Hopefully you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I’ve enjoyed remembering them. Friday will be a special two-for, as I have one bonus Shedeck story (“Risks”) that I’ve been meaning to write up for a while now.
The first story will be posted later this morning.