OPINION: Some kids love school because they need it

With school starting earlier this month for everybody in the county, I’ve become more aware that some people actually look forward to school and classes resuming.

I was always in the group where the end of summer was the saddest time of the year because – in addition to having to pick peas in my granddad’s fields – I hated school coming back.

I’d always focus on the worst-case scenarios – the mean teachers I had coming up, the horror stories I’d heard about how mean they were, how I refused to focus and behave in class … it all added up to a lot of anxiety going in.

I didn’t focus on the good times – seeing my friends every day, Halloween carnivals, basketball games (we didn’t have football at the junior high school I grew up in), field trips, seeing who could win various contests the boys in my class would have when the teacher would leave the room.

I’m kind of proud to say that I won the contest of who could have the tallest stack of textbooks dropped on his head on a desk.

The two strongest guys in our class had a stack of 27 books so high just above my head, and then the tallest guy in class stood on the desk next to mine and simply put his hands on the top of the stack, forcing the stack downward as the other two guys holding it let go.

I never actually felt anything, but suddenly, bright spots filled my vision as my head was laying sideways on the desk and I felt weird the rest of the day. Of course, this was in 1995 when we didn’t know nearly as much as we do now about the brain and how it’s affected by injuries. Plus I’m 43 and not 14.

But we had more fun at school than I realized until I grew up and drove by my old school a few times and thought about some of the memories we made back then.

Some children need school for more than that though.

Regional Inter-Faith Association (RIFA) sent more than 1,400 snack backpacks home the last few weekends of the school year in the spring. That’s more than 10 percent of the enrollment of JMCSS that wasn’t sure of the nutrition they’d receive after leaving school on Friday afternoon and coming back Monday morning for breakfast.

I remember a few years ago in 2018, doing a back-to-school in August at one of the local middle schools. Keli McAlister was the media relations coordinator for JMCSS at the time, and we were allowed into a classroom to talk to the teacher and a few students and get photos and video clips.

Some of the students couldn’t stay in there because they were in foster care, and there are usually strict rules against foster children’s faces being broadcast in media. So Keli stayed out in the hall with three or four students.

I finished getting my interviews and photos before the rest, and I went back in the hallway with Keli and the kids. We were hanging out and making conversation.

Those kids were so excited to be back at school. Keli asked why they were excited to be back, they said because of breakfast and lunch and the nice teachers.

She asked if they did anything fun over the summer, and one child said yes they’d gotten a dog. The child described the dog and building a relationship with it and how fond they’d grown of the dog.

But then the child told us that their mother had to sell the dog so they could get money to buy themselves some food.

I’ve done stories on food insecurity in Jackson, and I’ve seen the comments on the links to those stories on social media.

I get that not everyone understands how there are families literally going hungry in Jackson, Tennessee, when there are big industrial places, farmers just outside town and small businesses all over town looking to hire people.

But it’s not that simple for some people. Mental health, addictions, chronic illness and lack of childcare affects whether or not adults can work, which affects them bringing income into their home which affects children in their home.

And those circumstances at home affect the children when they get to school.

So if you can donate your time to helping children learn to read or help in some other way, JMCSS would appreciate it.

If you don’t have a lot of time but could donate money to one of their causes or one of the non-profits trying to help the children eat, that would be money well invested.

You don’t have to look far to find people you can impact greatly. You’ve just got to be willing to step out and do it.

Brandon Shields is the managing editor of The Jackson Post. Contact him at brandon@jacksonpost.news. Follow him on X.com @JSEditorBrandon or Instagram @Editorbrandon.