THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408280095
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL SOUTH, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BUXTON LENGTH: Long : 175 lines
For weeks Krystal Foster has been thinking about this day - what to wear, what kind of book bag to carry, what kind of lunch box to buy.
For Krystal and 6-year-olds everywhere, this is special.
This is the first day of school.
And it's special to others, too.
Faye Foster smiles and her eyes sparkle as she talks about her daughter's last night before entering the first grade at Cape Hatteras School.
``She picked out what she was going to wear. She stood in front of the mirror, and tried on everything - even her socks and shoes - and stood in front of the mirror and primped. She was ready.''
Foster, the receptionist at the school, sent her and her older brother off with pride and with regret.
``On the one hand, you're anxious for them to go to school. But at the same time, you're scared. I've been talking to them about it for a week, and it's not just academics. The social aspects and everything else. Wow, there's just so much for them to learn, and you wonder how they're going to get through all this.
``Krystal's my best friend. She loves her Dad, but she's Mama's girl.''
And shortly after 8 a.m. Friday, Krystal Foster, dressed in blue shorts, a white top with a matching vest, and purple, pink and white LA Gear tennis shoes, complete with blinking red lights on their sides, walks side-by-side with her mom into school.
Her 8-year-old brother, Marshall, who's been here before, walks a pace behind.
Krystal keeps her eyes looking straight ahead. She shakes her head when asked whether she had trouble going to sleep the night before.
Suddenly, she spots a friend. She runs to Laken Ramsey, a kindergarten classmate from last year. They hug. Faye Foster beams. Marshall walks on to his classroom.
Krystal is assigned to Kristin Gray's first-grade classroom. The doorway is decorated with pictures of hot air balloons, each bearing a child's name. A helium balloon tethered to a plastic basket flies over each child's desk, where there are namecards. As Krystal looks for her place, her mother points to familiar children from Krystal's kindergarten class.
As Krystal prepares to sit down, her mother kneels to Krystal's eye level.
``Have a great day,'' she says. And then she whispers privileged mother-daughter communication, two pairs of blue eyes locked in loving contact, and Mom and her 6-year-old best friend embrace before Krystal is left to the care of Kristin Gray.
This is Gray's third year as a teacher, but her first at Cape Hatteras School. Both of her parents were teachers. She admits to being a little nervous about today, because this is where she attended high school before going on to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
As the day begins, she talks to parents who escort their children to class, and then she and teaching assistant April Gray Rimmer are alone with the children.
The teacher begins the day with a story, called ``Miss Nelson Is Missing.''
Miss Nelson is a kind teacher who presides over a rowdy group of paper-airplane tossing, spitball-throwing students. The next day, Miss Nelson is gone, replaced by Viola Swamp, a first-grader's nightmare. But after one week, Swamp has her once-unruly kids in line, and miraculously, Miss Nelson returns to find a well-behaved class.
Leaving the story, Kristin Gray asks her class, ``Would you like to have Miss Swamp for a teacher?''
``No,'' the children respond. ``We want to be in your class,'' one boy says.
Gray smiles.
As the morning rolls on, Krystal sits quietly for the most part, the red lights on her shoes blinking occasionally. The boy on her right cries softly, until the teacher's assistant, ``Miss April,'' comforts him.
During the morning, Krystal learns about the days of the week, the months of the year and the weather. She also learns ``a new kind of first-grade writing,'' getting pupils ready to move toward cursive writing. They also make their own rules: Always walk, listen to the teacher. Follow directions. Be polite. Share. Keep your hands to yourself. Use a quiet voice inside the building. Raise your hand to speak. Keep the room neat.
Late in the morning, they draw pictures of their summer vacations. Some kids draw jet skis, fishing boats and crabs, common to this island where they live. Krystal draws a swimming pool in vibrant shades of blue and green.
After drawing, they go one row at a time to the bathroom, and then set about the business of starting to learn the alphabet. They also start learning sign language.
The index and middle finger are pressed together to make an ``H.'' ``Like a bird's going to sit on your finger,'' one boy says. Later, he makes the letter ``S'' in a sign that looks like a fist, ``like you're punching somebody.''
``Yes, but we're not going to do that in here,'' Gray says. She works her way through the alphabet to ``Z.'' As she makes the letter's sign with her index finger, one child shouts, ``Like Zorro.''
Krystal listens, but says little. Gray asks ``What time is it?''
``Lunchtime!'' shout the children. Not yet, but morning recess is near. ``Awww,'' groan the children. But they gather with Miss April on the playground, and Krystal and her friends are fireballs of fun and frolic. Peanut butter and jelly can wait.
Gray stays inside for a few minutes. This is her first day, too.
``I taught at Manteo for two years,'' she says. ``I live here on Hatteras. I've been pretty nervous this week, getting ready for a new school. I attended school here, and coming back as a co-worker is different from being here as a student.''
She is excited about working with her new students.
``I enjoy working with the little ones,'' she says. ``They still want to please adults. I think as they get older, they lose some of that.''
She knows nearly everyone remembers their first-grade teacher.
Thinking back to her first-grade experience, she recalls Thanksgiving in Mrs. Myers' class in Point Pleasant, N.J.
``I remember we had a big Thanksgiving feast, and we all dressed up like the pilgrims. That made learning fun.''
Krystal and her classmates work on phonics and the letter ``C'' after recess. When the teacher asks for words that begin with the letter, Krystal raises her hand and softly calls out ``Camel.''
``My mama, she rode camels in the desert,'' she says to no one in particular.
Other children suggest words like crab and cucumber, and one girl calls out ``sea water.'' On Hatteras, the ocean is never out of sight, or out of mind.
Later, her new purple lunchbox open, Krystal sits with four friends in the lunchroom. As she munches, she and her friends talk about stickers and other things.
After a few minutes, bigger kids come for lunch. Krystal sees her brother, catches his eye, smiles and gives a tiny wave. He acknowledges her, and goes on with his friends, and Krystal returns to her talk.
After lunch, they return to work on the letter C, and then, they play a number-recognition game called ``Who Stole The Cookie From the Cookie Jar?''
The game involves cards with numbers on them. Only one has the picture of a cookie. Krystal's card is No. 6.
One child asks about the rewards of victory in the game:
``Do we get a sticker?''
But there will be no stickers, just numbers. Such is the business of learning.
Continuing their work in numbers, the class is assigned to draw one thing, and then write the word ``one'' on the picture. Krystal draws a turtle that sometimes nests near her home. In the course of the drawing, one boy begins to sing, ``The Lion Sleeps Tonight,'' and a few join in. But it doesn't last long.
When playtime comes, Krystal runs and jumps, and soars on the swings. She is everywhere.
``She's a social butterfly,'' her mother had said earlier. But after recess, the social butterfly is flushed.
``It's so hot out there,'' she says.
As the afternoon winds down, Gray makes sure every child has a way home. Some children walk, some are picked up by their parents, but like many, Krystal will ride the bus. Hers is Bus 57.
The children return to the library, where Krystal and two other children look at a book on nature. They see a large picture of a praying mantis. ``Eeewwww,'' she says. ``That's cool,'' a boy says.
Gray reads a story called ``The Pet Show,'' and asks the children about their favorite pet. They are then given paper plates, construction paper, white glue and safety scissors, and asked to make the face of their favorite pet. Using pink and brown, Krystal works on a cat. The room becomes almost silent as imaginations roam freely.
At a few minutes before 3 p.m., Gray begins to read another story. The children are tired.
The teacher barely has begun the story when the time comes to go home. There's a cheer when she says there will be no homework.
As Krystal straightens her desk, she confides that she likes first grade better than kindergarten. ``In kindergarten you have a rest period. I don't like to rest.''
In a single-file line, the children leave quietly. Her orange balloon in tow, Krystal boards Bus 57 for home.
Gray watches as each child boards the bus.
``It went pretty well the first day,'' the teacher says. ``There were a couple of individual cases I was concerned about, but I think overall this is a good group. It's going to be a good year.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
[DREW C. WILSON/Staff
Krystal Foster, 6, had planned for her first day of first grade for
weeks. The day included hearing stories, making rules, making
friends, and doing her part to earn coveted rewards from her teacher
- stickers.]
by CNB