by by Lynn E. Nielsen in Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA
I am a teacher. In 1972, I began my career teaching 5th- and 6th-grade social studies in the Midwest where, exactly 20 years before, I had started kindergarten. I was part of the Boomer generation that hit the schools in crushing numbers just after the war. From 1941 to 1945, many of our fathers were occupied with fighting the war in Europe and Asia. When they returned, they became occupied with families-making them. Like a junior Invasion of Normandy, wave after wave of 5-year-olds like me descended on the schools armed with crayons, Big Red tablets, and kindergarten nap mats.
