アメリカに引っ越して最初に娘を入れた小学校の校長先生がとても素晴らしい教育者で今でも尊敬しています。
当時、校長先生から学んだ事をブログに記録していたのですが、アクセスできなくなってしまっているので、少しずつサルベージして行きたいと思います。

まずは2004年のエントリーから。長女が8歳、2年生の時でした。

■”Time” by Erma Bombeck

子供の小学校で学んだこと第２弾。　毎年新学年の始めの保護者の集まりで校長先生が読んでくれる詩です。　子供に「ごめん、今ちょっと忙しいの」といいにくくなります。

Time

WHEN I WAS YOUNG, Daddy was going to throw me up in the air and catch me and I would giggle until I couldn’t giggle anymore, but he had to change the furnace filter and there wasn’t enough time.

WHEN I WAS YOUNG, Mama was going to read me a story and I was going to turn the pages and pretend I could read, but she had to wax the floor and there wasn’t time.

WHEN I WAS YOUNG, Daddy was going to come to school and watch me in a play. I was the fourth Wise Man, {in case one of the three got sick}, but he had an appointment to have his car tuned up and it took longer than he thought and there was no time.

WHEN I WAS YOUNG, Grandma and Granddad were going to come for Christmas to see the expression on my face when I got my first bike, but grandma didn’t like the cold weather and besides, they didn’t have time.

WHEN I WAS YOUNG, Mama was going to listen to me read my essay on ” What I Want To Be When I Grow Up”, but she was in the middle of the Monday Night Movie and Gregory Peck was always one of her favorites and there wasn’t time.

WHEN I WAS OLDER, Dad and I were going fishing one weekend, just the two of us and we were going to pitch a tent and fry fish with the heads on them like they do in the flashlight ads, but at the last minute he had to fertilize the grass and there wasn’t time.

WHEN I GREW UP and left home to be married, I was going to sit down with Mom and Dad and tell them I loved them and I would miss them. But Hank, {he’s my best man and a real clown}, was honking the horn in front of the house, so there wasn’t anytime.