The baby boomers have arrived, at least in my chapter about the school in 1953. I've been writing it this morning and I've uncovered one interesting fact. Before the 1953-54 school year, the cutoff birthday for beginning first grade in North Carolina was October 1. (Remember, no kindergarten back then.) The child born on or after that date had to wait until the next fall to start school.

World War II, the men were gone. Nine months after they returned, the boom began. But with the massive number of babies born in 1947 now arriving at the schoolhouse door in the fall of 1953, the date was moved to October 15 to allow some of the boomers a chance to start a year earlier. Who would have guessed that those fifteen days would make that much difference, but it did. It spread out the impact just a bit, just a tiny bit, but enough to add one more teacher to the faculty at Pilot Mountain School. No thought to the child's maturity level.  No thought to pedagogy. This decision was based on postwar reality.

Only recently has the cutoff date been revisited, researched and revised. Now the cut off in North Carolina is September 1. Thinking of the child. Finally.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen