From the time they are big enough to ride a wobbly bicycle a quarter of a mile until they are, in some cases, capable of running a boat to the mainland, Matinicus kids assemble daily in their one schoolroom.
Preschoolers look forward to it. Students learning the alphabet work beside teens working on algebra and chemistry. Children study with their siblings, their cousins, their neighbors, their babysitters. As has always been the way of one-room schools, older students do help younger kids.
Recess involves a lot of running around outside; there are rarely enough students of similar size for real team sports, but few miss that. With one or two or perhaps three students per grade, everybody is able to work at his or her own academic level. They take pride in Matinicus Elementary (a beloved former teacher added “Home of the Pirates,”) but not necessarily by comparison with other schools. Some of them have never known school any other way.
Eighth graders know that they will have to leave this comfortable and familiar routine and strike out across the water. They will not be taking a school bus to ninth grade, then coming home each afternoon to bicker with their families, guzzle milk straight out of the carton, walk the dog and sleep in their own bed. Parents will not see their youngsters every morning and start in with “You aren’t really going out dressed like that, are you?” Islanders don’t wait for their children to grow to college age before seeing them fly from the nest (if you’ll pardon the cliché.)
Our high-schoolers have to move to the mainland. By the age of 14, most already know how to drive. They may have fought fires or plowed snow or cut wood or made good money lobstering from their own boat. For some, going to high school actually means losing some of their “privileges.” Most are far ahead of their age-mates in life skills and independence, if not always good sense.
I know as well as anybody how boarding school kids can be spoiled, self-indulgent, troublemaking brats. A one-room school childhood in a community where everybody is forced to rely on his neighbor, saint or outlaw, and where nobody gets to say “it’s not my job” when another islander is in trouble, might just be an “antidote” to a snobbish self-centered attitude.
Frequently it is harder for parents to see their child leave home at age 14 than it is for that child to go. Things will be OK. That cynical adolescent will uncover a warm feeling for their island home, parents will learn exactly what goodies will fit into a priority mail box, island siblings and younger students will look forward to stories from the big school on the mainland, and even a fairly Luddite mom will learn to appreciate Skype.
We’ve been there. Our younger child has just received her college acceptance. With that, the part of our family’s life that was all about applications, essays about Matinicus and explanations of island childhood is behind us. Two children who had never before lived off-island applied to, were accepted to, got scholarships to and enjoyed boarding schools (go Huskies! Go Big Red!) and subsequently applied to, were accepted to, and got financial aid for college (go, University of Vermont Catamounts!)
To all those who pontificate on how a child is shortchanged if he isn’t signed up for organized sports at age three, or who worry that an island child is too isolated and cannot handle “the real world,” or who presume to think that these kids are delicate, over-sheltered “hothouse babies” who will immediately get in trouble due to their naivete, take a look. You definitely can become an accomplished athlete starting as a ninth grader. You certainly can succeed in hard-boiled academics without Math Club or kindergarten French. There is a great deal of value in the marine biology a kid learns in the stern of a lobster boat. There is a great deal to be learned in the copilot seat of the Cessna, in free time spent in the woods, in camping on the beach, in making friends with people a lot younger or older than yourself because that’s the only company there is.
Sometimes, an island is a rough neighborhood. There is a lot to be learned there, too.
Our Vermont Catamount is packing his electrician’s tools and heading back to Burlington this month. He’s got two shows to build in the University’s Royall Tyler Theater this semester. Our next islander will be headed to Bowdoin College in the fall. No, moving away isn’t simple, leaving home doesn’t happen without anxiety, but with a whole island teaching them, the kids will be fine. I’ve seen it work.
Go Polar Bears!
Eva Murray is a freelance writer who lives on Matinicus.