We never stop having “firsts”.

Too often we are surprised that our growing children don’t already know stuff and things about life that seemed automatic to us when we were young.  It feels sometimes like they’re always having firsts.

They should be.

Earlier today, our seven cultural trips returned from across the region.  And whether the students were 11 years old and a few months into starting Middle School, or 19 years old and months away from starting university, they all had firsts these last few days.

On the 7th grade trip, I was able to experience a bevy of firsts.  Our students list included - tenting, stargazing, sleeping bagging, BBQing, caving, kayaking, canoeing, American footballing, world footballing, frisbeeing, walking around a peninsula-ing and roasting smores around a campfire…and countless others we weren’t even aware were their first times.

Around the campfire, after about thirty minutes, a student leaned over to me and shared, “This is my first time ever seeing fire outside at night.”  I could feel his excitement.  I couldn’t even imagine what that must feel like to know you’re seeing fire for the first time (granted, he’d seen it during the day, so it wasn’t that awe-inspiring).

We then started talking about all the other firsts of the fire - finding the perfect place, checking for wind, ensuring we have sand/water nearby in case of needed extinguishing, collecting wood from the forest (dry on the ground, not damp attached to trees), starting with small sticks and pine needles and then gradually growing, finding the perfect marshmallow roasting stick and then figuring out how to golden the puffy dessert and not charcoal it.

And those were all the firsts from just one fire.

Even us older teachers had a few firsts - I learned to throw a forehand frisbee, learned how to get 50 steaks to come off a  BBQ at about the same time, learned it takes a thousand years for a stalactite to grow a centimetre, and even saw what a hedgehog looks like in real life.  All firsts.

The world of firsts is all around us.  They come less frequently to us elders, but to our children they’re coming nonstop.  

So whether your children are coming back from Cultural Trips, or just coming back from a September day at school, consider asking them instead of “What did you do today?” ask them…

“What did you do for the first time?”