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Head of Lower School Noreen Lidston inspired parents with the following back-to-school night remarks.

I would like to share a few thoughts with you tonight about what is real and what is artificial, and what those differences can mean to your child’s elementary education.

Since our new artificial grass field was installed in August, I have looked on it with wonder and admiration! This field is completely level. There is not a bump or a dip anywhere. Check it out sometime! It drains beautifully, even when subjected to torrential rain! And the grass is always greener there.

“Wow,” I thought to myself, “This artificial grass is better than real grass in this spot!” That thought stopped me dead in my artificial tracks! How many artificial things are better than their real counterparts and under what circumstances? Let’s consider a few examples.

When you want to sweeten your coffee or tea, you can choose either real sugar or an artificial sweetener. Too much real sugar can rot your teeth, make you fat, inflame your tissues, and make you sick. Artificial sweeteners taste artificial and not everyone is 100% sure they are safe. Which is better?

A nutritionist told me this summer that most things we turn into white powder are bad for us. “Try honey or molasses,” she said, “Those are real natural sweeteners.”

When a child has a bad dream, a parent will often say, “Calm down, sweetheart. It was just a dream. It wasn’t real.” The dream may have occurred in an unreal, artificial world, but the fear it caused was very real and that’s what matters to the child. Real matters.

When a child who enjoys annihilating enemies in the artificial world of video games tries the same thing with a real sibling or playmate, he (or she) is sometimes surprised to learn that there are consequences like tears, screams, and attempts at revenge...and that’s just from the victim’s parent!

When my long ago little boy posed “the question” from the back seat of the car, I tried evasive action.

“Mom,” he asked, “Is Santa Claus real?”

“How do you mean real?” I tried.

“You know...real...an actual person.”

I told the truth. After a long pause, he said, “Then there’s no magic left in the world.”

Santa Claus only mattered when he was real.

And speaking of real, actual people I wonder sometimes if their roles in our real lives are diminishing?

Last Sunday I went food shopping. I ordered deli items at the kiosk and picked them up when I heard an artificial voice announce to the store, “Order 21 is now ready for pick-up at your convenience.”

I checked out through the “Self Check” aisle where another artificial voice proclaimed the name and price of every item as I scanned it. “Bananas. $1.27.”

When I said “Thank you” to the young man who bagged my groceries, I realized that those were the first two syllables I had spoken to a real human being during the whole hour I was in the store. He did not reply.

The same thing happens at the big box stores and home improvement centers. And then there’s online banking and online shopping for just about anything. Bank tellers and salespeople used to be familiar faces attached to real bodies, but they are disappearing from the landscape of our lives.

Even the art of real conversation, the kind with eye contact and voice intonation, is disappearing as we email, text, and tweet more and more.

Now at this point, you may be saying to yourselves, “Well, that’s all very interesting, but what does it have to do with my child’s schooling? What is your real point?”

My point is that for children who are from five to ten years old, the daily experience of school must be about real interactions with the real people and things that exist in the world around them. No artificial ingredients are required or welcome!

Young children use every one of their five senses to make sense of the world they live in, and they depend on us...parents and teachers...to support and guide them on this journey.

They need the time and the opportunity to stop and look at a real worm burrowing its way through the soil or see how actual water colors behave at the end of their brush.

They need to get their hands messy building a papier mache volcano and watch it erupt in its papier mache way. They need to listen to the music they can make with just rhythm sticks, a bell, or a drum; and they need to hear the genuine sadness in the voice of a friend whom they have hurt.

They still need to put a real pencil to real paper and write a good sentence in legible handwriting and maybe even send that note to a real person.

They need to have real math manipulatives in their hands so they understand what they are saying when they recite their math facts.

They need to read and comprehend so well that the character in the novel or the historical figure is as real to them as the child at the next desk.

Most of all, our youngest students need real relationships - genuine ties - with passionate and devoted teachers who love and care for them.

Teachers can be such powerful forces for good in the lives of children. A teacher’s words can lift a sagging spirit, heal a hurt, or make a child really believe that he or she will “get it” sooner or later because neither the teacher nor the student can quit until then.

You may have already met the extraordinary teachers who will “carry” your child for the nine months of the school year, or you may be on your way to do so. In either case, I hope that you, too, will develop a real, solid relationship with him or her. Two or three real people, working together in real time, can help any child grow into an adult who is both wise and loving.

And that’s the truth....really!