First Day of School

Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life...or at least your life as a teacher. Tonight someone asked me if I could do any job in the world, what would it be. I said ask me in a week. I'm just starting my first year in the job I have been dreaming of doing for the past ten years. So for now, I can say I already have my dream job.

This morning I had plenty of time to mentally prepare myself. My first period is conference period, and we had a longer assembly this morning with announcements, then a longer first period for students to fill out paperwork and get registration straightened out. Once my first class arrived at 11am (I arrived around 7:15), I had three students. And one was legitimately ill and went to the nurse. Ever planned for the first day of class for two students? Adaptation and flexibility time! Somehow we ended up having a blast. Who knows what will happen when the rest of the class shows up and then the class begins it's constant revolving door of students.

We then went straight to lunch, skipped 3rd Period, and started on 4th-6th. 4th went fairly well and the students started to talk a little bit. Believe me. That is a huge accomplishment. I could almost distinguish what they were saying. I know it will take time to build trust with these students. It's understanding that they are suspicious of a new teacher teaching a new subject for their school.

In 5th period, the challenges began. It was my largest class of the day. It was the only class where I was not able to learn everyone's name. Who knew what a crazy request it was to ask everyone to please stand up. They definitely pushed and whined and asked why they couldn't do what the last teacher let them do. First, I didn't let it get to me or make me upset. A really smart teacher advised me last week to never push these students in a corner, to always give them a choice (with natural consequences). I tried to apply that advice. I told the students that I was there because the principal wanted someone who did what I do. Now if they have a problem, they know who to blame. :) In all seriousness, my principal is great. It's nice to have support for your subject.

6th Period settled down again. Smaller group. Kept trying to get me to perform in front of them. I need to work on having more of that prepared in the future.

Tomorrow is a new day. Or, as one of my counterparts would say, "Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it."