Laying the Foundation

Everyone knows what the first day of school is like from the student perspective. We've all done it - lots of times.

For teachers, the first days of school are not about learning - they are about beginning to create a classroom environment that will sustain learning for the next 10 months or so. Building community is an important part of this - giving every kid an opportunity to feel like they've got a positive role to play in the group, that they're an essential, unique piece of the overall puzzle, that their classroom is going to be a safe, positive place to be where they can take some risks and expand their realm of possibilities, maybe reinvent themselves a bit from who they were last year. It's also a time for me to start carefully laying out my expectations, my limits, my general learning philosophies. This is not brainwashing, mind you. But it is about building a classroom culture that embraces positivity and achievement. This is not an easy thing to do.

For me, first days are pretty frustrating. Just 8 weeks earlier I had to say goodbye to the well trained, academic machine that I had painstakingly created. Everyone knew the routines. Everyone knew the expectations. I didn't have to spend much time on management. Instead we focused on learning.

The first day of school, however, you're starting from scratch. It requires an extreme amount of patience. Every moment is a teachable moment. They need to learn they can't go to the bathroom during class time. They need to learn that they can only drink water during and after recess. They need to learn that talking when I'm talking is interrupting me, and interrupting me is rude. They naturally test me, see what they can get away with. Step by step, with each interaction, they figure out the boundaries. Lots and LOTS of interactions.

Day 2 went much better than yesterday - it's amazing what a full night's sleep can do. After five years of teaching, I'm easily picking out their errors, which are, inevitably, much like the initial errors of my last year's class and the years before that. I can see what I need to teach them, where the gaps are, how to fill them.

It's going to be a good year.