First day of school stream of consciousness

Slice of Life is brought to you by Two Writing Teachers 

Well I got through it. My ninth first day of school as a teacher. Today was a half day but it felt like a full day. I've been home for a few hours already and haven't done anything but sit around. Yet I still feel like I got hit by a truck. No amount of napping can take this tired away. Why is the first day of school so incredibly exhausting?

I only got to spend 20 minutes with each of my three classes. Not enough to get to know much about them, but just enough to sense that this is a great group of kids and I'm going to have a lot of fun with them this year.

I can already feel great things happening, not just with my students, but with the staff this year as well. My commitment to help build a community of readers, not just in the classroom, but in our school, is already happening in small but wonderful ways. I created this bulletin board outside my classroom to share and celebrate the reading lives of our staff and to show students that reading is not a singular activity. It got a fantastic response. Also, my fabulous fourth grade colleagues, who went to Jillian Heise's session at nErDcampMI, are committing to reading a book a day with their classes. Book Love is spreading.

On the First Day of School Eve...

I've been strangely chill and non-freaked out about this upcoming school year. School starts tomorrow but you'd think I still had two weeks left to plan the way I'm just hemming and hawing about stuff. It's not for lack of caring. It's just that this isn't my first rodeo. I'm coming up on year nine. I got this.

Plus, I've finally come to learn, thanks to the help of my amazing PLN of teachers, that building authentic relationships matter more than silly ice breakers, detailed syllabi, and giant posters of numbered classroom rules. So on this first week of school (and for the rest of the school year), here are some friendly reminders I've made for myself:

1) I will write with my students.
2) I will do daily book talks or read aloud to my students.
3) I will treat my students as individuals with unique needs and talents.
4) I will be a learner as well as a leader.
5) I teach students, not curriculum.

If I keep those things in mind, I know this is going to be a great year.

As I was getting pumped up for tomorrow, I decided to watch Penny Kittle's Book Love video that she made with her students because it's a nice reminder of the kind of teacher I want to be for my students.

Celebrate the Unexpected

Wednesday night I was reading through student interest surveys and entering their responses into Evernote. Every year this assignment helps me get to know my students better, but in general, they're not very exciting to read. It's just listing information like their favorite music, books, subjects in school, etc.

On one student's survey however, I came to the question where I ask "What motivates you to do well in school?" Most students respond to this question with the usual "good grades" or "I want to get into a good college" but on this particular student's survey, suddenly I was laughing hysterically. He definitely got my attention.



These are the moments I love as a teacher - when students surprise and delight me and remind me that we are all different and unique - something you will never see or be able to evaluate on a standardized test.

Celebrate This Week was established by Ruth Ayers

Be Brave

On August 1st, kindergarten teacher Matt Gomez wrote a blog post about the one and only rule in his classroom: BE BRAVE!

For all the teachers starting their first day of school this coming week (and those who've already started too), let this song be your mantra this year. Stand up for what you know is right for your classroom. Don't let the evils of education "reform" prevent you from being the teacher you're meant to be. Be brave and use your outside voice.

September's Just Around the Corner...

Everywhere around me I see signs that the new school year is almost beginning (for some of you reading this, it's already begun). Back to school shopping is in full swing, teachers are talking about having to report to work for PD workshops, and there's an energy in the air that seems to shout, "SUMMER IS OVER! TIME TO SET YOUR ALARM CLOCKS!"

One of the things I will miss about not teaching this year is spending those two weeks before the school year begins getting my classroom ready. The anticipation and excitement of what the school year will hold builds as I organize my classroom and feel the satisfaction of watching that room go from disorder and chaos to my second home filled with books on the shelves and posters on the walls.

This year I won't have that sense of anticipation and satisfaction, so I decided to offer my services to a friend who is setting up a new classroom this year as she was just hired at a new school district.

I interviewed Sarah Andersen here on the blog back in April and she also contributed to my Why I Stay video. She was just offered a position teaching high school English at a new school district and so yesterday I drove to her new school and helped her start the process of making her classroom go from cold, gray walls, to a warm, inviting room filled with books.

I had a great time going through Sarah's books and helping to organize her shelves, and while we weren't able to get everything done yesterday, I hope that was able to help her put a sizable dent in her overwhelming mountain of boxes that took up an entire wall of her classroom.

Organizing a classroom before the school year begins is something all teachers, whether they'd like to admit it or not, look forward to. It is something that, despite knowing our last few days of freedom are coming to a close, helps give us time to wrap our minds around the important job we have ahead of us. Sitting in that empty classroom and watching it transform from the chaos of desks strewn about, books piled in odd places, and posters yet to be hung, to a welcoming place that we can be proud of is a microcosm of what we hope the rest of the school year will be.

When I returned home from my day helping Sarah, I was browsing my Facebook feed and noticed a few of my teacher friends had shared a blog post by another one of my interviewees, Gary Anderson. Gary is beginning his 34th and final year of teaching and his positive, upbeat outlook about not only the year ahead but his career as a whole was thoroughly refreshing and gave me hope. We need to see more teachers like Gary sharing their stories. Given the fact that we find ourselves hearing of public retirement stories from teachers who are leaving the profession out of disillusionment and resentment over the lack of trust left in our profession, stories like Gary's seem few and far between.

I'm on a mission this year to find more Garys out there. To find more teachers who are doing great things despite the fact that the media, politicians, and public opinion tell us otherwise. So if I know you and you're a teacher, don't be surprised if you hear from me soon. I want to come visit your classrooms and see what great things you're doing that, as a teacher, you're probably too humble to tell the world. Let me be your champion because I want teaching to go back to being the revered profession it once was, not fodder for news reporters and politicians.