I am so grateful that it's the weekend. It's nice to have a minute to breathe and reflect on the first week of school. When I wasn't teaching, I was planning lessons, making copies, manning my post at carpool, reading books for my new media class, meeting with my team and plt (the other 6th grade language arts teachers), tutoring a high-schooler on Sophocles, sleeping and eating. Starting the school year is a juggling act. There was so much that I wanted to write throughout the week, but blogging was just one of the things I had to drop in order to keep the important things in the air.
I'm sure my students feel the same sense of relief after meeting six teachers, getting used to several sets of class procedures, skimming syllabi, figuring out (or not quite figuring out) their lockers, navigating new hallways, and making friends. "It will get easier," was my go-to phrase when teary-eyed ten-year-olds approached me with locker woes, requests for directions, and confusion over school supplies. It's what I'm telling myself too as I work on balancing my time as a teacher and my time as a student. Things I learned this week: 1. Don't hand out any paperwork on the first day. Just don't. I'm very impressed that most of my students did hand in their syllabi and electronic permission slips, but it just wasn't necessary to have those things the first week of school. It would probably be better to wait until the students are organized and in the routine of completing and turning in their homework to hand these out. 2. I loved meeting my new students and really look forward to learning more about them. 3. My students are excited to read! A raucous (okay, well, not raucous, but audible) cheer erupted when I announced that we would be visiting the media center and students would be able to check out books on Thursday. It seems like many of my students already know a love for reading, and those who don't will soon be infected by the literature lovers on the team. I heard students giving book recommendations to one another, some chose the same book to read so they could discuss it at lunch, and others explored new genres, choosing books they had never heard of before. 4. Building community in the classroom should be a teacher's top goal the first week of school. In the foundations of middle school class that I attend on Tuesday nights at NC State, my professor spent a good hour having her 13 students introduce ourselves to the class. We were told ahead of time to bring an object to class that we could use to introduce ourselves. Professor Beal used this activity to help us make connections to one another and cultivated a learning community rooted in empathy and support. It might seem hard to justify spending so much time on introductions in my own classroom, especially since my average class size is thirty students, but it's not. Creating a learning environment where the students feel known, cared-about, and supported by their teacher and their peers is crucial. It means that school is a place they want to go, where they feel accepted, where they can take risks and won't be afraid to fail. To start building community, we wrote bio poems and shared them during a gallery walk. Students wrote down comments for their classmates on sticky-notes and worked to find common threads that weave through our community of learners. We answered icebreaker questions and I showed students this soul pancake video about getting to know new people. Next Friday, the students will go through team building activities led by Mrs. McKee. Looking forward starting week two tomorrow!
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Jill Zappiateacher, grad student, bibliophile Archives
October 2015
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