The First Day

Today was the first day of school.  I spent the day attending to parking lot duty,  locating students, preventing students from getting (too) lost, changing schedules and eventually, teaching.  The official school day begins at 9:00.  By 10:55 my FitBt buzzed, signaling that I had walked 10,000 steps.

It was exciting to see the students and I enjoyed hearing about their summer.  Since I taught them all last year (and some the year before as well), I decided to take a different approach to the usual PowerPoint presentation outlining my classroom expectations.  My desks are arranged in groups, so I handed each group a scenario such as a student walking into class late and causing a disruption.  Each group has been charged with discussing the scenario and deciding the impacts that the student's actions in each scenario has on instruction as well as what the student could have done differently.  The students started the assignment today and will finish and present it tomorrow.  The goal of the assignment is to have the students decide the rationale for each classroom expectation on their own and learn how to take responsibility for their learning environment.

Like many of you, I am usually exhausted after the first day of school and this year is no exception.  I plan on taking it easy tonight and recharging for day two.  Here's to hoping that tomorrow will be just as joyful as today, yet significantly less chaotic.