Teaching Tip #2 (Inservice Week)

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #2

You only get one “first” day of school.  

Here are some tips to make it remarkable for your students.

1. Classroom management.  I’ve gone on forever on this.  If you’re engaging, for the most part, classroom management takes care of itself.  I’m not saying I don’t battle certain issues daily (tardies and cell phone use), but if the story we’re reading or the book we’re analyzing is engaging, I don’t have to worry nearly as much about those issues.
2. Have a plan for the day.  And I’d add one thing to this – overplan.  I always write way more than we are going to actually do in a day on the board.  That way when I knock off a bit early or tell them we won’t get to the last two things, I look like a good guy . . . even if I didn’t intend to get to it!  Or if we do blow through the first few things, I have some fall back options.
3. Don’t judge/have a clean slate.  Kids change all the time.  In football, my least favorite day of the season was inevitably when my freshman team would have to scrimmage the sophomore team (all of whom were my freshmen team the previous year).  I hated this because I was amazed at how my former freshmen grow and filled out over the summer.  They were giants compared to the pint sized kids I coached just a year earlier.  The same is true for our students.  They grow and change all the time.  Give them a second chance to wow you.  And always, always try to catch them doing things right.