Teacherscribe's Teaching Thought #1

Teaching Thought #1 –

Make the first day of school amazing for your students.  You only get one first day.  And if you teach seniors it’s their last first day ever.  Make it amazing as possible.

The lack of attention paid to an employee’s first day is mind-boggling. What a wasted opportunity to make a new team member feel included and appreciated. Imagine if you treated a first date like a new employee: “I’ve got some meetings stacked up right now, so why don’t you get settled in the passenger seat of the car and I’ll swing back in a few hours?”

That’s a quote from one book I read over the summer (The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip and Dan Heath).

Don’t make your first day of school feel like this for your students.  To make it remarkable, the authors advise - To avoid this kind of oversight, we must understand when special moments are needed. We must learn to think in moments, to spot the occasions that are worthy of investment.

I never consciously did this, but I see now that I do break down my first day by moments.  I have my “Welcome to College Comp.  This is going to be the most amazing class you ever take” moment (why not set the bar high right away?).  I have my “this is how I came to love reading and writing” moment.  I have my “let’s read this incredibly terrible rough draft from a past student” moment that gets everyone laughing.  I also have my “two rules for College Comp” moment. 

On top of those moments, I’m on the lookout for spontaneous moments from the students that I can develop.

Remember, the great thing about the first day of the year is that you know it’s going to be remembered.  You know it’s going to be significant.  So that’s half the battle right there.

If you read Teach Like a PIRATE several years ago when Shane bought us all copies, you know how vital this one day is.  Wow your kids.  Show them how much fun they’re going to have.  Show them what they’re going to learn.  Show them how excited you are.

Don’t just read your syllabus and treat this amazing moment like it’s the third week in October.

Here are a few examples from the authors’ book –

The first day of school: Michael J. Reimer, the principal of Roosevelt Middle School in San Francisco, wanted to help sixth graders make the transition from elementary school to junior high. He created a two-day orientation program that reviewed core math/science concepts and, more importantly, made the students comfortable navigating the school building and their more complex academic schedule. He even set up “Locker Races,” which spurred students to get faster at opening their combination lockers (an unfamiliar technology for most). He said that two days later, when the seventh and eighth graders showed up, the sixth graders “felt like they owned the school.”

How much of a peak moment would a first day of school like that be?