I wanted to share some thoughts about the school day. Going in I was a little stressed and felt not 100% prepared. Like, I needed my 1st period prep to get things ready. Today I was going to bring home the student info forms to read through, but then I forgot them. That’s ok I guess, need something to do in my prep tomorrow.
What did I do?
Had assigned seats and a bellringer. Some of them did not sit in the assigned seats. I noted this but did not make a big deal of it. For better or worse. (The books say it’s important to win this power struggle straight off!) I had the bio slide displayed and talked a little about myself, and my co-teacher talked about her info in my CTT classes. I showed the slide with the quote: “Half the curriculum walks in the classroom with the students, in the textbook of their lives.” (EJ Style) I never knew the second clause of that quote until I tried to look it up. I talked about how it was an important quote that I wanted to take seriously. And that I planned to make space in the class for their ideas and interests, that it’s not all about getting through all the skills and lessons and chapters and units.
Then I shared a slide stating “Three Non-Stupid Rules.” I explained that after my last year at the school, I was focused on rules like “don’t throw things” or “no vaping in class.” But these are kinda stupid rules -- students know them, and putting them on a list doesn’t have a magical power to make them happen with less frequency. My three non-stupid rules were:
- Use common sense -- with a corollary of “Don’t do things you know are wrong.” Should we yell and scream at each? Use curse words? (Funny story: with a student coming in and almost immediately releasing some such words at a classmate, she said she was speaking in cursive.) And of course cell phones. Given that we’re twenty minutes into the first class of the year, is this a good time to be checking your insta?
- Don’t sell yourself short -- I related how I’ve seen students who seemed bursting with intelligence who just kinda phoned it in when it came to do the math task. I also related how the class is meant to draw about the intelligence that each student brings to the class, just as it will hopefully serve as something to help that intelligence grow.
- Kind an open mind -- both to new ways of doing math, and also to ways of being, whether it’s someones preferred style of music, their cultural background, their religion, their fashion, the people they’re romantically attracted to, etc. That being around a diverse group of people is something that helps you grow as a person.
Ok a couple of more notes because this is getting long and I wanna post. I did a short group activity, just challenging them to find something that they all have in common. And we did a group share out. A simple routine that I wanted to get underway.
What’s next? In tomorrow’s class I want to do a favorite math task: How many ways can you arrange the letters in your name? (Or, how many words can you spell with your name? Understanding that word means any sequence of letters in this context.) In a couple of sections I didn’t get to the syllabus, so that’s on the agenda as well. What’s the focus of the day? Learning names and working together seems like the obvious answer!
