I love the first day because the first day I get to be fun. As an algebra teacher, I won’t get to be first a fun for the rest of the year. 

High School

I look back on high school a lot considering that I’m a high school teacher. I feel so very lucky because I had wonderful, brilliant teachers who made it easy for me to learn. I was in the environment I thrived in. 

Now as a teacher, I truly know exactly how hard it was for them to plan those learning activities that I remember. I know those days did not happen everyday because that’s merely impossible but on the days they did, I know how much work they put into it.

Testing and Learning School 

I always loved school. I was good at school, the whole thing. I was good with the routine (besides the waking up part.) I was good at the systems. I just always thrived in this learning environment. 

Testing, likewise, was always easy for me because I think I understood the tricks from the beginning. It was a puzzle to me to see how the test was written and once I figured out a teacher’s testing style, I could ace it. Taking assessment courses helped me see that I was always good at finding the pattern of an assessment, and so it helped me in writing them. 

A lot of my friends and students young were told that they were not good test takers. I’m realizing later in life that while that might be true often, it’s not just that the student isn’t good at test taking but that they’re not good at reading or learning out of context. Things just don’t stick in your brain that you don’t care about or that seem foreign or in a bubble.

Memories 

Memory is so strange and fickle. The thing about memory is there is no choice at all. We don’t choose what we remember. As teachers, we certainly don’t choose what our students will remember either. 

What do I remember? 

I remember specific things I have learned in my education on education, per say, because I use them in my career. I can’t say the same about all of my classes, especially from day to day. 

I do remember the amazing Mr. Manzo helping  me learn about the original toilet, the sign of a truly advanced society. I can’t tell you a lot of detail about the Mayan empire, but I know they had this brilliant system of irrigation, because he showed us an example of it that we could actually hold.

I can tell you Miss Balderi did a mood meter before it was cool, and while I do mine digitally now, I remember her struggles with the original SmartBoard as I now struggle with the newest board, the Promethean, able to do far more than I’ll ever do with it. I also remember being at her farewell BBQ in retirement, your last class being so special. This is now something I’ve felt from leaving my first long term school, and those kiddos will always be special as they watched me fall in love and follow my happily ever after. 

Miss Griggs scolded the kid who made fun of me for failing my first Biology test and sat through corrections with me one-on-one on what I now understand was her break period. 

My coach and teacher Miss Moschetta who came to bat for me when I really was screwing up. She pushed me and made me better during matches and in school. She taught me to be a leader, And how to be inclusive on a team and how important that is. 

The things we learn in high school are often just about how we should learn, how we should be, and how we should act.  We learn what to do to learn and use things that we don’t really care about, but have to. We learn how to make it through something that’s hard and maybe ask for help or not. Either way, it’s often not the content we learned in high school that’s really important. 

The content I’ve taken with me has not been by choice. The content that I’ve taken with me has been by what I’ve used. 

This is one of the reasons I truly don’t take it offensively when students say they struggle or don’t like my class. I try to make them have an experience that makes them learn, and makes them better in some way. 

First Day Vibes 

I love the first day because the first day I get to be fun. I get to ask students about themselves and tell them about me. I can tell them my goals for the year for them myself. 

As an Algebra teacher, I won’t get to be fun for the rest of the year or that’s how I see it. 

It’s not that I want to make kids miserable obviously, but I just find it so difficult to get through the content with anything fun even remotely put into classes. I want to and I always strive to– and by golly, I want to make this the year. 

Though I want to make it fun and notable, I know nothing remarkable might happen on a regular day, but connection and learning are slow. They take the year. The cycle continues. 

As usual, I’ll start the year with new goals, and new excitements. I’m very pumped to try new things this year though I already missed my room and schedule from last year. 

Every year though brings excitement and a bit of nerves. I love school. I always have and I guess I always will. Here’s to a successful and maybe a little more fun year.