First Day Jitters and Joy

It's day one, again. 

It's my 10th first day teaching at Dordt.

It's my 24th first day of teaching, overall.

It's my 40th first day of school in my life(??!!)

I still get the first day jitters. The anxious excitement of meeting up with students is still real. It's still palpable. The anticipation of what is to come, the joy of meeting up with new students, and the fear of the yet-unknown things I will encounter all come together. I want it to be a great experience for my students. I want it to be a great experience for me too.

There are some things that have become "normal" for me as an instructor. I have some go-to moves that I use on the first day, and a lesson plan for the first class meeting in Intro to Education (always my first course of the semester!) that is dialed in, tightly planned, and gets students both actively involved and gives them a feel for who I am as their teacher and how the course "works." 

And yet...

...I feel the jitters.

Teaching is work full of anticipation and excitement and all the "maybes" that haven't yet found fulfillment, at least not for this time through the syllabus. It's meaningful work. It's joyful work.

Obligatory first day of school photo, yeah?

Class went great today, by the way. The first moments flew by, and I got the jitters out.

Students were responsive, and interactive, and seemed excited to be there too.

All good things...and their jitters seemed to be relieved as well.

Day 2 tomorrow...fewer jitters, probably. Just as much joy, almost certainly!

The Power of Looking Silly (and Not Caring that You Do)

Today is my 21st first day of school as a teacher.

This is the first time--to my memory--that I didn't have the back-to-school nightmares. I mentioned this to my wife this morning, and she (jokingly) said that means that things will go awful today. (She was joking...but we'll see, I guess. Not that I'm superstitious or anything...)

The truth is, I do worry about my teaching practice. I want to be the best that I can be! I want my students to learn, and to even enjoy my classes. And, seriously, I want to enjoy my classes too. And I usually do, even though I recognize my tendencies toward worrying.

And it's in those worrying times that I sometimes need some encouragement, some recognition that I'm doing all right.

Learning to Teach Again: Day One

My wife calls this my "first day of school"
outfit. (She's not wrong...)

It's the first day of school for me for this academic year. Ah, the beginnings: the excitement, the nervousness, the joy, the fun of meeting up with new students, the even-more-fun of meeting up with students I've taught before who already know me...

I love this about teaching: the rhythm of the year with beginnings, middles, and endings makes it feel like a new journey each time. Today was stepping out at the start of a new expedition, and it was a joy, honestly.

The first day of class is a challenge though. How deep can we go on the first day, when they haven't read anything, or written anything, or prepared anything? Do I just have introductions and go over the syllabus? And who wants to do that for 75 minutes? (Ugh!)

QR Tour: A First Day Experience

In my last post, I challenged my fellow educators--and myself--to consider making the first day an experience for students. Rather than just going over the rules and expectations, to consider how to draw students in, get them engaged from the very first day, and help them understand how we care about them and their learning.

Well, this idea resonated with a couple of my former students who are now teachers, and a few of them got in touch with me, either asking questions about how to do this, or--in the case of one passionate elementary school teacher--suggesting an idea for how she would like to take this approach.

In her own words (with her permission to share here):

Planning for Day One

This one came across my Twitterfeed today (thanks to @justintarte for sharing!)...

Image by Jennifer Gonzalez @ Cult of Pedagogy. Used with permission.

Oh. Man.

What if every teacher took this approach?