Ebjournal Revisited.

First Day Jitters

First Day Jitters is a picture book I have read on the first day of school each of the last six years. It’s cute because it turns out that the main character in the story (who doesn’t want to go to her new school) turns out to be the teacher, instead of student that the kids all thought she was. The story shows the students that even teachers get nervous when they start school.

Today I read First Day Jitters, and for the first time in six years, I didn’t have the jitters on the first day of school. I knew some of the kids coming in, I knew the school, so I was much more relaxed today. In fact, I was the most cheerful I have been in the last two weeks, because today was the day that I actually got to see kids! And edumacate them!

So, how did it go?

I think I got less than half done today of all the things I wanted to do. (daaaaaaaaaammmmmnnnn) We gathered on the carpet, played a web game with yarn (”What’s your name, what’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” Best Response–”Uh, anything with nuts in it.”), played a get-to-know-you game where the kids asked preset questions of each other, and we tried to organize our school supplies.

Tried.

Gentle readers, as much as this ebjournal is for you, it’s really more for me:

Dear Future Tony:
Remember how you wanted tables this year, and you tried to figure out where you would store all the school supplies? Yeah, you pretty much sucked at that as Past Tony. Next time, why don’t you actually LOOK at the school supply list and remember that you have pencil boxes that need a home.

And dry erase markers.
And the 20 extra pencils that don’t fit into the little zipper bag that you got for all of them.

And maybe, just maybe, don’t give them an activity to do while you’re going around to tables trying to collect supplies, especially when they don’t remember that they can’t just shout for me and get my attention, and you haven’t taught them any attention getting signals.

Love,
Present Tony (Ricky)

Anyway, after a trip to Target, I think I solved the pencil box issue. Is my life cool that my biggest screw-up today was about a pencil box, or is my life that lame?

I have to rearrange my schedule tomorrow to pick up all the things that I missed doing today. No big deal. It will be interesting to see how well the students come back tomorrow.

And the kids? They are an interesting group. They are definitely a different crew than last year’s bunch, but I think that’s a good thing, because it’s going to to stretch me as a teacher. One of the boys admitted to me as I pulled him off to the side that he was nervous, and I told him that it was okay; I’ve been nervous too, and that tomorrow will be better. He smiled then, briefly, and then went back to being nervous.

Tomorrow, first full day of students, and then Curriculum Night for the parents, in which yours truly gets to give a thirty minute presentation to the parents of the children I’ll have had contact with for a day and a half. Talk about jitters…

To sum up (in the Dana Carvey/George H.W. Bush voice)– ready for kids tomorrow, jittery for parents tomorrow night.

RSS Trackback URL 24. August 2005 (21:00)
Filed under: General, School Daze