Monday, August 31, 2009

First day. 2000 more to go.

We started school today. My class seems to be a pretty good group. A bit sleepy. More than half hadn't eaten breakfast. One of my fabulous games sussed out that factoid. A bit reluctant to work together. That's pretty normal. All in all a good day. Nobody had any problems. I can tell a few students that may be trouble later. I've got my teacher eye on them. We'll see.

It's all routines at this point. How do we sharpen our pencils? How do we ask to go to the bathroom? And so it goes. The thing is, teaching this stuff and team building is the most important thing now. You give up some time but get so much more back later because you don't have to keep teaching and practicing stuff that should be basic. No matter how many years I've done it, there's an impatient voice in the back of my head saying "ok, let's move on." I ignore that voice for a long time.

The funniest thing that happened was long after they left. I was reading the 3/5 cards they filled out. I asked them to tell me if they're allergic to anything. Most wrote nothing. The others wrote things like bugs or pollen. Jennifer wrote "cheap jewelry." I bust a gut laughing. I guess it's ok to surprise them with a treat here or there without worrying about food allergies. Just no cheap jewelry surprises. Someone will turn green.

1 comment:

Darx said...

I love it. I can just see you sitting there cracking up. Fantastic. Me, I'm allergic to Tide detergent. Wacky, huh?