First Day

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Classroom Management Chatboard

First Day

by Tracy

Aug 31, 2011

I know that planning the first day is extremely important in classroom management, and that good communication of rules as well as consequences is a must. It's a little overwhelming at this point though to figure out how to map out my first day with "learning the rules" being more my objective. Any advice?

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Old Teacher On 8/31/11, Tracy wrote: > I know that planning the first day is extremely important > in classroom management, and that good communication of > rules as well as consequences is a must. It's a little > overwhelming at this point though to figure out how to map > out my first day with "learning the rules" being more my > objective....See MoreOn 8/31/11, Tracy wrote: > I know that planning the first day is extremely important > in classroom management, and that good communication of > rules as well as consequences is a must. It's a little > overwhelming at this point though to figure out how to map > out my first day with "learning the rules" being more my > objective. Any advice?

I don't know what kind of school yours is or what kind of community it's in but there is a school of thought that says that 'learning the rules' isn't a must for the first day. Of course, you may teach in a very rough school and then all bets are off but so many classrooms just emphasize the rules on that first day and it can be such a dampener on student enthusiasm for returning to school.

I live a bit in the more perfect world than it really is but on the first day, I try to frame the year ahead in exciting rather than rigid terms. I try to share the journey ahead - I really love the subjects I teach, I'm passionate about them and I think history and language arts are fascinating subjects with so much to offer. I spend the first day telling them why history and language arts are so wonderful and can be so fascinating.

When I see the kids leave my colleagues' rooms who've emphasized the rules that day, I see the kids have already jaded over, the light's gone out of their eyes and their eyes say, "It's just another year at school."

But I teach in a fairly normal school in a relatively middle-class community. We have some kids with issues for sure but none of our kids are really little criminals waiting to turn on us. Maybe yours are.

I end my first day classes by saying "I love summer, guys, but I really love being back at school too. I enjoy teaching, I find all of you to be great scholars in the making, and we're going to make it a great year in history class (or LA)! I need some help from you to do that, I think that's common sense and you know that too. I look forward to your help each day and with it, I can promise you this will be a class you look forward to coming to each day as much as I do. Have a great rest of the day and I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!"

yesterday, 2011

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