Five First Week Reflections

Dear colleague,

At the time of this writing, I am three days into my eighteenth year of teaching. Today, I'm sharing five reflections on the first week of school. Hopefully one of them creates encouragement or greater clarity for you.

1. Dude is tired. Yes. I am definitely tired. But encouraged, too. Why? Because of the next four items. 🙂
2. One class at a time. I've got 134 students this year, mostly ninth graders. 70 of them are in two sections of open enrollment AP world history, 55 are in two sections of general world history, and 9 of them are sprinkled throughout that day as Career and College Exploration independent study students. Some of you teach more students than this, some teach less. But here's one thing I know: 134 is a lot of human beings to get to know in a week! Especially for an introverted guy like me. So what I've reminded myself when I get overwhelmed is that you learn the kids one class at a time. In third hour, focus on third hour. When they're working independently, quiz yourself on their names. Use your index cards to call on them, and when you do, look at their faces. When you read things they've written, picture their face as best you can. Find those connection points — the quicker you can attach meaning to their name and face, the quicker you'll gain a sense of knowing them as humans and not just as 134 people to get to know. This has helped me arrive at a place where I (almost) know all 134 names and feel ready to begin tracking attempted MGCs.
3. Mini-sermons are money. Strategy #4 in The Will to Learn = mini-sermons, and boy are they fun to start incorporating in the first days of school. Why are we here? Why is this important? I felt spurred on in my mini-sermons this week by a nearby school, Grand River Prep, where teachers are laser-focused on mini-sermons during the first semester of this school year. I needed to bring my A-game with mini-sermons because I knew they were. And I knew a bunch of other folks all around the country were doing it. So I've been bringing it, and enjoying the delightfully light burden that mini-sermons are, given that they're brief (30-60 seconds), creative, authentic arguments for why what we're learning is class is worth the time and the effort.
4. Surface their values. On the first day of school, I like to do an index card activity that has students describing what they value and what they aspire to as their very first act in class. I also asked some classes of students to write two to three sentences about something they value outside of school, which is basically the research-derived Values Affirmation exercise that I describe on pp. 228-229 of The Will to Learn. This serves the obvious benefit of giving me insight into the hearts of my students, though a real but invisible side benefit is that this cultivates the Belonging belief, too.
5. Everest defined. This has also been a week of defining Everest for my students. Each day, I try communicating about Everest in a different way and in different parts of the lesson. (For a screenshot of my Everest this year in my world history classes, see below this list.) Speaking our Everest Statements into our classrooms is a multipurpose act, as it signals Credibility (this teacher knows what he's after and where we're trying to go), cultivates Efficacy (it sounds like this class boils down to getting better each day — maybe I can be successful here), and motivates me (gosh, if this is what my class boils down to — helping my students improve in these ways — maybe I can be successful here). Everest Statements, like all the tools I recommend, are only as useful as we make them. And each time we practice communicating Everest, our skill improves, as does the likelihood that the Everest will sink in.

In Sum

As these weary bones pack up for a weekend of as much rest as possible, the soul they inhabit is glad for colleagues like you. It's because of you that I've written my books, that I've travelled to a dozen or so schools this past summer, and continue to push forward my practice in the simple yet deep areas I write about. These are the reasons I believe that, come what may, this will be a good year to be a teacher.

Best to you, colleague,

DSJR