Getting to Class; Turn Day One Jitters into Day Won Class

It’s August. Back to school sales are raging. Letters are arriving that tell students who their teachers will be this fall. Nervous energy is buzzing through bodies… Not just students’. Teachers worry about the first day of school, also.

Here are a couple classy ways that I deal with the start of school jitters:

1. I have a goal… ONE goal for the first day. I’ll accomplish more than the one thing, but I measure my success based on this one thing. It isn’t the same every year. Sometimes it is learning everyone’s name. Other years, all I wanted was to get everyone back home safely. Nowadays, my goal usually centers on classroom management. I like  the momentum to begin in my favor, so I establish myself as captain. The class is my crew. “Any questions? That was rhetorical. Put your hand down.” I don’t just withhold my smile until Thanksgiving; I’m not even pleasant for several weeks into the year! Of course, I am kidding. The pleasantries are paired with the smile, and it is more like Christmas when they appear. It’s my Christmas present to the crew class. Oh kay, seriously… I suggest not making this an impossible goal, as in “I want everyone to like me,” “Everyone should have fun,” “The class should love school…” They sound good, but are disastrously defeating. Simple is always best. “Everyone will leave the first day knowing the rules of the classroom; If nothing else, they will understand my expectations, period” 
2. Meet that first goal and your golden! There isn’t a number two. I lied when I said, “Here’s a couple things…” The whole point of the one goal is for there to only be one thing that you are concentrating on. Okay, but if you are interested, there is one other thing that I do before the school year begins that has seemed to help: I make up some sort of slogan for the year. This is something that I have never shared with anyone, so it is rather ironic that I am blogging it to the world! It began this practice when I was long-term subbing. Before the year began, I came up with a little mantra that I used to keep me pumped up. It didn’t make any pedagogical sense, but it seemed to get my blood moving. I would tell myself, “We (yes, I use the royal pronoun when referring to myself; I am not multi-personality-possessing; at least, one of my personalities does not think so;) are going to kill it this year.” (I almost typed an exclamation mark at the end of my personal rallying cry, but it was really just a small whisper that I told myself.) Last year it was something like, “Everything before now has just been practice. This year I’m going to make it happen.” Notice how the motto is generic. In this way, it is difficult to fail. If I just do something different or better, I am successful. I don’t attempt to define “It”*.

   

Remember this one last tidbit of advice: The person that you are warring against, when it comes to overcoming nervous energy is YOURSELF. Everyone experiences his/her own battles, and therefore each will need his/her own battle strategy. Win Day One, and you are on your way to a year won in more ways than… You get the idea.

*This is the same “It” that defeated the Knights Who Say Ni from Monty Python’s “Search for the Holy Grail.” Or, is it the “It” described by Dean Moriarty, when he is listening to jazz in a night club in San Fransisco in “On The Road” by Jack Kerouac? I think it lies somewhere between the two.