Day One, Number Eight

Tomorrow morning will be my eighth “first day of school”. I wish I could report that I was not nervous and knew exactly what to do.

I can not.

This time of year brings me back eight years ago when I started my fist day. There were four ninth graders and me. I do not recall ever having been so scared of 13 year olds.

Here are some lessons I have learned since then.

Lesson One: Being nervous is normal and part of teaching.

We tend to resist our nerves by telling ourselves not to be nervous. This is usually unsuccessful and only succeeds in making us more nervous.

I have found that the best way for me to deal with nerves is to except them and understand that they will be there, as they were in all previous years, and I will be okay non-the-less. I read about such a technique that Dr. Pelcowitz suggests when working with a person with OCD. As you remember, a person with OCD has obsessive thoughts or worries that overtake them. He suggests allowing them to “obsess” for specific amounts of time. This way they can relax between those times and this helps them function. When a person has a good reason to feel an emotion it rarely helps to deny the emotion. If we can channel the emotion we will be better off.

So right now I am pretty nervous but trying not to worrying about my being nervous! That may sound funny but it is true.

Lesson Two: The students are WAY more nervous than I am.

This would be true of any grade but even more so for me who is teaching ninth grade. None of my students have ever been to Yeshiva or High School and some are even away from home for the first time. Keeping this in mind will help relieve my nerves and help me to be sensitive to my students. They have so many questions about how the year will go and what they are expected to do. I let them know that I will address these questions which helps calm them a bit.

Lesson Three: You only get one chance to make a first impression.

For anyone who has taken Rabbi Yoel Kramer’s teaching classes you understand this point quite well. This is not the place for a discussion about classroom discipline and management but suffice it to say that the first moments of class are significant.

Although different teachers will handle this differently I have decided to start with learning from the first moments. No provisos or procedural announcements. The second we are sitting I run into the learning. I do this because a) what better way to teach what is important to me? b) What better way to teach how I will run the classroom than showing them? C) I often throw in procedurals comments in the learning, this way they are non-threatening and not a big deal, “Take out you notebooks, you will need these everyday…” “Non bathroom breaks during this part of shiur, this will be true everyday..” I can address many things before the formal “talk” about this.

There are many more aspects to the first day. Harry Wong, a well know speaker on education has an entire book in the first days of teaching! I just wanted to share these few thoughts. Now I better get make to the preparation for tomorrow or else…