The First Day of School

Some miscellaneous thoughts

Another first day of school in the books. Here's some miscellaneous first-day-of-school advice:

I don't put too much stock in what I say. Schedules are still being ironed out, some families are still on vacation, lots of things will get shuffled around. Other teachers are making big speeches, anything I say will just blend in. I don't plan a big first-day speech about why math class will be awesome or whatever. I assume anything I say will need to be said again.

I put a lot of stock in what we do. I start building routines right away. Even if classes get shuffled and kids miss the first day, solid routines will make it much easier for them to get up to speed.

We do math. Math class is about doing math, so we do math from day one.

Routines routines routines. Routines are so important, and routines are more than logistics. We start every class with a five-question retrieval practice Do Now and a puzzle, so we do that. We use mini whiteboards a ton, so we'll do a bit of mini whiteboard work to get that routine going. We'll do Contemplate then Calculate, a routine focused on number sense and sharing different strategies on a problem that we'll do a lot more the first few weeks. I don't want to spend the whole time practicing how kids enter class or how kids arrange their desk or how to pass out papers, I want to practice the routines that we use to learn math.

I don't make a big deal about siblings or other students I know. I live in a small town so this is a lot! Siblings, kids whose parents I’m friends with, kids whose parent fixed my furnace last winter. I don’t mention any of that. First, students often want to define who they are on their own terms, not live in the shadow of someone else. And second, it’s awkward for every other student in the class.

There isn’t some long speech about expectations. Lots of other teachers are spending most of the first day on expectations, students won’t remember much anyway. I sprinkle expectations throughout the first two weeks. The most important stuff comes first, but if I dump everything all at once it’s overwhelming and anyone who wasn't there misses out. I talk about a few things each day, and I make sure to mention all of my expectations at least twice. I don't do a syllabus. I don't understand what they're for, though I do give students a short quiz on my expectations during week two.

The math we do the first week isn't too consequential. I'm using a new curriculum this year but I'm going to borrow the first few days from my old curriculum. It's focused on scaled copies and scale factor, which is 1) real math, 2) gets at some of the big proportional reasoning ideas in 7th grade, and 3) isn't a big deal if kids miss it, life will go on.

I teach a skill. It feels good to master something and builds positive momentum. We’ll use a lot of unit fractions in the next few weeks, so we work on multiplying whole numbers by unit fractions, like 10 * 1/2. Students have generally seen this before, but many are rusty or have mostly forgotten it.

I want students to see that I'm interested in their thinking. Mini whiteboards, Contemplate then Calculate, unit fractions, and some problems about scaled copies will get students doing math, and show students that I'm curious about and interested in the mathematical thinking that they're doing.

We do a mix of math. There should be some things that feel easy, and some things that feel hard. I want students to feel like the math is accessible, that I’m there to help, but not that everything is easy. That means a mix of problems and a lot of support.

I want to get to know my students as soon as I can but it's really hard to do that well the first day. I do start that process. There are lots of moments when I'm walking around the room, asking students about something or listening in on their conversations during a turn and talk. Those are good moments to start building relationships. But it's just a start. I don't orient my entire first day around getting to know students. That will happen in time. I don't do it because lots of get-to-know-you activities feel contrived to me, they get in the way of doing math, and they often favor extroverted students. Plenty of kids feel nervous day one and don't want to be put on the spot. I'll get to know them in time — I go slow the first two weeks, and try to make some time each day to chat with students. Relationships will happen, you can't rush it.

For the most part this is just regular math class. We go a little slower and do a little less because I'm teaching routines and sprinkling expectations throughout. But the undercurrent beneath all of that is to help students feel like math class is a place where we do math, and a good place to do math where their ideas are valued and the teacher will help them succeed. In my actual classroom yesterday it was a lot messier than it probably sounds reading this post. Lots of schedule confusion, lots of nervous kids. But as we were practicing multiplication by unit fractions one kid said, “whoa I’m smart suddenly.” That was a great moment. It’s just one kid, but that’s what I aim for. Math class is about learning math, and using little successes to build confidence and help kids feel like math is worth learning.