Let's Do This!

I don't know if the rain washed away my sense of momentousness, but I wasn't particularly worked up for today's first day. It is the beginning of my career, for at least the next two years, and my first real job--but I just figured I would go in there and do it. I slept really well last night, which is unusual for me before something that should be nervewracking. Maybe it's just the fatigue.

I teach first period, so I got in my room first thing and set everything up. With about five minutes to go, I went out front to wait to greet my students. And then I kept waiting. Most of the students have been in summer school for a couple weeks, and are just switching over to new TFA teachers today. But because I'm teaching kids from a different charter program, today was going to be their first day of school. So instead of reporting to first period, they had to register first. They didn't end up getting to my class until half an hour after the period started. Part of my first day was supposed to be a half-hour diagnostic, and the class is 70 minutes long. So right off the bat I had to scrap all my plans. I handed them the diagnostics as they walked in the door, and let them work on that for about a half hour. Then I quickly read through my rules and talked about our big goal for the summer. Then my watch wasn't synched up with "Jackson time," so the bell rung in the middle of my talk. I didn't give them surveys to fill out or the letters to their parents, or the media release forms required so TFA can videotape the kids (they are actually videotaping the teachers, but the kids get on there, too). So I learned a little lesson in adaptability today. Luckily for me, these charter school kids are EXTREMELY well-behaved. My worst problem was one kid who wouldn't raise his hand before answering my questions--and I never really made that expectation clear anyway. I think my diagnostic/rule speech line up made me come across as a tough guy, too. Especially with my naturally intimidating teacher voice. Compared to what I've heard from everyone else, I have it pretty well-off. I'm not sure if it's really going to prepare me for South Dakota, though.

My fifth period class was somewhat better, somewhat worse. The kids were the same--perfectly behaved, very smart. This time I had the whole period, so I got to work through my whole agenda. And then there were 15 extra minutes. I filled that pretty quickly, and then unable to think on my feet, I just let them do some homework for a little while--which is in general not supposed to be done. But these kids didn't even talk to one another. If they finished their work, they just sat at their desks. I think I'm going to ruin their charter-school training this summer.

The weird moment of the day was when I was collecting my students' diagnostics, and I saw where one of them had scrawled "Mr. Upholt" in his sixth grade handwriting. Is that supposed to be me?