First Day of School…
Teachers research, visualize, and prepare for weeks.
Goals defined; materials gathered; Feng shui considered.
You’re ready. The students are here. But there’s a good chance they are cloaking a Big Need they won’t acknowledge or articulate.
Regardless of age, grade level, or educational label, each student arrives wanting to be accepted, to belong, to find approval. Or at least to allay flailing panic. Sadly, some may arrive on the first day with fears of rejection, disrespect, and failure.
The glow on the Emotional Status Gauge registers everything from ‘hysterical enthusiasm’ to ‘catatonic stupor’.
A teacher’s foundation goal might well be for each student to feel safe, connected, and respected in your classroom. Unless such an environment is cultivated, learning will be a hard row to hoe.
Practical Suggestions:
A list outside the door with each student’s name to find and initial.
A spot on a display wall for each student’s future accomplishments.
Names on desks so they know where to sit and we learn their names.
Address them as welcome guests.
Model the Behavior we want to see from them.
I have two Rules on the wall that STAND OUT:
Respect Yourself (Do Your Best)
Respect Others (Speak Kindly / Hands Off
I break the ice with an anecdote about myself where they can participate.
For example:
I write three words that mean ‘to laugh’ on the board, then define and demonstrate the differences between them: GIGGLE SNICKER GUFFAW.
I ask them to demonstrate one of those words after I tell them how my name pronounced: Mrs. Killam (“Kill‘ em”)
I explain it was former students who gave me that name, then admit that I actually married a man named Mr. Killam, and the name has come in handy.
Invite them to share any stories they have about their own names---anybody ever mispronounce it? Spell it wrong? Make fun of it?
As I listen, I notice how they express themselves, who is quick to share, who is shy and why. I am assessing the group dynamics on the fly.
Metacognition: Understand How You Understand
Finally I ask them to respond to a short multiple choice/rating survey that asks about their favorite subjects, strongest skills, and preferred ways to learn things.
I make up a simple 10-question survey. There are many quick quizzes and explanations online to get an idea of which learning style is more dominant for each student. Here is a link to one: Kids Learning Style Survey from ‘LovetoKnow’.
https://cf.ltkcdn.net/kids/files/3923-kids-learning-style-survey.pdf
I introduce and refer to the idea of metacognition1 throughout the school year: it’s simply knowing about knowing; or studying about how one thinks.
This lays the groundwork for productive engagement going forward. Now we can build on their findings about themselves. They can begin to understand and articulate their core preferences, and experiment with different ways of thinking. We can pair strategies with their style, and teach each other new ways to ‘catch on’.
In the coming weeks they will be working on projects together, sometimes in pairs or groups with similar styles, sometimes with deliberately different styles.
Each student learns and develops in fits and starts during the school year, and the whole group becomes increasingly cohesive as it matures from this day on.
Metacognition Any Day…
Metacognition is an awareness of one's thought processes and an understanding of the patterns behind them. The term comes from the root word meta, meaning "beyond", or "on top of".[1] Metacognition can take many forms, such as reflecting on one's ways of thinking, and knowing when and how to use particular strategies for problem-solving.