For all intensive purposes, summer is over. I have come to grips with this fact. We start up next Tuesday with meetings and then students come on Thursday. Football has started. Teachers are in their rooms. Summer is a thing of the past. As I was doing some work in my room this afternoon, I started thinking about all the things that I learned last year, in my first year of teaching. I remember one of my education professors telling me that "Within the first week of teaching, you will throw out half of what you thought will work and you won't even try the other half." Well, he was right. Theories are great. Really, they are. However, they are also just that. Not everything works with all students. And some things rarely work with any, no matter how fancy and pretty they look on the textbook page. I got to thinking about all the things that I have learned...and I came up with a little list:
1. Always check the lunch menu. Nothing is worse than bringing your own lunch when there is something great being served.
2. They don't make pencil sharpeners like they used to.
3. Strawberry milk in the way to go. Live on the edge a little.
4. Never assume that students are using the stapler to staple paper. That is usually not the case.
5. Nothing ruins a Friday for students like a spelling test.
6. Learn to laugh and mock yourself. If you can't, you might as well find a new job.
7. Be ready to fail fabulously.
8. When you are trying to learn names, make sure that you have the right seating chart in front of you. Makes it really tough when you're looking at the 4th hour seating chart and the 3rd hour students.
9. It is not possible for middle school students to play Jeopardy quietly.
10. The students that need you the most are the ones that resist the most.
11. I can't even imagine growing up under the circumstances that some of these students do.
12. Some shoes squeak obnoxiously loud on the floor. Test out your shoes first.
13. Mountain Dew, coffee, and Spark are my best friends during the year.
14. The carpet in my room eats pencils.
15. Always make sure that you have lunch money in your account.
