Beginning the Year

One of our recent graduates was here last week while teachers were setting up their rooms.  She said, "It's always a mystery what you guys do the week before we get here."  You always knew your teachers came a week before you did and stayed a week after, but you probably never thought much about what that week looked like.  I'll try to de-mystify it.

First, we decorate our rooms.  I come early to do this, but others manage to fit it into the minutes between meetings.  We are going to look at these walls more than we look at the walls of our homes, so we want it to be awesome.  Every teacher has a different take on it, and it is fun to think about what the walls of a teacher's room say about that teacher.

Second, we attend meetings.  There are meetings about the handbook, meetings about new initiatives, training meetings, new teacher meetings, meetings about the required reading you had over the summer, insurance meetings, 401(k) meetings, department meetings.  You get the idea.

Third, we eat lunch.  Teachers don't get to see each other very often during the day.  Whatever delusions you may have about the "teacher's lounge," put them out of your head.  During the school year, we have lunch duties and tutoring sessions, so we aren't hanging out in the "lounge" at lunch.  Sometimes, we don't eat our lunch until 4 in the afternoon.  We take that first week and last week as our opportunity share a meal together, so we eat together every day.  We may get to eat lunch together again in December.

Finally, we get ready for the first week of school.  This involves that policy sheet you got from every teacher on the first day of school, getting our grade books set up, setting up mailing lists in e-mail, google docs, whatever learning management system your school uses, classroom management plans, course maps, book assignments, seating charts, plans for make up work, etc.

I know it doesn't sound exciting, but it is one of the best weeks of the year.  I get to see friends I haven't seen in two months.  I get to decorate.  Best of all, I get to start over.  Teaching is the only profession I know of where I can say, "that didn't work last time.  I'll try it differently this time."  I get to do this, and they pay me for it.