The Day Before School Starts

While I have some very limited experience blogging with my daughters (yes, I have five children, four daughters - two married, one with two children 4 and 7 months, a second with a 3 year old) about our gardens, our attempts to manage food consumption, grandchildren news and family events, I have not yet ventured into the arena of blogging about the school day(s). This year I made a promise to test the waters to see if it is realistic for me to try and keep parents updated and informed via a blog. The first caveat seems to me is to set parent expectations very low, so that if it becomes unwieldy to sit down and write, the 1D parent community won't be too disappointed.

The second caveat seems to me to take care to make certain that parents understand that as jumping into the blogging arena is a bit of a risky venture for a teacher -- I want to bring parents along on the journey through the schoolday and give them a peak into what I see and hear in my teaching. At the same time I need to caution the community to be aware that sometimes they'll also be privy to self-reflection and ruminations on how I handled certain moments, sometimes presenting myself in a less than perfect light. Certainly no teacher wants to paint him or herself as weak, vacillating or indecisive. I 'm aware of the need create a persona that's humble (I'm still learning!), respectable, reasonable, but not omniscient.

So the desks are cleaned and labeled; the Morning Message is written, the scheduled is on the board, the parent information packets are stacked neatly, ready for distribution tomorrow. Most of the students arrived today to "get the lay of the land," some were quiet and shy, some wouldn't talk to me, some were so excited to see the room and their friends they didn't really want to talk to me -- that's all fine. The point was to make tomorrow morning's arrival a little more comfortable, a little less intimidating. The students (and their parents) got to look me in the eye and test whether I was scary (or nice) or funny or just okay. Everyone got to shake my hand or give me a "pinky shake," which is an acceptable compromise. I like to end each day with a handshake or a hug or a high-five, just so that we have some symbolic ritual of closure for the day. I'm a big believer in rituals and routines. More on those later.

I hope to post at least once a week. If I can find the time to do more, so be it! Let me know via e-mail if you have insights or thoughts, and we'll see how things progress.