One Week Completed - 35 more to go!

It's a good thing I didn't try to write this post last night -- I was totally exhausted from the first week's proceedings. The transition back to the structure of the school day is really hard for all of us. By the time Friday afternoon rolls around, everyone is ready to collapse in a puddle on the floor!

Every day after lunch, we have a "Read-Aloud." On Friday afternoons after Read Aloud, we pass out the yellow "Take Home" folders and then spend a few minutes passing out letters, notices and completed work for the week. This is an activity that reminds you of the limits of first graders' spatial organizing abilities: It is very challenging for most first graders to organize papers in the confined space of a pocket folder: papers are folded, ripped, and hang out precipitously, signaling that we need to go back to square one. Yesterday we had less work to stuff, so it wasn't too difficult to get everyone's folders ship-shape. And that brings me around to today's post topic which is my discussion of why we have so little/such easy/not very much work during the first few weeks of school.

The first days of school are about establishing The Ground Rules. No matter how well organized last year was, no matter how well-behaved the child is, no matter what behaviors worked LAST year, the new school year is a totally new ballgame, a new drama with new roles and a new director. We can discuss our frustrations with the school's schedule, why a two month break is a bad idea and how we should alter the school year and our model is antiquated, yadayada yada.... but we have to work with the schedule we've got and so... all of September and a very big part of October is about setting expectations for behavior. Academics plays a role in this drama, but it is a supporting role which grows in importance after the first six weeks of school. Students and parents are sometimes impatient with this set-up.

Parents having watched their child laze about during the endless weeks summer with little or nothing to stimulate them intellectually and sometimes want to immediately rocket their six-year olds into a rich academic brew. The first parent comments often reflect a general anxiety about how "easy" the work is; parents usually underscore that they want their child "challenged" and they are looking for homework to begin right out of the gate.

Teachers are dealing with a completely different agenda in the first days of the year. When the students traipse in during early September we are faced with twenty or so small individuals who rely on us to organize and socialize them. Many students return to school anxious to find structure and friendships. The school year is analogous to the long race, not the sprint. I have no quick fixes in the first weeks of school.

My first need is to figure out what makes these individual children tick: who can sit in a circle for 15 minutes? who likes to fall over onto another child during meeting? who fidgets and constantly touches the person next to her? who calls out answers before everyone else finishes processing the question? who is quiet and good-natured? who is curious? who likes to read and can't put the book down? or does he just look at the words without having an impact? who reads, at what level? what kinds of books will she read? does she like science? reading about people from long ago? reading about children her age?

What's wonderful about September teaching is being confronted with a new class of these small people, each so different and alluring, a puzzle with endless configurations and solutions. Every September challenges me to dig into these small packages, requiring me to think about how to group them, seat them, organize them, motivate them, correct them, partner them, encourage them, you name it -- the list seems endless.

I can find superficial solutions to "challenging" an entering six-year old: I can go to the bookshelf and dig up a book of 2nd and 3rd grade multiplication and division math problems and that would probably satisfy the complaints. I could give my 1st graders whose parents claim their child read Harry Potter over the summer a 4th or 5th grade book. It would be like putting a child who hasn't learned to ride a two-wheeler on a motorcycle. It's possible to learn the mechanics , but he'd miss the exhilaration of learning how to keep his balance, to steady the handlebars, and to feel the excitement of pumping the pedals and taking off feeling the wind in his face...

So that's what I'm thinking when parents first words are about wanting me to challenge their child. If I do my job the way I should, as the weeks progress I'll know what the child's strengths are, what they like to do, and what they don't like to do. Sometimes a challenge is doing what you don't want to do because it makes you feel ...nervous, worried, not sure you'll excel at it. I'll be working on getting the child to think about what he does well and what he needs to work on. We'll reflect on what we need to do to make his work better. It's not just that the work needs to be harder, it may to be redone more neatly and more carefully. A challenge could mean we do less of what the child does easily and more of what he or she doesn't like to do. At the same time, sometimes parents aren't always happy that their child is still is learning to enjoy riding the bike, because they have visions of their 1st grader mountain biking, flying a plane, hangliding or parasailing.