First Days ...

[proud2BlibKansan]

The first day of school always leaves me breathless, heart pounding, with palms just a bit dampened. After more than a few first days, I’ve learned that each year speaks with a unique voice. You can’t duplicate a school year. Weather changes. The learners change. Life changes. The narrative we write each year emerges from new stories, new images, and new perspectives. Over time, we evolve from that narrative, always learning from each new line we write during our career.

The very first, first day …

The room was ready. I was ready. The snake in the pillowcase was ready. All I needed were the kids to make my very first day of teaching real. It didn’t take long after they filed through the door for me to create chaos out of my first, first day. There I stood, kids screaming; me with a snake attached to my hand. When the principal slanted an eye through a cracked door, I thought, “I’ll surely get fired over this.” It didn’t happen. Instead, what I received was a lesson of a lifetime in what it means to be a teacher. I formed a lifelong learning bond in the moment when the principal answered my question, “Am I fired?’ “Fire you?” he said, “Now, how would that help you become a teacher?”

He was committed to teaching: anyone, anytime. He never gave up on any of us. He believed in his own power to learn. He also believed in the learning power of everyone else in his sphere of influence. He taught me to focus on the strength each person brings to our work, not what needs improving. I remember him saying, “Kids nor adults get better from constant focus on what they’re doing wrong or need to improve. They just get pushed away from their potential.” He taught me to ask questions about everything we take for granted in our field of work. I became the educator I am today because he thought why always was a more important question than what or how.

The first, first day as elementary principal …

I’d spent a lot of time working in middle school as a teacher and administrator, some time teaching in high school, and a bit of time doing one-shot science event teaching in elementary classes. Then, I became an elementary principal. I remember that first day as clearly as if it happened yesterday. The teachers and secretary warned me that taking care of entering kindergarteners would be different. I had no idea. I’d built liter bottle terrariums, set up aquatic tanks, gone on nature trail expeditions, shared my snakes, and created kitchen drawer “simple machines” with four-and five-year olds.

On this first day of what turned into a ten-year long elementary principal tour of duty, the wee ones struggled out of cars and buses overloaded with Little Mermaid and Power Ranger lunchboxes and backpacks. They froze. I froze. They didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do.

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