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Today ends the time of the year known as “pre-planning.” Where I teach, we are given five days to set up our classrooms, attend staff and department meetings, and plan out the first days of school. I really enjoy working with the other teachers at my school, and we all seem to get along fairly well. I have a feeling that this year is going to be as much fun for us as it will be for the students.

Last night (Thursday) was open house, and I got to meet most of my new students. They all seemed fairly typical. I always forget how small they are at the beginning of the year. Some of them you just want to pick up and put on a shelf. The parents were all very nice, and seemed genuinely interested in me, and my class. You can always tell when a parent is just going through the motions and doesn’t really care, but I didn’t get that vibe this year. All in all I’d say it was a successful nigh, and it has been a successful week.

As always, one of my personal goals is to build strong positive relationships with the students. I think it is a key to being a successful teacher. I don’t care how much control you may have over your students, if they don’t like you or think you like them, they are not going to learn much, or do very well. I like to think of the line from the TV show, “The Office.” The boss of the office says in an interview, “Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy, both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.” That’s my attitude with my students, and most years it has seemed to work for me, so I’m sticking to it.

I’m going to try something new this year, my 16th as an educator. I’m going to try to write a blog post every week about what went on in class, and how I feel about it. I want to be more “reflective” about things, and really focus in on what works and what doesn’t. If you’re bothering to read this now, then you might be of the type of person who would enjoy that sort of thing. And if you do enjoy it, and I start slacking on posting, feel free to call me out on it.

That’s it for now. For everyone going back to school, best of luck to you all. We’re going to need it!

Kevin…