Day One: Lessons Learned

Lesson #1: If you jokingly tell students not to panic when you turn off the lights for a video clip, they will panic jokingly.

Lesson #2: If you share stories about your friends and family, you will be met with sweet 7th grader stories of their friends and family.

Lesson #3: If you move a student on the first day of school because he was constantly chatting with his neighbor despite your warnings, he will hate you and fall asleep on his desk to spite you.

Lesson #4: You can't play stupid with 7th graders. If you bring in a bag of goodies to introduce yourself and pretend like you found it in the hallway and need help finding the owner, they'll pick up on the obvious: the bag is yours.

Lesson #5: Some students just aren't going to be excited about school no matter how energetic and animated you are. It's like pulling teeth to get them to introduce themselves or tell you what they like to do. But even they will admit that they just don't know you, so you have to be patient.

Lesson #6: 7th graders just sponge up everything you have to say. And they have incredibly smart and intuitive things to say, too.

Lesson #7 (relearned): I was born to be a teacher. I wouldn't be happy anywhere else.