Calm Before the Storm

Image from Martin Rondell.

On September 5th I will be meeting my students for the 1st time. I have 15 new 7th graders to impart my knowledge on and again I feel anxious and apprehensive.

Last year, I thought I would do alright and have a very successful first day of class. I ended up having one student throw pens at some fellow classmates and I walked back to the library looking "shell-shocked."

I remember before start of classes, I printed out the photos of the students I would have all year long and thought, "Oh look! They are so cute! I'm sure they are really nice, well-behaved kids. No problem." I am not complaining but looks can be deceiving. Don't get me wrong. I love my kids from last year. I cannot wait to see how they are since summer is over but you really never know what a kid is like by looking at their ID pictures.

This time I was looking at the kids and thinking, "Well, there's 15 of them."

Ok, I am a little ticked because this year, I was originally assigned 16 kids while my friend, Ambookgeek, only has 8. 8 Kids!!!????!!! And our other counterpart only has 11. I get it. Scheduling, conflicts, blah blah blah but seriously, how is that fair? This means more comments, more grading, more young minds to mold.

What is the plus side? Well, I will hopefully have 15 new kids who I'll adore and want to succeed in the future.