The Right Foot
By Peter W. Cookson, Jr.

Your first day of teaching is a giant step into the future of the children you teach. Like most new teachers, you're probably nervous, very eager to succeed and feeling unprepared. You're probably wondering: Will the students like me? What if nobody listens to me? How can I be sure the students are learning?

If you could see inside the heads of your students, you'd see the same questions about themselves and you. Each new classroom is a theater of dramatic expectations, self-doubt and hope. While there's no formula for success on the first day of school, experience shows that there are certain activities you can do with your students to ensure the year gets off on the right foot.

The essentials
First, it's absolutely essential that you learn every student's name. Some teachers have students decorate name tags and wear them; others take a digital picture of every student, print it out with the student's name on it and take it home to study.

Second, select student-directed systems for everyday chores like attendance-taking, collecting homework, finding out what assignments were missed after an absence, getting passes to go to the bathroom, etc.

No matter what their age, students will enjoy playing ice-breaker games. Spend at least 10 minutes getting kids involved in a game. Children have a real desire to feel included and to participate. If every child on the first day of school feels that he or she has been noticed, you've made a huge step toward a successful year.

An early Christmas?
Make sure that your students have an opportunity to share information about themselves and write about themselves. This exercise will allow you to immediately get a sense of their writing skills and abilities. Also, try to find creative ways to get students into small groups. For example, I know one teacher who cuts up comic strips into individual panels and passes them out; students must find the other panels of their strip in order to complete the group.

Finally, there's an old saying that new teachers shouldn't smile before Christmas. Not so. Effective discipline is based not on fear, but engagement. Most discipline problems arise from feelings of alienation, boredom and rejection. Be yourself. Have a sense of fun and humor and recognize that real structure allows you to have more spontaneity. Good luck!

Peter W. Cookson, Jr. is President of Teachers College Innovations and the Doris Dillon Center at Teachers College, Columbia University.

August/September 2003, Vol.34, No.1