The First Week

The past four days have been a complete blur.

Day 1: No keys to anything in the school. Reviewing the syllabus and expectations with students. Planning lessons.
Day 2: Diagnostic assessment. Not much activity during the lesson for me, but damn a lot of grading.
Day 3: Igniting (not burning) a student's money with an acetone / water mix leading into a discussion about observation v. inference. They loved it.
Day 4: A slide show with pictures of people who look like scientists but aren't, and vice versa. Students learned that anyone, regardless of appearance can be a scientist.

I knew there would be a lot of papers. Somehow the true gravity of that fact did not set in until I carried them around with me. I'm already working on ways to minimize that. I also purchased a projector on eBay and used it in the slide show on Friday. Allowing them to voice their input during the slide show was great fun. They get so involved and everyone was engaged. It seems like my students are pretty visual... and talkative.

I'm somewhat dreading calling all their parents. It's a ton of students so phone calls will take quite some time. I think I should spread it over one week actually. These are the initial calls as an introduction. Hopefully they will deter students from misbehaving in the future.

I have my DOE email address setup, but I'm still trying to figure out how to route it to my iPhone. I think it may require some less than legitimate configuration.

Overall, this week has been quite stressful and required a ton of work. However, when thing are running smoothly, I love it. I know it's only the first week, but I think I've chosen the right profession.