First Day Wow!
Today was the first day of school for us. All-in-all, it was a great day for me. I love my family and I love my coworkers, but I always look forward to the first day back with kids. Today began my 18th year teaching and I realized a long time ago, this is my calling. It's what I'm supposed to do. There were a lot of great things to say about today, but I'm going to focus on one -- what I learned from our social contracts. What is a social contract you might ask? To some it sounds crazy. To others silly. Some think it's stupid. But a few...a few of them took it serious and used it for its intended purpose -- to give kids a voice in the standard operating procedures of the classroom. Kids were supposed to brainstorm and come up with suggestions for rules, policies, and procedures framed around four essential questions How do you want to be treated by the teacher? How do you want to be treated by others? How do you think the teacher wants to be treated? How do we want to ...