The first day of school is always exciting and, by the end, a little draining. But today it began with cupcakes for my senior advisees. This is their last first day in a new school year. They will have lots of these and smiles and some tears…it is senior year with college acceptances or rejections. 

So I thought they needed a little pampering. It is always a danger that they will expect this all the time so you have to be careful to disappoint now and then.

I taught three 75 minutes classes in a row. They went pretty well and I did not have to repeat myself. Reread a previous blog post that is all about the frustration of repeating so I am going to train them to listen carefully.

We even got a bit of mindfulness in without it seeming too awkward as they were asked to finish the sentence: “I wish my teacher knew…” This was inspired directly by a New York Times article which appeared August 31 by Donna de la Cruz about a teacher named Kyle Schwartz. Click here for the article. The responses I have gotten so far have been eye-opening. This is an exercise to repeat.

On the whole, today seemed like a good way to start the year.