First Impressions of the School Year

Last week, my students had a journal assignment called "First Impressions." I asked my students to imagine a stranger meeting them for the first time. What would that person think of the student, based on looks, dress, personality, etc.? I did this activity to get my students ready to learn about methods of characterization, to think about how we learn things about people.

The discrepancy in their answers based on gender is interesting. A majority of the girls think they look "mean" or "ignorant." I'm not sure why. Many of the girls are convinced they look attractive, but a few think that makes them look dumb as well. The boys, on the other hand, tend to imagine that the stranger meeting them for the first time is a girl...and she is very impressed. The guys are cool, funny, nice, athletic. They have swag, and they like to rap. They are far better at listing positive attributes than the girls. This is not really unexpected.

My first impressions of my students are fuzzy at best. Just like last year, they tend to blend together, at first. They talk the same, they dress the same, they walk around like shadows of each other. The student body is just one student, really, in many different bodies.

But now we're two weeks in and they are starting to develop personalities. I find that I care for them more quickly than last year's batch, that I started caring for them even when they were still one fuzzy, messy person. They somehow hit my heart harder and faster this year...probably because I have a little more time to care, a little more space to think.

My second year of teaching is still very difficult. It is still crazy, full of meetings and bureaucracy, and impossible tasks. But the mania is so much more manageable, so much more controlled. I can breathe. I can see. And I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and the student body to rise up against me and be the formidable foe it was last year. I find I'm on edge. I'm holding my breath...

But I'm also more relaxed this year, more fun, and more myself. I've never held the "don't smile until Thanksgiving" rule. I might even be stricter this year than I was last year, but I am zanier. I imagine it creates an interesting first impression for my students as well.