Setting the Tone for Learning
Beginning the Year with Academic Zeal
by Marge Joyce

"Don’t smile at them until November.” This was the advice given to me as a novice teacher on my first day of school by well-meaning veteran teachers. The prevailing wisdom was that after Thanksgiving I could loosen up and students would still behave. Years later, the topics for professional development on “Opening Day” of a new school year typically were classroom management and promotion of positive behavior. Both are significant for success, but what about academics? How do we set the tone that school is primarily about learning?

Opening Day Strategies

Learning is important business and it’s tough business. At times students will experience frustration. Most of all, it needs to be a valued business. So, how then do we set the tone for academic achievement? There are several practices I would have appreciated knowing on Opening Day.

• Stop thinking about the idea of not smiling until November. Students are nervous on the first day, whether it’s demonstrated by acting distracted, passively hostile, or challenging. Whatever their manner, greet them warmly at the door, making a point of learning their names within a day or two. Students can see right through us and spot a phony from ten paces. If they know you truly care about them, they’ll move mountains to meet your academic expectations, and these will become their own expectations for themselves.

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  Become aware of what your students think about themselves as learners. This can happen on the first day as you share your own academic challenges while they get to know who you are. One way is to ask students to write about themselves—a few short sentences will do—as a science student, as a writer, or musician. I remember language arts students who would say, “You should know right up front that I’m not a writer and that I hate writing.” That’s the teacher’s opening to write back a note that reassures the student that wherever he or she is as a writer, etc., together we will find ways to achieve success. “By the end of the year, we'll look back and see how far we’ve come.”

• Challenge students to be the best they can be. Nothing shows you believe in them more than designing work that helps them grow. Seek out their individual interests and acknowledge these in your planning every day. Provide choices within the context of the content standards so that students are challenged appropriately within their abilities, and this includes special needs students. What many teachers call “dumbing down” is often providing opportunities for skill building that has not yet taken place for some students. Others need to be challenged beyond grade level, not more of the same.

• Foster curiosity by bringing the world into the classroom. Utilize community resources and institutions, parents, guest speakers, and the outdoors to connect classroom learning to the students’ world. Then expand by showing unexplored possibilities that exist for their futures.

• Learning should be enjoyable. All of us recall our favorite teachers because they made learning fun. They loved their subject and showed it with enthusiasm, sometimes even craziness. Students thrive on that.

In all the hubbub, we need to make sure that academics still play the major role in every decision we make for children.

Marge Joyce is Coordinator of Curriculum and Instruction at PSI. She can be contacted by e-mail at: margejoyce@psi-solutions.org.