AS IF FIRST DAY EVERYDAY
After almost 60 days of break from assignments, lesson copying from the board, lectures, recitations, quizzes, practicum, projects, and examinations; students are now to take a step higher in the academic journey. Gone are the swimming days, shopping moments, travel times, and other non-academic, stress free activities. Such is a part of their holistic development as individuals.
With the start of class, there could be numerous expectations of students from their teachers as well as teachers from their students. These expectations are often discussed during the first day of the lass along with the orientation of the whole class on the subject matter.
On the first day of classes, students may or may not know their peers yet so teachers are expected to facilitate the whole class to address each student’s needs primarily the need to belong or the need to be welcomed in the group for transferees or new students. Also, students are now expected to have with them their things needed in their classroom activities such as notebooks, papers, pen, and others.
However, much of the expectations are in the fact, not from the students but from teachers who are considered the leaders and the managers of the classroom. Therefore, it is necessary that a teacher should not just bring him or herself to the list, the lesson plan, seat plan, list of rules and regulations a teacher would like to implement inside the classroom, list of anticipated as the school year progresses, a other significant details a teacher needs to d i scu ss.
Moreover, as educators, we are the most observed being inside our classroom, especially buy our students, so it is necessary that we should be prepared in facing them on our first meeting. Thus, we may consider developing our own routine before going to our classes like spending a few minutes to relax before facing our students. We may also consider going to the classroom first before our students to create an atmosphere of punctuality and promptness. As has been said, punctuality is being in the classroom on time while promptness is being in the classroom ahead of time. Also, we may consider using a technology like a Powerpoint Presentation or an electronic presentation in an LCD Projector to stimulate students’interest in learning. Lastly, we may want to consider being buoyant and enthusiastic in facing our students not just on the first day but in our day-to-day meeting with them. These will somehow reflect what kind of teachers we are to our students and will create an image where our students will remember us either in a positive or in negative way.
Basically, a positive image is something that we would want to create in the sight of our students; hence, we need to plan as if every day is the first day of the class; as the famous quotation says ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail’. Whatever we have planned to perform inside the classroom will reflect the kind of individuals we will create in the future.
— oOo— The author is Master Teacher I at San Vicente-San Francisco High School Macabebe, Pampanga