The Important Book

08/12/2018 - The First Time

How you start school is so important. When I was a newer teacher (I'm still pretty new, after all), I followed the teachings of Wong and Wong with fidelity.  And I'm glad I did.  Their words are fantastic, their advice key.  But now I have grown in confidence and have a different view towards how I would like to build our class.  Room 1113 is a space where I plan to empower the students, and starting with rules and compliance no longer seemed to fit the ambiance I was trying to build.

The Twittersphere, my latest reading, and some FaceBook posts spoke to me this summer.  And last spring when I immersed myself into Shift This by Joy Kirr, and began to truly work on shifting the 'power' in Room 1113, I flagged the page where Joy Kirr had talked about her first day of school.  My ideas were shifting.  As I read about waiting to share rules, using authentic moments to intentionally teach procedures, and starting 'as you mean to go on', my mind kept sneaking back to Joy's writing. I had her lesson and another on writing a letter to the teacher ('what I wish my teacher knew' Day 1 letter strategy ).  Both were exactly what I was looking for.  So I decided to start with the letter on the Thursday, use Joy's lesson on the Friday.  It worked. Boy did it work!  

I'd never heard of The Important Book.  I guess that it is more of an American staple.  My friends appear to know about it, and it was familiar to some of my kids. But that isn't what mattered.  It is the lesson that counted.  It was easy, straightforward, but with so much power.  The lesson that the compliant answer, looking for what the teacher wants, is NOT how we want to work in Room 1113.  

The message was that the students' thoughts and opinions count, that they should share their OWN thinking and the reasoning behind it. 

Knowing that I care about their opinions is key to a good year.  

So, what did we do?

The kids sat around me in a semi-circle as I sat on my Director's Chair and read the book.  It is childish and repetitive.  Clearly written for young kids, obviously written to allow kids to guess what was coming next, letting children feel a sense of comfort. We talked about that. We stopped and reflected on the vocabulary.  The simple format, but not always easy language.  We talked about repetition. We guessed what was coming next. As per Joy, before we got to the page about apples, I asked them what they thought the author would say. What would be important about an apple? Going on what came before, most parrotted, "Red!"  We read on - oh boy, it said ROUND!  "Round?" they cried!  But apples aren't even round!  The author had changed the rhythm, which frustrated them.  She had chosen an adjective that they didn't even agree with.  We went back through the book, did we agree or disagree?  What words could we add?  After finishing the book, we chatted about the compliant answer versus the thinking answer.  We talked about how Room 1113 was not about the 'right' answer or what I was looking for.  We discussed how ELA was for thinking readers and writers.  We talked about how of all content areas, this is the ONE where their opinion can counter the teacher's - and they are right!  

It was fun.

It was powerful.

Each class was a success. 

And I have started the school year this way ever since.

Thank you Joy Kirr, thank you for helping me to start our year the RIGHT way!