Exhausted

My first day of school was today. I'll be honest. It was great. I think I have a great class and they seem to respond to my style of communication and teaching. We were complicated numerous times about how well behaved we were in the hallways and cafeteria.

The school day was great. I didn't get a ton of procedural, rule learning done; however, there was a lot of school-wide procedures that were accomplished today. Tomorrow I'll get to introduce my big goals and investment plans to my students. One reason today was so much fun was because I made the students "create" the rules. In other words, I had my rules already made up but instead of forcing them upon my students I created a dialogue in which the students and I talked about rules and we got to "create", from scratch, our own classroom rules. The students were eager to create their own rules and they really felt invested in their class. And, the best part is that the rules they chose were the ones I selected for them anyway. This way, they feel invested as a class and I get to introduce their rules.

With all of that being said, as good of a day as it was, this day was just completely exhausting. I cannot believe the physical and mental strain that I had throughout the day. My hat is off to all of you teachers out there. Granted, this was my first day but I know that it'll be hard on me and my body for quite some time.

Well, I'm officially a teacher. Let the hard days, long hours, and physical strain begin. I'm just glad things started on a positive note.