First Day of School

One of teacher's edition math books has math jokes for every section! Here's an example:

Q: What kind of roots does a "geom-e-tree" have?
A: Square roots!

Another...

Q: Why was the math teacher upset with Cupid?
A: He kept changing the "like terms" to "love terms."

It's hard to compare the first day of school to any other job I've ever had. It's this weird mix of new and familiar and routine and completely varied. Plus I'm doing a completely familiar job but I haven't done it for 3 months. For students, this is all they've ever known, but I can't think of any other adult job that's like this. Maybe a farmer.

I like the first day of school, certainly more than I did when I was a kid. On the first day of school there are no papers to grade, no scolding for not having done homework, no pre-exam stress. Just getting to know new people and reconnecting with others. I have one class that's full of students that I know pretty well, but for some reason have never taught.

In another class, half of them are new to the school, which means they learned math in completely different ways. Since one of my favorite things to do is trying to make some sense out things, I always find classes like that challenging and interesting.

The one thing I don't like about the first day is that I talk too much. Maybe the kids like it, but I get tired of the sound of my voice after a while. I like my classes to be conversations, not monologues. I'm always afraid I'm sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher.