Opening Day

One of the problems I had when I started teaching was that I didn’t know how to start teaching. What do you do on the first day?

I had plans, of course. I would have my students interview each other, using forms I made up with questions like, ‘What’s your favorite book?’ We would all know each other better as a result, I thought. I was right -- but not in the way I had expected.

My juniors and seniors in American Literature dutifully interviewed each other and dutifully reported what they had learned. That established the pattern for that class. They did what they were told, but without passion. Maybe the 7:30 start had something to do with it.

In my second class, a young man named James strolled in, looked around, grinned, and said, ‘I see we’re all here!’ James knew what I did not -- that English on the Job might just as well have been called English for Students Who Hate English. It was like one of those German POW camps where they put all the escapers.

Clearly the interview exercise was unnecessary, so I junked it. I explained to them that we were going to would approach English on the Job as if it were a job rather than a class.

‘Excuse me, Mr. Clark?’ James asked. ‘Does that mean we’re going to get paid? And if we screw up, do we get fired?’

Everyone laughed. He had me and they knew it. If they weren’t paid and couldn’t be fired, it wasn’t a job. It was embarrassing, but I liked these misfits. They were full of life.

The last class of the day was freshman English. They did the interviews with minimal effort and a lot of whining and juvenile posturing. Half the class reported having no favorite book. It was depressing.

I went to see Gib West, the assistant principal, for some advice about the freshmen. ‘Take them outside tomorrow,’ he suggested. ‘Tell them honestly how you felt about today.’

It sounded good. So the next day I took the class into the fields and woods behind ConVal and tried to get a discussion of classroom behavior going. I was drowned out by the gripers. Clearly this wasn’t working, either. So I told the students to walk back to the school without talking.

Listen to the sounds of nature, I instructed, and we’ll all write essays about what we heard.

Here’s what I heard, marching at the end of the line: ‘Why do we have to do this?’ ‘I’m hot.’ ‘When does this class end?’

Then from the head of the column came a series of startled yelps, followed by screaming. I ran up and found a swarm of ground hornets clinging to the students’ jeans and shirts, buzzing furiously. So much for the sounds of nature.

In all, five students had to be treated for stings. When the bell mercifully sounded, I went back to the English office, where the other teachers laughed and said I was already a legend. Then they told their own first-year horror stories to make me feel better. And I did, a little.

This week, we’ll find different ways to get to know each other. I’ll ask my Modern Literature students to put together a 1,000-piece puzzle without looking at the picture on the box, an exercise in problem-solving.

The freshmen will play ball toss, and when somebody drops the ball, we’ll learn how to talk about what happened and why without laying blame. In Creative Writing, I’ll ask everyone to bring in an example of good writing and explain what’s good about it.

But we’ll stay out of the woods.