First Day

         My alarm went off at 6:00 AM and as I stumbled across the room to turn it off, I remembered what day it was.  Today we my first day as a teacher of 8th grade English at Hardy Middle School in Philadelphia.  A surge of anticipation swept away the last vestige of sleepiness from my mind as I turned the radio on.  I had chosen to teach in an inner city school as opposed to an easy suburban job despite the warnings of my parents.  I had always loved school and learning, and I wanted to impart some of my excitement and love to students who I had heard were not getting it.
         My father was a professor and my mother was the principle of the small private school I had attended my whole life.  All through my childhood, education had been stressed as only second to God and family.  I remembered my dad spending an hour each night going through addition flashcards, and then multiplication flashcards, with me.  Once I had learned them, we had continued going through them, trying to do them all in smaller and smaller amounts of time, to ensure they were firmly ingrained in my memory.  We did them until I could give the answers faster than his big hands could remove the cards, and when we finally did them all in two minutes and thirty seconds, I was awarded five whole dollars by my parents.
         I heard the radio announcer cheerfully say "Today is going to be a sweltering day with a high of 95 degrees and 100% humidity," as I got in the shower.  Even the excessively hot weather, which I had heard could be a large deterrent to classroom participation, could not keep my excitement for my first class down though. Today my pupils might not know what they were getting into, but by the end of the month, they would look forward to my class more than any other.  I had grand plans for studying the great classic authors--at my high school, eighth grade was not too soon to start reading To Kill a Mockingbird, Oedipus Rex, Animal Farm, and it would not be too soon to start here.  I would treat my students with respect and they would come to respect me and their natural intelligence would shine through in their work. 
         During the last two weeks, some of the older teachers had shaken their head at my enthusiasm.  They had told me that my students would be behind in English--that most of them probably could not read past an elementary school level, but that did not deter me from my quest.  What was reading but being able to say the words on the page and know what they mean?  With a few explanations of vocabulary, reading level would soon jump in my class.  Our discussions of the text would be critical and animated.  I would make a difference in my students lives that they would not forget.
         As I drove to the school, I spared no glances for the scenery.  The first time I had driven this way on New Teacher Orientation day I had almost rear-ended the car in front of me at a stop sign because I could not take my eyes away from the houses and stores that spotted the streets.  There were few windows, and those had bars on them.  The brick exteriors suggested that they had been built many years before and the handmade signs advertising their wares suggested that they had not been updated since.  The houses were all nearly identical; one in particular has a handful of black men hanging out in front of it.  One of them had watched my car drive past and had scared me.  It was a good thing I did not live in the neighborhood, and my car was an old beat up '98 Volvo--nothing worth stealing. 
         I parked her car in the lot outside of the school, locked the doors and headed in to the building.  My black pants and green button down blouse contrasted with the shabby and broken feel of the inside of the school.  I had been appalled when, during a bathroom break on our first day, I had discovered the stall doors in the ladies room were only 4 feet tall.  Just coming in the door, anyone could look over them.  One of the pieces of advice teachers were given was to try to avoid using the restroom at all, since that was were you could easily be jumped by a student angry with their grade.  I walked through the metal detectors and nodded to the security guard. 
         And then I was in my classroom.  I surveyed the area from the door.  Five rows of worn down desks were arranged neatly, as I had placed them the afternoon before.  The chalkboard was clean, and posters of some of the books I hoped to teach were up on the wall--Barned and Nobles had been generous enough to give them to me at a discounted price.  On the bulletin board were posters about respect and the cliche "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."  They were all positive messages; I wanted to set a tone of possibility of achievement and success in my classroom.  In twenty minutes the school would open for students and then in forty five minutes my first class on the first day of school would start! 
         The time flew by quickly.  I waited in line at the copy machine for a little while, printing out a survey to be filled out by my class.  I wanted to know a little about their background in literature and life to find activities that would pique their interest.  I wrote the agenda for my first class on the far left of the chalkboard--seating chart, introduction of myself, introduction of the course, my expectations for them, my grading policies, assigning them their first book, The Diary of Anne Frank, reading the first 10 pages out of that, and then the survey.  I wasn't sure we were going to get through all the material, but it was better to be over-prepared than under I told myself. 
         Sooner than I could believe, the first few students began trickling into my room.  I stood up when they came in the room, but found that I felt awkward and *STUCK OUT WORD- OBVIOUS?  OBTRUSE?  , so I sat back down.  The three girls that had come in first had taken seats in the very back of the room and were now glancing suspiciously at me and whispering amongst themselves.  Before I could give this too much thought, a tall and built boy sauntered into the room flanked by two smaller replicas of himself.  He exuded confidence as she slouched down in his seat in row closest to the windows.  He did not even glance at me.  I wondered if he would be one of my "problem" students, always acting up in class, disrupting lessons and belittling the teacher.
         As my class began to fill up over the next ten minutes, I took in the demographics.  It was mostly African American, with a few white kids sprinkled in.  Most of them were dressed fashionably, a few gapped on their cell phones, and they seemed a loud, although not uncivilized bunch.  All of them had brought backpacks, which I took as a good sign, and I caught snippets of conversation from the nearest students about which classes they had when and with who.  This made me smile, as I remembered having similar conversations myself when I was in high school.  They were excited about school!  It was a good sign.
         When the bell rang a little hush stole over the students.  I stood up.
         "Good morning class.  My name is Ms. Anley, and this is Eighth grade English.  I want to start out by assigning a seating chart so that I can get to know your names more quickly."  At the words seating chart I heard a collective groan.  "It's only until I learn your names, and then you can sit wherever you like," I tried to fight back the dark chattering with the proclamation for hope for the future.  I didn't dwell on the small chaos that had taken over the classroom though and quickly went to the first chair in the column nearest the door.  Point to the desk with one hand and holding my chart of the classroom with the other I pronounced "Anthony Bell."  I moved to the next seat "Marquita Bloom."  And so on I went.  The students generally began moving towards their new seats, and the grumbling died down and students listened for their name.  I encountered my first problem at "DeShawn Long."  Most of the students has moved to the front of the classroom where there were no seats to await their assignment.  However, this seat was occupied.
         "Are you DeShawn Long?" I asked. 
         "Nope," he replied without slowly without looking up from coloring the desk surface. 
         "Well then could you please get up so that he can sit here?"
         "No.  He can sit somewhere else.  I'm going to sit here," he declared.  Bending over so that my face was very close to his I decided to take the firm approach.
         "Move.  Now," I stated quietly but firmly.  He finally looked up at me appraisingly and then smiled and sat back in his chair.
         "No."  I decided to take a different approach.  Again keeping my voice quiet I further entreated him.
         "You seem like a decent young man.  I would hate to give you a 0 for participation on the first day simply because you didn't want to move over a few seats."
         "What do I care about your stupid participation grade, Ms. Anal-ey."  A few kids snickered.  He had said that quite loudly and I knew I was quickly losing respect in my students eyes.           "One more shot or you're off to the principal's office and have detention for the week."
         He just bent over his desk again and continued lazily pouring ink onto the surface.  I turned around and got a pink slip out of my desk.  Barely five minutes into class and I already had to send someone to the principals office!  Today was going to be a long day. 
         As I walked over to his desk and handed him the pink sleep and gestured to the door, Aaron, for that was his name, suddenly became quite conciliatory. 
         "Oh c'mon teach.  I didn't really mean it!  Don't send me to the principals office."  He was very slow in getting his things together.  "It's the first day of school!"
         I sighed and gave in. 
         "All right, you may stay," I said as I took the pink slip back from his hands.  "But only because it's the first day of school.  Next time this happens, you will be headed straight there."  I hoped my students didn't take this as a sign of weakness from me.  I did want to start my class off on a good note, and sending someone to the prinicpals office was not a good note.  I continued going through the list of names and seats. 
         After I had finished getting all the students settled in alphabetical order, I decided to skip the introduction of myself.  They would find out about me as the semester went on, and I didn't want to give them any opportunity to just sit back and misbehave.  I was going to make the talking that accompanies the beginning of any course as short as possible. 
         "As I said before, this class is eighth grade English.  I expect that you will respect me, and I will respect you.  We will be doing a lot of reading and writing, and I expect that you will participate in classroom discussions and turn in homework completed and on time.  With that in mind, I will make you a promise--if you come to every class this semester, participate and do all in-class assignments, you will pass.  If that is the minimum you do, you'll still get a D, but you will pass the class."  I had come up with that last statement after reading many articles on how kids were afraid of failing and therefore didn't try.  I figured with the incentive of guaranteed passing, maybe a few of the kids who might have skipped often would keep coming back.  Of course, hopefully they would all love me and the material we covered in class and would come anyways, but I figured this extra incentive would help with the beginning of the semester. 
         "We're going to start off today doing a short writing exercise so that I can gauge your ability to convey your thoughts.  Does everyone have a pen or pencil?"  I began passing out paper to each row.  "Please take one sheet and write one paragraph with at least six sentences about why getting an education doesn't matter."  I saw a few heads in the room jerk when I expressed the topic of the free write. 
         "You mean why getting an education matters, right?" asked a boy in the middle of the room.
         "No, I mean why getting an education doesn't matter."  I gave no other explanation and watched most of the students sit thoughtfully and then start writing.  I had come up with exercise as a way to get them all thinking that education DID matter.  It was also, like I had mentioned to them, a good way for me to tell how much work needed to be done on their writing.  Five minutes passed without any major disruptions, although I had to encourage some people to actually write something. 
         While everyone was passing in their paragraphs, it happened.  Two girls in the back of the classroom began fighting.  The girl on the right threw a punch at the other girl's face and then they began wrestling.  Chaos quickly ensued.  I was able to see them grabbing each others arms and kicking each other before a crowd of their classmates temporarily blocked my view.  My hands were still full with their papers, which I quickly put down on the nearest desk.  Then I pushed my way through the group of students and stood in shock at the girls.  They were shouting insults at each other and trying to scratch either other's faces with their nails.  I needed to rectify the situation quickly.  I pointed to two girls who were nearest the girl on the right. 
         "You two--grab her arms!  Quick!" I gestured to two other girls on the other side of the fight to do the same for the girl on the left and pushed myself into the middle of the fight, trying to separate the girls with my physical presence.  Luckily, my scheme worked. 
         "Move her over there," I pointed to one side of the room, "and her over there," I pointed to the other side of the room.  "What are you fighting about?"  I addressed both of the girls.  They quickly began talking at once.
         "She was flirting with my man!"
         "He ain't your man!  You just wish he was your man!"
         "Is too!"
         "Is not!"
         "Is too!"
         "QUIET!" I used my big in-charge voice and silenced both of them.  I thought quickly.  They were disrupting my class and I was worried that the other girls wouldn't be able to restrain them for much longer. 
         "Alright, let's have a trial," I stated.
         "A trial?" someone asked.
         "Yes."  The idea quickly gained momentum in my own mind.  It was similar to a technique one of my own high school teachers had used to get us to debate topics in class.  "We have a disagreement, so we have an accuser and defendant.  I will be the judge and you the class will be the jury.  I assume, you two have friends in here who know some of the specifics of this fight and your characters and they will be your witnesses.  Here let's organize ourselves."  I motioned most of the class to sit down.           They seemed a little reluctant to go along with my scheme until one of the boys piped up.
         "I'm going to be the ENFORCER AT A TRIAL."  I started, but then smiled at him and agreed.
         "Alright.  Let's get this trial underway.  We need opening statements from each of the parties.  That means you, young ladies.  You each have 2 minutes to tell us why you believe you are in the right."
         As they began talking, I sighed inwardly.  I had averted a potential disaster and turned it into a positive experience.  Hopefully from now on, people wouldn't fight in my class unless they wanted their issues told to the whole class.  When the bell rang 20 minutes later, the class was asking detailed questions about the girl's fights and about how court cases worked in the real world.  A few students had apparently already been to court, either for themselves or for their parents and were very helpful, and I was a huge Law and Order fan, which helped as well.  We hadn't gotten through much of my lesson plan, but I felt that the day was a success.