I am that teacher. The one that students don't quite know what to think when they first meet me.
If new students ask if I assign a lot of homework, I say, "I've heard Mrs. Conrow assigns a boatload of homework." Which is absolutely a true statement I overheard a third-grade student of mine say during the first week of my second year of teaching. Oops.
If a student asks if I know where something of theirs is, I respond with, "I didn't eat it." I don't get asked where their stuff is very often anymore.
Before my knee injury I used to jump up and down a lot, and my favorite way to get the attention of a noisy class was to stand on a table or desk. If that didn't work by itself (which it almost always did) I would start to loudly clear my throat. Once, a student told his parents I stand on tables and bark like a dog.
On the first day of school with my seventh graders, I give them a piece of blank paper and put one under the document camera for myself. I ask them to write down their favorites - colors, foods, books, movies, songs, movies, bands, hobbies, sports... If they have a favorite I don't say, I encourage them to list it. Then I ask them to write down words people in their lives would use to describe them - friends, parents, teachers, grandparents, cousins, neighbors. I tell them this is not something I will collect, but it might help them with the activity we will do next.
They use this to help them decide what to sculpt out of modeling clay or Play-Doh (whichever is cheapest to buy small containers of in bulk before the school year starts) to use to introduce themselves to me. Normally, as they sculpt, I walk around the room and glance over what they wrote to get an initial sense of how they see themselves. Due to my sprained ankle this year, I had to forego that part of the plan. But I did sculpt a cane/crochet hook for my own introduction.
Their intros have to be 30 seconds or less. If they don't know what to say, I give them the fill in the blank phrase, "My name is ______ and I made ______ because _______."
To back up a little, before we jump into any of this, I do introduce myself to the class. This year my intro slide included my current injury count. When they tried to ask questions about my stab wound (which I added because it's visible and I currently draw attention to by scratching at it all the time) I said, "You don't get to know about my stab wound, just that I have one." A student raised his hand and asked what my cats' names are and I answered it. Another one asked when I was stabbed and I gave the exact date. A third started to ask another question about the stab wound, and I flipped to the next slide, moving forward with my presentation, setting a boundary. They get to know a little, but not everything.
I frequently tell students who are meeting me for the first time how weird I am. I ask students who have met me before if they agree with that statement. The poor children of my co-workers, or those who were vocal younger siblings when their older siblings were in my room, look like deer in the headlights when confronted with this question in front of their classmates! Every time, every one of them is hesitant to answer the question. But by the end of day two, every student agrees I'm weird, with an enthusiastic, "YES!"
As we write our favorites and words, I always tell the kids a little more about myself. For example, I start out saying, "Purple is my second favorite color. Blue is actually my first favorite color. When I was your age, I would have said pizza was my favorite food, but now I'm going to say, turkey." Inevitably there are kids who are already lost. I have four words on my page but have only asked about two favorites. Do they have to use the colors I'm using? Also, what if you don't have a favorite color? So, I remind them I will not be collecting this, tell them it's okay to have more than one favorite of something, or skip one or more of them if you don't have a favorite of it. We continue. When I write down certain words, I always give a teaser of a back story, like, "I was a very quiet student, I never raised my hand in class." or "When I was a little younger than you, our backyard neighbors would have definitely called me mean." If someone asks about it and the class quiets down, I'll fill them in with a few details.
This year, in preparation for the second day of school with a sprained ankle, among my other injuries, I took time during this part of the activity to stop and call on a random kid to ask, "Who can I trust to push me around in a rolling chair tomorrow?" It got pretty silent when I asked that, for about half a second. Then everyone raised their hand. "Me! Me!" I asked other students to verify if the named student was a trustworthy choice. When they asked, "What are we doing tomorrow?" I responded with, "You'll have to come to class to find out!"
As they took their seats on the second day of school, I sat in the front of the room in my rolling chair. I called up the first of two students who were selected the day before to push me. When asked where we were going, I responded with, "You're the pilot. We go where you push. We just need to stay inside the classroom." With the first class, the student was off as soon as I was done talking. She took me in a circle around the rows of desks. As soon as we started moving, I shot my arms out to the sides and did my best toddler impression of an airplane. About a quarter of the way around the room I said, "We have reached our cruising altitude. It is now safe to unbuckle your seatbelts and move about the cabin. Be careful when opening overhead bins as items may have shifted during takeoff." Some kids stood up and moved to chat with their friends. Halfway around the room I said, "We seem to be experiencing some turbulence! Please return to your seats and buckle your seatbelts!" I started bouncing in the chair and tried to sound like a sputtering engine. As we reached the front of the room I bent over sideways and froze in place, sending the student who had been pushing me to sit down.
After 10-15 seconds, I called for the second student to push me. I picked up my cane, and as soon as we started moving, I pretended the cane was an oar and started pretending to look for and pull survivors into the life raft. Then the kids got a list of 10 "crash survivors" with back stories like "an engineer who has worked in developing nations building wells; is a diabetic and needs insulin (which needs to be refrigerated)" and "a special forces soldier with survival training; seems to be suffering from PTSD or some form of anxiety (woke up screaming in the night believing he was being chased)." They have to work in small groups to come to agreement on which five people get rescued and which five have to stay on the island. *
Near the end of class on the second day I asked again, "Now do you believe that I'm weird?" Every student - legitimately every single one, in both classes - with at least a hint of a smile said, "YES!" And when I dismissed them (again, both classes) they wouldn't leave. They kept debating with their group. I said, "I'm glad you love it here, but you have to go!" and "I know you didn't have enough time to finish, that's why I'm giving you time to work on it tomorrow." Finally, as the last student exited, I said, "I'll see you tomorrow." He replied, "Yay!"
A seventh-grade boy said, "Yay!" to a new teacher telling him, "I'll see you tomorrow." I don't know what it feels like to win the lottery, but that moment had to come pretty darn close. The next day I saw a different boy in the hallway, and I said his name in long, drawn out, stage whisper. He responded with my name in a long, drawn out, stage whisper, "Coonroooowwww!" which made me grin from ear to ear. It's going to be a fantastic year!
*This activity comes from Dave Burgess' book Teach Like a Pirate. It is a hit every year. You can find many more TLAP activities at his website: daveburgess.com – Teach Like a Pirate
