The First Days of School
Good Fit
- New teachers and those in the first years of their career, and education-faculty students
- School leaders, mentor teachers and professional-development trainers
- Experienced teachers looking for concrete examples in classroom management and in setting up discipline and procedures
Not a Fit
- Anyone seeking an academic text that explores educational theory in depth: the book is a practical guide
- Anyone who prefers student-centred, free education methods to strict classroom management
- Anyone seeking a short summary: the book runs to about 300 pages
The chapter sets out the main idea: what you do on the first day of school determines whether you will be successful or not for the rest of the school year. Professor Douglas Brooks recorded the first day of school of a group of teachers and came to a surprising result: ineffective teachers began the first day by teaching or with a fun activity and spent the rest of the school year chasing students; effective teachers spent their time organising and structuring the classroom, so that students knew what the next step would be. The most important thing in the first week is consistency; students are closed to surprises and disorder, and consistency spares them from saying «What are we doing today?»
The authors Harry Wong and Rosemary Wong stress the importance of «teaching procedures»: effective teachers teach classroom-management procedures, and students want a safe, predictable environment. A student at a school in a high-risk environment is quoted: «I like coming to this school because everybody here knows what to do. Nobody yells at us and we look to learn»; the words of a seventh-grader, «I found the formula for success: roll up your sleeves», are also given. A written script for the first day of school — like a coach's game plan or a wedding planner's schedule — is the mark of an effective teacher. Diana Greenhouse from Texas writes that she shared her classroom-management plan with a PowerPoint presentation on the first day; Kazım Çiçek from Oklahoma spent his first three years as a «warrior», prepared a plan before the fourth year and had «a wonderful year for the first time».
The section «Don't be a friend» gives an important recommendation of the authors: new teachers want to be friends with their students; be caring and warm like a friend but do not be a friend — students have enough friends, they expect an adult role model from you. The authors explain «effective» as «producing results»: the first condition of effectiveness is expertise. «Being an ideal example is better than being a friend» is the motto of the chapter.
At the end of the chapter the «Four Stages of Teaching» (based on Kevin Ryan) is presented: 1) Fantasy — entertaining students and being a friend; 2) Survival — worksheets, videos, busywork to keep students quiet, the salary is the aim; 3) Mastery — knows how to manage the class and ensure student achievement, has high expectations of students; 4) Impact — the teacher who makes a mark on students' lives, the one who is thanked years later. The authors show the aim of «The First Days of School» as moving you from the second stage to the third.
- Each section opens with a short thesis («Key idea») and is supported by real teacher stories
- Diagrams, boxes and side-column quotations break up the text and make it easy to read
- The authors show concrete procedures (entering the class, attendance, collecting homework) step by step
- The language is plain and direct, written with a personal address to the teacher
A practical book on classroom management and lesson techniques
Effective teaching techniques explained with theoretical grounding
A way of thinking that changes how teacher and student approach learning
At the end of the part read the authors describe the fourth, highest stage, «Impact»: effective teachers make a difference in their students' lives and have students who come years later to thank them; at this stage you «are the difference itself» and, going back to the fantasy stage, you have realised your dream of making a difference. The chapter ends with the idea that «effective teachers make a mark on lives». What follows is outside the scope of this review.
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