Five mistakes I always make the first day back at school

1. Wearing heels. I don’t care if it’s the most comfortable pair of heels I own, or if I can normally spend hours and hours on my feet in them. After a summer of wearing nothing but sandals and flip-flops, any “real” shoes mean P A I N . And with opening convocation later and the reception afterwards…well, there’s a lot of standing around. Ouchie.
2. Packing too little food. I don’t know what it is about getting back into teaching, but those first couple of weeks I am constantly ravenous. Today I ate my lunch at 10:30am and was starving by noon. I am on my second post-lunch snack now.
3. Planning 70 minutes of material for a 50 minute class. 50 minutes goes by so fast. I always overplan.
4. Planning on doing substantive work on my own the first day. Teaching is exhausting. The first day back, I am brain dead when I’m not in front of the class. I actually have “do paper revisions” on my to-do list today. Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.
5. Forgetting how much I’ve missed teaching over the summer. I enjoy the time away from the classroom during the summer, the less-structured time to think and plan. But…when I get back in front of the students the first day, the adrenaline and excitement kick in and I remember all the reasons I love this job so much.

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