First Day

I wrote this a couple of years ago and it’s still absolutely true:

The first day of school is ELECTRIC!Seriously, it’s magical. 

Seriously, it’s magical. 

It’s in the air in the hallways; breathe it in

The slightest tremor in the voice of a teacher.

There aren’t even students here yet, and still

It is the smell of fresh paper and clean floors and cardboard

A classroom that smells like books and promise

Potential, exponential, influence

And then they walk in!

It looks like friendships rekindled 

with beaming smiles

A tense expression on the face of a new student

Taller than before, faster than before

Different halls, different people, the same energy

It’s like a lightning storm of hustle and bustle

It’s questions, questions, questions, questions

It’s 45 minutes in the blink of an eye

It is electric, energetic, magical

The first day                                          

                                                            

We are three days into school here and the first day was still all of the above. I’ve been watching all the name learning and routine-building. There’s a lot of pressure to get the first days right. It’s very much true that we need to ‘go slow now, so we can go fast later.”

I wonder what, if anything, you remember from the first days of each year (as a student or a teacher)?