Secrets of a 9th Grade English Teacher obout the First Day of School and Beyond

by Suzanne McLain Rosenwasser

This will be the 25th time I’ve started high school, counting my years as a

student and those of a 9th grade teacher; and though I’ve taught every grade from

7th-12th, it is 9th graders, I choose to teach. I’ve taught thousands of 13 to 15 year

olds and will share at least 180 hours with about 150 more once the 09-10 school

begins. So I have some advice to these rising 9th graders ~ things to warn you

about from my perspective up there at the front – I’m the English teacher who’s

been at the school forever.

So here we go.

As we start the first hour on the first day, a group of you will shuffle into my

room like sleepwalkers, falling into the nearest desk. Some of you will walk in

dazed, as if this couldn’t be happening now; you’ll stop and wonder what to do

next. More than a few of you will burst through the door full of high school,

ready for it, tripping over it, not lost for a moment.

On the first day, I’ll be amazed at how many of you actually hear me say

“take any seat”. About three of you will just stand there after I’ve repeated “take

any seat” a few more times; one of you will look right at me and ask if there is

assigned seating. Of those still standing, one won’t hear my reply.

Another among you will be wearing an offensive graphic t-shirt, like the

student last year whose tee had enormous FU letters on the front. I will tell this

year’s offender to go into the walk-in closet and turn the tee inside out. The

student will say: “It stands for Furman University.” I’ll reply: “It stands for

‘Turn it inside out’ to me. “

 There will be girls among you whose outfits go far beyond the school’s “Dress

Code Don’ts”. Large areas of skin extending from your rib-cage to below your

navel will prompt me to ask you to put on your hoodie or go to the office to don

the sweatpants handed out in such situations.

Three minutes past the bell, one female straggler will breeze past me saying she

absolutely loves the cute flats I’m wearing in the total belief that her approval

will make my day. A few late boys will enter the room while playing haky-sac.

One will stop, turn, and report that I have taught his sibling. I’ll be asked “to share

a pound for that”. The OCD girl in the first seat, middle row is frantically

searching her backpack for what she thinks is her lost agenda.

For the next 39 minutes, I will hand out forms for subscriptions to school

publications, bodily injury insurance applications for athletes, the codes and

consequences for infractions requiring discipline, state-free-lunch applications,

bus riders’ rules and my class syllabus. Some of you will make great efforts to

appear to be listening; at least one won’t try at all, and a few of you will be

furiously writing down every word. I may have to ask one girl, probably in the

back, to stop polishing her nails. Later, I will contend with another student over

his loudly Rap-ringing, cell phone.

These moments will call for the appearance of my “don’t mess–with-me-

face,” the employment of which I must chose judiciously. If I go too far, lips will

curl all around the room, and at lunch I will be one of the faculty dogs spoken of

with venom. However, the look is a delicate balance because if my dagger-look

isn’t piercing enough, you’ll know I don’t have the power it takes to make
something so phenomenal as learning happen. Hence, I could be scrambling for

your attention all year.

It is the first day, so I decide to approach the cosmetic and cell phone

situations with a less, class-invasive approach. I stand at each offender’s desk

while I continue to discuss the syllabus. I point to the intrusive item, talking all

the while about homework completion and bi-weekly grammar quizzes. I do not

move from that spot until what I want to disappear is gone. This technique will

only work in the first few days of school, before the showboating in any of you

gets the courage to take stage.

During the next days, I will do my absolute best to lure you into a rhythm that

hums with reading stories, writing words, and exchanging ideas. I will gradually

morph into the kind, instructive, and empowering teacher I strive to be by

showing you my heart, and asking for a glimpse of yours in return. I will avoid

your groans when I start a grammar lesson, and I will pretend to strangle a chosen

one of the incessant talkers, having already established that you’re the one who’ll

play along with me this year. Let me thank you ahead of time for the use of your

good humor in the spontaneous scenes I create to recapture the class from the

distracters who threaten to take the learning away.

However, make no mistake about this: I will have to don my mean suit from

time to time, but I will promise you that I’ll do so responsibly and never become a

screaming Banshee or that English teacher you had once before.

Trust this: I chose to teach you because I like who you are; you’re on the cusp

of one of the most impressionable memories of life - high school. I will question
my teaching choice at times, but I will continue to remember that I chose you

because you’re still close enough to childhood to touch it; but it’s not as close as

the next journey. I like being at the door of the new world you’re entering.

In that place, I hope to leave the wisdom of Homer, Shakespeare, Bradbury,

Orwell; Dickinson, Cavafy ,Millay; Kingsolver, Gaines, and Tan. Then,

weather-permitting, we’ll meet on the other side of that door, on the football field

where I walked with the Class of 2009 this Spring and saw them go off to the

future.