Cue the Theme Song:  Mission Impossible Theme

Imagine yourself sitting on a park bench. You open a backpack and remove a reel to reel tape player. You push PLAY. You hear:

”Think about the end of the first week of school. Have you built a solid foundation of relationships with your kids? Your mission, Fellow Educators, should you choose to accept it, is to return to your classrooms after the last student has left. Clean off your desk. Take a pen and a blank sheet of paper. Without looking at a class roster or seating chart, write down the first names of each student in your home room/first period class. Beside the first name, write down something uniquely personal about that child that you learned this week. Something that has nothing to do with your class. Then greet each child Monday morning by talking about that one uniquely personal thing. This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds…”

Yes, you can do this. You can build that kind of relationship with each student. When every student learns that the first teacher they see every day knows and cares about them as a human, they feel valued and respected. And they will open themselves to learn from you, and every other teacher they see the rest of the day. School has become a safe place, not just a building.

May your students see your classroom where all are celebrated and none are tolerated.

And so it goes…