First Day of School

Today was the first day of school here, and what a fun experience. We have restarted the advisory program here in the upper school, which is grades 6 through 12, and we changed the name from advisory to forum.
In my forum, I have ten adorable students in grade six. They were so cute, nervous, and excited about the transition from lower school to upper school. I was able to give them their schedules, fill in their study hall blocks, and then it was off to practice opening lockers. The lockers here have a terrible trick to opening them, and with some brute force and practice, we were finally able to get most every one's locker to open. However, during all of the breaks today and lunch, many of the students in grade six found me to help open lockers. It's so good to feel loved!
We had an all upper school assembly during the first block of the day, so I did not one of my classes, but I did see my second class of the day. These were one of my grade seven sections. Oh my gosh, what a riot!! These are going to be some fun kiddos. I was pleased I was able to accomplish about 80% of what I had planned, but we did manage to discuss tattoos and divorcing. I had one student raise his hand and ask permission to ask me a question about detention. I asked him if he wanted a detention. This really threw him off his game plan. He said, "No. I don't want a detention, but we were told if we 'goofed off' we would get a detention." I replied, "Well, why do you want to goof off?" He said, "I don't want to goof off." I said, "Good. I don't want you to goof off." Still not satisfied, he tried again. "But, what about detention?" To which I said, "If you really want a detention, I guess I can give you one." Dismayed, he said, "No! But if I goof off, will you give me a detention?" Again, I said, "But why would you goof off? Unless you want a detention." He then said, "So, if I goof off, I will get a detention?" "What do you think?" I replied. He then came to the conclusion that goofing off would be a bad plan, and yes, he would get a detention. Either way, it was fun to throw him off a bit.
I think my favorite comment from this class today is a nice closing. "You know, you should be very happy to have us as your students." "Oh?" I said. "Why is that?" "Well, we are very good at math, and we like math." This should be a fun class....