The first day of school was...what it was, I guess.  I told myself going in not to expect anything near perfection and actually steeled myself for some rather more nightmarish scenarios than actually happened.  I think that no matter how long you teach, the FDOS is always going to have an element of uncertainty because you never know quite who's going to be in your class (both individuals and combinations).  I'm also figuring my own teaching style too, so that is another layer of unknown.  I think I ran the whole gamut today, letting my first group walk on top of me to being mildly Godzilla with my group after lunch.  I honestly expected a lot worse from my OGT science class, but they were my quietest group.  But with them I almost would rather they be noisy because I'm afraid they're too used to checking out in class.  It'll be hard having that at the end of the day and trying to summon the most energy when I really have the least available.  I have one student in both biology and OGT science, so he was there for the last three hours of the day!

I'm proud of the way I recognized the fact that mistakes will be made and that today is only a start.  While I was on hall duty, one of the other small schools had a class change and I got mobbed by scads of tiny freshman (I'm sorry, but they are!) asking me where this and that room was.  I did fine with the academic rooms but was at a complete loss for the art and career tech classes, and it was kind of funny telling them, "I'm actually new here myself!"  Whether I feel like it or not, I'm a real teacher now!