Getting to Know You!

I have talked about my fears.  I have talked about what makes me nervous.

Today I want to talk one of the things I am looking forward to as a teacher (and there are so many!).

I am looking forward to getting to know my students.  I enjoy getting to know people of all ages, and I love getting to know children.  They have such great personalities, opinions and ideas!

I am thankful for the Heacox text which spells out for us how to get to know our students in chapter 2: Who are Your Students.  The text even gives us various inventories and templates to use as we get to know our students.

One of my favorite ideas from Heacox is the idea that getting to know your students is more than just knowing their academic history.  Yes, you need their academic history, but you also want information on their interests, their intelligences (from Gardener's eight intelligences), and want to involve their family in this process.  Who is going to know a student better than his or her parents?

Getting to know our students is so very important.  As Heacox says in chapter 2, "a good way to enhance students' chances for success is to get to know them and to understand how they differ from on another..."  By getting to know them, we can know how to differentiate, we can know how to make the material accessible for them.  If we make this a priority, it will help us in the long run.

As I think about getting to know my students, I do have a couple of questions:

• What does the time frame for this look like?  Do you do all your get to know you stuff on the first day? during the first week? the first month? 
• How do you make this a priority, when it feels like you have to jump into content?
• What about students who come in the middle of the year? or transfer from another school? Do we get school records?

What are your thoughts on getting to know students?  Is this something that excites you? Or does this idea overwhelm you?