Posted by Ashley Whalen

Reading this chapter made me think back to my sixth grade school year. I was so excited to be in the last grade of elementary school, yet I was a little nervous for one reason. The year before, one of the sixth grade teachers moved to another city, creating an open position for a new teacher. I was placed in her class. All I knew was that her name was Mrs. Mardell. I was apprehensive about her being mean, nice, hard, easy, boring, or fun. It was all up in the air. As I walked down the hall with my mom on the first day of school, I kept thinking over and over about what this year was going to be like. I turned the corner, and saw Mrs. Mardell standing at the door in a bright, beautiful, red suit. She had dark, straight hair and was wearing the biggest smile I had ever seen. She bent down to me and asked, “What is your name, Sweetie?” She asked the question with such excitement and love. I told her my name was Ashley and she immediately told me she loved my red hair. It made me feel good. She also told me her name was Mrs. Mardell and that she was so excited to have me in her class. She introduced herself to my mother and I felt really comfortable with her as I saw my mom walking down the hall to go to work. She took my hand and led me to my desk with a big, colorful name tag on it that said, “Ashley.” She again knelt down beside me and asked if everything was ok, and of course I couldn’t help to reply with, “Yes, I am great.” That was the best elementary year I had, and it was all because I loved Mrs. Mardell from the beginning. Throughout the chapter of the book, Harry Wong talked about all the actions a teacher can do to make the first day, week, month, and year of school a success. Such actions and characteristics are to have high and positive expectations, make the students feel welcome, ensure safety, create a successful environment, be appropriately dressed, have good behavior, be a good role model, have an inviting personality and classroom, address students by their name, be polite, smile, and just be loveable. All of these characteristics are very important to have not only for the first day of school, but all year. Mrs. Mardell had each of the se characteristics and I have the desire to have these with my students in order to create a successful classroom.

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