Room 9

I love the start of school.

I really love seeing the apprehensive faces of the students as they walk in my room.

The 9 on the door greets them, reminding them they are new here, 9th graders. Nothing more than the youngest kids in the big pool of high school. The lowest on the totem pole. The bottom of the... Well, you get the idea.

They step into the room, backpacks full of clean sheets of paper and untouched BIC pens. They settle into their chairs and feel the cold composite material on their backs.

Their eyes glance around the room, looking for something familiar. But this is the first week of school. The walls are bare and sterile. 

Their eyebrows knit together and seem to call out, "Is this one of those teachers who makes us read long books?"

They fumble with their zippers on their backpacks and retrieve a blank piece of paper, wondering, "Will he make me write a lot?"

As they uncap the BIC pens, they let the pen touch the paper and whisper to themselves, "Will I have to learn a bunch of new words? The kind of words that don't make any sense to me?"

I smile down at the students, crack a joke, but the students remain silent. They uncomfortably look around the room, wondering if they are permitted to chuckle, laugh or even giggle in the Temple that is 9th Grade English.

Role is called and the students sheepishly call out, "Here!" when I butcher their names. But then, in the crowd, as I make a lame joke about the missing student on the list and his apparent painful, and torturous demise, I see it. A smile. The student lets his shoulders relax and he spots it. The faint curl of a grin at the edges of my mouth. He knows. And then it spreads. Like a cupcake sale in front of Jenny Craig, the students begin to figure out who I am. And I they.

And that's how the year starts.