Japanese Pens, Mason Jars, and the First Day of School

Sunlight filters through glass and, every so often, the wall behind is streaked with dashes of red and blue. Three small mason jars hold my most frequently used colors. Pens organized by color: blue, black, red. It was one of my pre-school DIY projects – oh, the joys of organization!

  

I am four weeks into school – already? – and there is so much to do, but I’m getting ahead of myself…

The first day of school began with excitement and nerves and the catching up and swapping of summer adventures.

Students in the hall dragging backpacks and lunch boxes.

Students looking for their classrooms.

The copier humming.

Teachers laughing.

Here I am standing in front of my middle school General Science class. Nervous chatter floats through the air. One student – deer in headlights – slouches so far down in his seat he might fall off. Uh-huh. Not a lot of excitement here.

I greet the class, introduce myself (although I knew most of the students from previous classes), pull out the inch thick textbook (or is it bigger?), and let it fall onto the table. Thunk.

It’s probably not the best way to calm nerves, but produced the exact affect I was after.  

All chatter ceased.

A hand in the air. “Ms. Schmidt, are we actually going to read through the entire thing?”

“Of course!” And cue pep-talk. “Don’t worry, the textbook looks really big (it’s huge), but you will be fine because each of you are intelligent and creative and we’re in this together…”

Then we went over some of the most basic things – like bring a writing utensil to class – why do I have to say that to 7^th & 8^th graders? I mean really, why? “And MAKE SURE you bring a writing utensil to class – a pen or pencil – this is absolutely necessary. I usually have one or two extras, but I’m really not too fond of sharing them---”

A student I’ve had in another class busts out: “Your special Japanese pens, Ms. Schmidt? Yeah, she doesn’t like sharing them! She makes you PROMISE you won’t hurt, harm, or damage her special pens!”

“Yes. Thank you, H. Yes, so, bring a pencil or pen – everyone understand? Great! Let’s move on…”

Oh, yes. Those special Japanese pens. Remember the mason jars? Those hold, among other types, the extremely fine tipped Asian pens. A favorite of mine.

That would be one of my teacher quirks. I’m not too excited to share my special Japanese pens with their super thin tips and consistent ink flow to middle school kids who drop, break, and squash pens. Last year, some of my students could say, by memory, “the promise” if they borrowed one of my special pens:



Organized. Plus a "flower pen" a student made for me.



 I, [state your name], do solemnly promise

Not to hurt, damage, or otherwise harm

Ms. Schmidt’s special Japanese Pens.

Most of the students remembered to bring their writing utensils after this...

Now you know! If we ever meet you’ll probably add it as my tagline. Ms. Schmidt? Oh, yeah! Special Japanese Pens! Yes, it’s great to meet you, too.

You must love these quirks though; they cause so much good laughter especially when you and your students can laugh about them together! I mean, how silly is that? A teacher that doesn’t like sharing her pens?

And it is only the beginning of the school year. Later on, I'll be able to share with you some of my students’ quirks and homework habits: like doodling on experiment reports or including a quote about unicorns in a Journalism article.

Here's to the excitement of the beginning!

Ms. Schmidt