Sometimes, last period, the students are so rowdy that I'm glad I have a structured classroom environment.

Last week, a student even warned me at the door that the kids were a "bit active today, miss."

As usual, like every other day since the very first day of school, I had work to be done as they walked in the room. I know that the beginning of the period is critical for engagement and learning. Every period with me, the students begin to work at the bell. On this day, they had to come up with multiple questions to a possible solution. And when the bell rang, they began. Of course, almost all began. Some had to find a pencil, a couple had the wrong notebook and some had a slow start opening their pencil cases. All possibilities in a classroom of young people, each of whom is different. But all had a quiet environment in which to begin to think.

I smile on the first day of school. They tell you not to. I hope that this is antiquated advice.

Smiling, for me, is the best way to convey safety, caring, compassion. It also shows that I am human.

A smile is also an invitation to begin a relationship. The relationship with my students begins on the first day of school.

Do you smile on the first day of school?

At the beginning of the year, on the first day of school, I have a seating chart in reverse alphabetical order, ready and visible at the door to my classroom. I want to immediately make the students feel safe, and I want to establish order and structure.

Having a seating chart also makes attendance-taking a breeze (look for empty seats), and it allows me to memorize names relatively quickly. Substitute teachers appreciate the chart for the same reasons. Assigned seating makes administrative tasks easier.

As November approaches and students begin to feel comfortable with their groups of four, I change their seats. I ask for feadback from students about their choice of seating, given personal considerations such as glasses, handed-ness and preference for the front or the back of the room. Once I have all the feedback, I use the information to create heterogenous, mixed-gender groups of four. This allows me to accomodate differences in learning styles - some students feel suffocated in the front row and free to learn in the back. Students who provide input about where they want/need to sit learn more in my classroom.

Carefully constructed assigned seating charts are an indespensible tool in my teaching toolbox, one I would not teach without.

Today I caught a student being a teacher.

It was during the "you can talk in your groups" time of the period. This 12-year-old teacher was kneeling next to her team-mate and explaining, while using a number line, exactly how to add integers. She was using correct vocabulary and she was explaining exactly as I had modeled previously with the entire class. She was patient, kind and respectful.

I wandered away to check on other groups and when I returned, the teacher had sat down and the student was working steadily on the next examples. With two quick checks of her understanding, I knew that she had it.

I am not the only teacher in the room. There are a multitude of situations in which students can be teachers. You just have to let them.

They applauded again today.

Not the half-interested clapping that they would have been asked to do after a presentation, nor the sarcastic clapping that happens sometimes, but real, genuine, erupt-into-spontaneous clapping that only occurs when they are being real.

The first time it happened, it was Friday, last period, before a three day weekend. It caught me off guard. I went home and told my husband.

The second time was like the first.

The applause, I have come to realize, is just one of the many unexpected pure pleasures of my job.

I am a teacher.