After 15 years of teaching, I have had one of my best ideas EVER.  I thought of it last year when we were hearing more and more about the requirement of teaching soft skills in our CTE classes. I decided I would start the year by shaking the hand of every student that walked into my room, every day. How can I child feel unwelcome, unloved, uncared about, feel like you don't like them, when you give them a genuine smile, a genuine greeting and a hand shake? 

I know I'm not the first to do this with their students.  A few months after thinking I had the BEST idea EVER, I visited the middle school classroom of Mr. Rod Hames. He teaches in my cluster, and I like to visit him a couple of times a year to see what cool things he's doing. I arrived in the middle of a class, and at the bell changed, Mr. Hames went into the hall and greeted each of his students with a hand shake and a smile.  WOW! It was very powerful. Mr. Hames had an interesting take on the idea.  He said to me that he had read some where that some students go all day without any human contact. How sad is that.

So, I've come out of my own little shell.  I have pushed back the nagging thought that the students are going to think I'm strange, and I have greeted them with a handshake and a smile.  I started on registration day.  I greeted the students first, their parents second. I'm sure some parents were taken a back, as they stood there with their hands stretched out, and I reached for their child's hand first.  But you know what, right from the beginning I want my students to know that while I'm going to work with their parents, they are the bigger part of the team.  They are why I go to work every day!

When I went over my classroom norms and syllabus, there was a constant theme.  The theme that was echoed to us by our principal at the start of school.  She said we needed a giant dose of positivity.  Consequently, my supply list included (after tissues and a ream of copy paper) determination, positive attitude, creativity and a SMILE.  My norms were very much the same.  Be curtious, be respectful, do your best, be determined and have a good attitude, AND

...greet me at the door with a hand shake and a smile. 

As I'm getting ready for a brand new school year.  I'm a new department chair, with lots of big ideas.  I have chosen as our main theme this year: Celebrating Career and Technical Education!  Computer Science in my state is part of the Career and Technical Education Department.  There are so many great things to Celebrate in CTE and Computer Science. Here are some of ideas of how we will be celebrating computer science and our other CTE courses: 

• Watch the code.org video the first day of school.
• Start clubs / summer camps for all levels.  We will be hosting a club for 4th and 5th graders using We-Do and Scratch starting the end of August and running for 6 weeks. Several of our other CTE teachers are also thinking of beginning camps, such as Fashion runway, and video broadcasting club. 
• Two years ago, we hosted our middle school students for a field trip to our department and our classes.
• We are planning an Hour of Code event during National Computer Science Education Week. 
• We will be sponsoring a Sit With Me event to encourage more female students to learn how to code.
• I have created a bulletin board to display all the times CTE classes have been highlighted in our local news and school news. Make it a competition for teachers to highlight their students on a more regular basis. 
• And most importantly, we are all working on creating new wonderful lessons for several brand new introductory courses, as well as new courses, including the AP Computer Science Principles Pilot course.  Great lessons and a great reputation is the best way to Celebrate CTE!

Enjoy your school year!

Crystal