Last First Day?

Inservice week. I began the week by delivering a workshop called "The First Day of School" in which I helped teachers understand how to effectively manage space, time, information and persona involved in the first day of school or class. I qualified my expertise by describing how I've conducted over 50 successful first days of school. I used a paper manipulative to share ideas about all the topics I mentioned a few sentences ago. I was interactive with the attendees. I gave some hints about student management that help to preserve the dignity of both the student and the teacher. I demonstrated how to keep students actively involved. I talked about how to execute an explanation of the course content in one or two sentences. I sensed that the workshop was a success. Maybe I'll just keep on teaching for a few more terms rather than to truly retire at the end of the quarter based on this confirmation of my teaching methods.
Then Wednesday I attended the all staff/campus general gathering in the gym where we ate cold powdered scrambled eggs, something that looks sort of like sausages and drank someone's fair effort at making coffee for the masses. I listened to the deans introduce the new people on their staffs. Then the deans sang a long song called "Acronyms" that attempted to include every committee in the college that has letters that describe its purpose. It was kinda cute. For about five minutes. But it went on for about 12 more minutes. I'm not kidding. Next, the president spoke. She delivered a really good speech. If she'd been in my speech class, she would have earned extra points for quality and presentation for basing her content on a nifty kaleidoscope metaphor and numbering her major points so you could easily keep track of when she'd finish. And finally, the person I'd been waiting to hear, our keynote speaker Terry Doyle, delivered his speech.
The speech began with his validation of his role as presenter by telling us that he'd had over 80 first days of school. He described what we can do to be more effective educators: involve ourselves in the learner centered process. We can do this by focusing attention on space, time, content and personalities. Yes, it did sound familiar and,boy, was I glad I'd presented first! I left even a little more determined to keep teaching.
Then came Thursday. My epiphany completed itself. I'll tell you about it in the next few days because this entry, like most all my others, is too long as it stands.