The start of every school year means a crop of fresh faces staring back at us from the carpet—faces anxiously waiting for their teachers to share their favorite stories, new strategies, exciting authors, and a love of reading.

We carefully observe these little faces those first few days of school. We try to determine what they know, who to watch. We look to identify dangerous partnerships that could lead to disruptions galore. We generalize because we have to in those first frenetic days. Who is going to be a helper? Who is going to test your patience? Who is going to need intervention? Who needs an extra hug?

Despite the excitement, the first days are long and filled with “getting-to-know-you” type activities, explanations of routines and a desire to just really get on with it and get to the good stuff. There is no tired like teacher tired in the first weeks of the school year. It is epic stuff.

No matter how tired we are or how little voice we have left, those faces return to us each and every morning, their wide eyes begging us to dig deeper, to identify them beyond the label of “helpful” or “smart” or “disruptive.” 

Behind those faces, our students have a million stories of their own—stories of their families, their lives as readers, their previous experiences with books and exposure to text, and more. Some will love to read, some will hate reading, some will read beautifully, and some will struggle with text far below their grade level.

One year, I had a student who came to me with a rap sheet a mile long and a reputation even longer. Hates to read, unfocused, disruptive—did I mention he was in first grade?! His name was that name on my class list; you know, the name that gave me a bit of a pit in my stomach and required me to take an extra deep breath before pasting on my omnipresent professional smile.

“No problem,” I said, my mind already swirling with assumptions of who this little boy was and why he had become this way. Of course, this was before I met him and saw that little face.

After a few days, I could definitely understand how my new friend had earned all those negative labels. I mean, boyfriend kind of earned them with an attitude bigger than his years. What really bothered me as I looked at that little face, though, were all the assumptions about how he had come to act that way—as if that was all there was to this little friend.

I found extra time to spend with him. I got him to talk to me about his interests, his friends, what he did after school, and, after some time, his family. Not only did I shake off some major assumptions that this little friend was simply “disruptive and unwilling to learn,” I got to the root of some of his struggles with reading and was able to better match him to books  he found engaging.

So let the fall be about wrapping your head around this new group of little ones sitting in front of you. Make a few snap decisions, a couple of quick judgments, and just survive the first few weeks. Then, question your own assumptions and dig deeper. I promise it will not only transform the way you look at that group of faces, but it will transform your practice.

Mrs. Mimi, aka Jennifer Scoggin, is a teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of Be Fabulous: The Reading Teacher's Guide to Reclaiming Your Happiness in the Classroom and It's Not All Flowers and Sausages: My Adventures in Second Grade, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.