Most of the time I find it pretty useless to talk about kids with their old teachers before the school year starts. It’s not that the teachers don’t have important things to say. They do, I just have no idea who they’re talking about. Let’s talk in a week!
Yesterday, though, I had a really nice chat about my class roster with a colleague. She’s teaching kids I’ve taught; I’m teaching a lot of her kids from last year. At first we fumbled for something useful to say, and we landed on the usual: this kid’s great, this kid loves to gab, this kid can fall through the cracks, etc.
The breakthrough was when we narrowed things down. Who do I need to form a relationship with first? She had some ideas, and then I shared mine.
My class roster has three names marked. I will get to know them first.
Teaching With Problems 
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