Everyone's retiring... I'm just getting started!
Back in the classroom after 22 years, right as AI changed everything. Here's my day-one plan, and a chair pulled up for you.
Many of my teaching colleagues are counting down to retirement. Years, then months, then one last first day. That might be you in the next few weeks. Twenty-two years ago I walked out of a classroom too, and I spent that time away in healthcare and in real estate, certain I would return one day but not sure when.
That “when” was January of 2026. I turned 60 in the same month! I returned right as AI began to make a huge impact everywhere. And instead of counting down, I found myself lit up in a way I had not felt in a very long time.
My teaching methods have always been a bit of a Purple Cow. Seth Godin wrote a small book by that name, and if you have not read it, go find it. A purple cow is the one who stands out, the one who cannot help doing the thing a little differently. This year, everything I’ve done in my work life finally makes sense. I’m a purple cow with the experience and energy to tackle the challenge of AI in the public school classroom.
So come with me and let’s pull back the curtain on what we can do on the first day, because, as you well know, day one sets the stage for the year.
In my sophomore English class, it always starts with a game. Students pair up, interview each other, and introduce their partner with a same-sound adjective stuck to the name. Lucky Louise. Happy Heather. We make tent cards that we use for several weeks. We pass around markers, and scissors, and stickers and ribbon; somebody laughs and the rest follow. The room never feels like a place where you sit and wait for instructions. It is a simple exercise, but it is tried and true and it works every single time. By the end of the hour they know each other’s names and a little something about each person. Equally important, I know their names and a little something about each one of them.
The major plot twist this year is AI. Instead of handing students my printed list of interview questions, I hope to let them build their own with an AI thinking partner. It is a low-stakes first taste of using AI on purpose, out in the open, for something that actually helps them. No sneaking. No gotcha. Just their own curiosity, sharpened, and unity on day one. My district is hopefully going to allow Gemini and NotebookLM. Students are using all models already, but I’ll work with what is approved and I’ll report back here.
From there we walk into defining personal ethics, which is really the cornerstone of my classroom. Students define what ethics even mean to them. Then their personal ethics. Then their academic ethics. Then how all of it applies to AI use. I plan to give them a no-shame questionnaire that asks, plainly, how do you actually use AI right now. Not so I can catch anyone. So that we can start from the truth and build from there. My sweethearts last year helped me discover this approach on our final research assignment. It changed how I teach. I’ll share that document with you as well.
Here is the belief underpinning every video and every post I make: when we put the thinking and the decision making back in students’ hands, they take ownership immediately. AI stops being a shortcut to cheat. It becomes something closer to a teacher in their pocket, a catalyst for refining their own voice instead of a replacement for it.
I know a lot of you are tired. Some of you are brand new and a little scared. Some of you are stuck between colleagues who are dead set against AI. Some of you have taught through decade after decade and are eyeing the door, done with one more sweeping change. Wherever you are standing, pull up a comfy chair. I am not the AI expert here, but I am learning as fast as I possibly can, truly geeking out on all of the LLMs and what they might mean for our students, for us, and for our classroom. I am a seasoned teacher figuring this out in real time, in public, and sharing every step so you do not have to figure it out alone. Ask questions, please!
If you want the pieces I plan to use on day one, two of them are free: the adjective game interview question bank, and the teacher guide for letting students build their own questions with AI. Grab them, use them, and tell me what worked and what flopped. Please share your ideas as well. I may add a few more documents. Who knows.
I hope the time I’m putting in this summer helps you. If I can help you, I help your students and their families, and that is exactly why I’m here. I’m just getting started. Let’s see what we can make happen for our students, together.
Thanks for reading and I hope to meet you here next time.
Stay curious, stay ethical, stay you. ~Heather