My First Class by Kesia Martinez

My First Class

By Kesia Martinez
EDCI 4322 Human Development and Instruction
June 3, 2008

I really enjoyed the first day of class. At first I was very anxious and I thought the class was going to be very difficult and challenging. But it all turned different and by the end of the class I felt very familiarized with everyone; it sure did not feel like a first day of class.

One of the things that I really found interesting was the Name Game, which is what I will talk about in this journal.

The Name Game is a very common game that most teachers use on the first day of class so the classmates get to know their peers better. I personally hated this game, until I played it in this class. In this class the Name Game was used in a very unique different way, which was what made it different from the other games I had played before in other classes.

The fact that we had to add a nickname to our name made it easier to remember for most of our peers. Another thing that made the game different was the way we were in a circle; in other classes where I had played this game, teachers made students go down the rows calling the names, which made it harder for everyone to see the person’s face or another feature that also helps in remembering names.

It was very interesting to see how at the beginning everyone was very worried to remember the person’s name and how they tried to write them down on paper, especially me since I am not very good remembering names. But the whole exercise in general, the rules, and the way we were arranged in a circle, made it very easy that in the end we did not really have to write our peers names in paper.

The activity turned out to be successful and fun, because I felt very familiarized with my peers and I believe they felt the same way too. It was a really good ice breaker for a first day of class which made it very interesting. It really changed my perspective and stereotype about this class and now I feel very excited about this course.