Writing Prompt: It was his first day.

Morning all. ready for Friday’s Prompt? Good, then lets get started. Timers at the ready and off we go.

Not sure where this is going. I kind of want to know more about Dan and kind of more about the school. I think it is one of those I might circle back to once I have a plot to go with it. At the moment, I don’t, but it is good to have in the file.

Friday, January 17^th: It was his first day.

It was his first day.  Somehow Dan didn’t think he would be this nervous.  ‘I wasn’t this nervous when I was starting a new school as a kid.’ He thought.  Admittedly with the amount of times his parents moved he had attended a lot of different schools and felt more at home as the new kid than he did as one of the crowd. 

He was a teacher now.  A professor.  He was here not as a new transfer student but as a member of staff.  It was the start of a new year and he was here to teach history at Wellstone Academy.  He took a deep breath.  The fact that all of the kids came from well heeled families that not only had money but political connections wasn’t something he wanted to think about.  He had been through orientation and he passed the inspection required for the job.  It had been quite rigorous and even after the selection committed decided he would be an excellent teacher he was put through a line of security checks and made to answer a lot more questions. 

That morning he had been introduced to several security professionals and even met two of his student bodyguards.  Somehow he never thought teaching history would come with a side of potential kidnapping.  It was that thought more than the money and political connections the students had that made him nervous he realized as he went to his assigned classroom.  He had no desire to find out how he would react in the event of an attack on the school.  He simply wanted to teach his class, assign the assignments and grade the tests and assignments.  Then he wanted to leave the class room behind for the day and focus on his own research. 

He settled into his class and wondered how his students would take him.  He had taught before but this was different from his past employment.  ‘But my past employment was why they invited me to apply for the position here.’

He was respected by his students even if he wasn’t beloved.  His strengths involved teaching well in ways that students actually managed to absorb.  He knew he wasn’t considered an easy teacher, but the students he taught almost always went on to place well in their exams, most acing the AP and college level classes with ease. It would be interesting to see how that style worked here. 

He shrugged and decided he would fit or he wouldn’t.  As the students filed in for his first class, Dan felt his nerves fading. He doubted everyday would be an attack on the students and the school so he would not need to find out just yet how he would do in an emergency.  He just needed to teach. 

His first class went smoothly as it was the first day.  Since he had not been around at the end of the previous year they did not have anything they needed to have read over the summer.  Instead he went through the expectations of the class and saw a few make notes on the syllabus he provided.  They groaned when he assigned the homework but he expected that. 

The bell rang, the class shuffled out and after a few minutes staring at an empty room, the next class shuffled in.  It went the same as the first.  He rotated classes in and out until lunch time.  He remembered his protocol and filed into the lunchroom with the other teachers. He could see the security patrolling the halls. No one paid them any attention.