‘I was the little girl who wanted to be a teacher’

“I’m 8 years old,” said the little girl in the blue dress.

“I’m 9. You’re 9, too,” said the boy with the Ninja Turtles backpack, pointing across the table at his new friend.

“No,” said the blonde girl with the pigtails. “I’m 10.”

“No, you’re not,” said the boy with the backpack.

“Yes I am!” she said. “I’m older than all of you.”

The sounds of such children’s conversations welcomed first-year teacher Rebekah Knight to her second first day of fourth grade. Her first was at Central Fellowship Christian Academy, which she attended as a girl.

On Friday, in her classroom at David Perdue Elementary School, she wore a nautical print dress, setting the tone for the classroom’s theme — “Ms. Knight’s Crew.”

She graduated from Middle Georgia State University this past May and landed her dream job.

Knight, 22, discussed her impressions of her first day as a teacher.

Q: Going into today, were you nervous or excited?

A: Mostly excited. I really hadn’t been too nervous about it. I was ready, and this has been my dream. This was a really big day.

Q: Do you think everything went well?

A: I do! We had a great day. ... The kids said that they had a lot of fun. Some of them were asking me for homework. “Give us some work to do at home!” they said.

Q: Going into the first day of school, what was the best piece of advice any person gave you?

A: Dr. Andy Payne (the school’s principal) said the two things the parents are going to ask when they’re taking their kids home are “Did you have a good day at school?” and “Did you like your teacher?” That helped me realize it’s OK if things don’t go perfectly today. It’s going to be crazy at times because we’re learning together, and everybody’s on a new schedule. It’s important to make sure that we made those first connections with the kids and to make sure the kids know that I love them, and that I’ll be here to support them throughout the whole year.

Q: What made you want to be a teacher?

A: I was the little girl who wanted to be a teacher when I was 5 and that dream continued to grow. I really felt like that’s what God had called me to do. My calling is to serve other people — to care about them, to love them. I think this is a good opportunity to show love and really care about those people who sometimes don’t get what they need in life.

Q: You had asked the kids to finish this phrase, and so I’m going to ask you the same. School is important because...

A: Of the learning, but also the social skills. That’s one thing that I’m going to focus on in my classroom — a character trait every week. I think school is not only important for academics – that’s obviously why we come to school — but also learning those social skills and learning to love other people and work with other people. Those are all things they’re going to have to do one day in a job and in college.

Q: Was there anything that surprised you about today?

A: It really went smoothly. It’s not that I wasn’t expecting it to go smoothly — that was my hope for the day. I knew that it might not go perfectly, but it really did go smoothly. We got to lunch on time. We left lunch on time. Everybody got home. Everybody got to dismissal. It flowed well. It almost didn’t feel like a first day of school. It felt like things were going smoother than that.

This story was originally published July 31, 2016 at 2:36 PM with the headline "‘I was the little girl who wanted to be a teacher’."