Many teachers have students participate in introductory activities, and there is a reason they are shrouded in a feeling of pointlessness and boredom. 

   Introductory activities include icebreakers and get-to-know-you videos, and they always seem easy but quite dull. Many teachers have students do them, and they are part of the reason that the first day of school “doesn’t count.” Most of the things you learn about people from them, like their favorite ice cream flavor, are trivial, and will not help you start a conversation.

   As the school year has just started, I was reminded of my hatred of the mundane activities we are forced to do at the beginning of the year. If everybody intends to make new friends, they would be much more tolerable, but we all know that this is not the case. People are always messing around, leading the class to devolve into chaos or too shy to start a conversation. There is always awkward silence and staring after the activity is completed. In addition, people never want to seem like they like a person they’ve never met before too much.

   In activities where you have to find a person who has a certain characteristic, we all know that people just go with their friends. People also don’t switch partners, they just stay with the one or two people they already know. The people who icebreakers are supposed to help, students who don’t have many friends in a certain class, are made more miserable because they don’t have anyone to go with. Only the social butterflies, who don’t need icebreakers to make friends and get to know people, always find partners. 

   The first day of school is a day of school and should be treated as such, otherwise, why are we all wasting our time and showing up to school at all? I know that most of us would rather be at home, even if the first day of school is “easy.” If the students are going to put the effort in and show up, we should be given the courtesy of actually learning something or doing an activity that achieves something. 

   Since we are on a four-by-four block schedule, missing two days of school to useless icebreaker activities is like missing four days of school in another schedule. We also have to do them every semester, versus every year. This is unfair to the students, especially because icebreaker activities are rarely valuable conversation starters, and you rarely end up sitting next to the people you did icebreakers with.

   When the activity requires students to share something with the whole class such as when the teacher asks a question and everybody takes turns answering it, nobody can remember anything anyone said. Either everybody tries to change their answer to something that is more socially acceptable, or most people have the same answer. Many students just give the same answers as their friends.

   I understand that teachers want to give students time to get rid of the mental cobwebs that always accompany the first day of school, but there are other options. Instead of wasting everybody’s time with icebreakers, teachers should consider giving a presentation introducing themselves or the class, setting expectations, outlining necessary school supplies, teaching the basics, or using the time to review or assess basic skills. 

   Some teachers believe that icebreakers can help make future projects less awkward, especially if a teacher has a class that is highly oriented toward collaboration. If teachers ultimately decide to do icebreaker activities, my suggestions would be to not make anybody share anything in front of the whole class. Instead, keep it to just two people and make sure to give enough time to start a conversation, but not too much, to where students are stuck looking awkwardly at their feet, participate in the icebreakers yourself, and make sure everyone is switching partners. 

   My favorite introductory icebreaker is where two people pair up and are given a certain amount of time to interview each other and write down their three favorite things they learned about each other. This icebreaker ensures that they can conduct their conversation without having to limit themselves with conversation starters, and they don’t have to share anything with the whole class.