100-word rant: Teachers, please stop with the introduction games

Students do not bond over useless facts during introduction games.

Introduction games are annoying and useless, and they usually never achieve the purpose they’re meant for.

Introduction games are utterly useless.

Every teacher seems to have the irresistible urge for icebreaker activities on the first day of school: whether that be sharing a “fun fact,” or even worse, having students play a game like two truths and a lie.

Although well intentioned, the soul-crushing dullness of these games serves only to highlight how they’re only a huge waste of time (and a platform for silent judgment).

Furthermore, for the vast majority of students who know most of their class, introduction games make literally no difference in how “comfortable” we are around our peers.

Having a student lie about how they broke their pinky toe 5 years ago (that nobody cares about) while the rest of the class is barely awake isn’t going to make any of us closer.