Summer is a crucial time for teachers to focus on self-improvement
Summer vacation is a term that only school children and teachers get excited to hear (for others it just brings nostalgia and maybe some dread for parents). While six to eight weeks of uninterrupted vacation is a wonderful thing, it also shouldn’t be looked at as six to eight weeks of uninterrupted vacation. It is a break that has a definitive purpose, relaxation and improvement.
Teachers earn a break. Before I shifted into teaching I can be counted amongst those that derided teachers for having a break that long, and after my first year in the classroom, I understood why a break was needed. It took a few more years in the classroom for me to truly understand what I should be doing with the break. I always viewed summer break as a time to detox, to shake off the stress of the year and begin planning for the next. I would take a few weeks and then casually begin working on curriculum, units, lessons, assessments, it was a nice summer. It took time to realize I was missing out on an opportunity that would be cost me year after year.
When you finish the school year, do you look back and reflect on your successes and failures, your grows and glows? If you do, great, if you don’t well you should. Either way, if you complete your reflection and then go into detox and occasional planning mode then you are making a crucial error. When you looked at what you could do better, what did you do with that information? Did you act on it and make a corrective action plan, or did you file it away to be addressed later? I’d wager that most teachers file it away hoping that their deficiencies will improve with experience. That is a passive approach to improvement and is not likely to be successful.
Pick three things. Teachers are very reflective and can identify dozens of things that they can improve, but pick three that you feel are the highest leverage, the ones that are most likely to have an impact. If you try to address everything you are spreading yourself too thin and will likely burn yourself out, start small. Then begin researching. Use the internet, read some books, watch some videos. This is not your thesis, but an improvement project. Read a book at the beach, watch a video in your yard. Be active in your pursuit of improvement, just dial down the intensity.
This practice can and will pay off. I had a colleague who tended to have negative interactions with parents even though he was correct in everything he was saying and what he did in the classroom. One summer he realized that it was his body language that was triggering parents. He would roll his eyes, slouch, cross his arms, all in response to what a parent was saying in the moment. To him, he was listening even though he didn’t agree with what the parent was saying; to the parent he was dismissing everything they were saying as they were saying it. He spent that summer reading and watching videos and making efforts to improve this aspect of his practice and he did. It can be that simple.
Teachers earn summer break, especially this summer break. While you are enjoying some well-deserved time off, don’t forget that there is a lot of time before school begins and some of that time should be devoted to improving your own professional practice. It doesn’t need to be intense, but it needs to be intentional and planned. The time you put into yourself over the next six to eight weeks, will pay off over the next ten months, and that is more than worth it.