Summer Slide

The story goes that, in the summer, students lose a big part of what they've learned over the course of the school year. Without frequent practicing of skills and standards, their performance "slides.

As a parent, I have thoughts around the other skills students develop when not in school seven hours a day, but I digress.

As an educator, my own skills "slide" a bit in summer without constant practice. While I don't "work" in the traditional sense over summer - I try not to plan or engage in classroom specific content - I do engage in other professional growth.  

This summer, my top three professional activities have been:

1) Reading and Reviewing Young Adult Fiction

A local bookseller contacted me about donating ARCs (Advanced Readers Copies) of YA Fiction to my classroom.  As a middle school educator, I try to read what lands on my shelves before my students do.  This summer, I've read nine works of YA fiction and added seven of them to my classroom - one was the second in a series, and I don't have the first, and the ninth felt more high school appropriate.  I post my reviews on Instagram (currently a private account, but that may change)

2) Engaging in Professional Learning

After several months completing Action Research around Grading for Equity, I took a deep dive into additional resources and engaged with educators from across the country as we unpacked the content.  Equitable Grading Practices are a passion (as signaled by the title of this entire site), and I commit to these practices in my classroom and to learning more about them so that I may share them with my peers.

3) Building My Portfolio

I would like to engage more in professional writing, and in order to further that goal, I organize my education writing into a single portfolio. Since I had slacked in this department, that goal meant tracking down all of my articles from throughout the year, clearing out the expired links, and curating for relevant content.

I did not set my career aside over summer. Instead, I set aside one piece of it - my specific classroom practices - and focused on the other elements that bring additional sparkle to the teaching profession.  I adore teaching. I love my students. Creating content brings me joy.  But. I am more than my time in the classroom, and the "free" weeks of summer allow me an opportunity explore the outer edges of the teaching profession.