There isn't a teacher that I know that doesn't spend the summer bettering him or herself in some way. One has been working on recertification. Another her master's degree. Another friend is developing a new course he will teach in the fall. The list goes on and on. And while all of us are working on making ourselves better this fall, one of the things that we are fortunate enough to be able to do during the summer is recharge. When I first started teaching, a dear friend of mine told me this: "We completely understand. We have other friends who are teachers, and we normally see them during the summer instead of the school year." For many of us, our personal lives are set on the back burner during the school year. Our students' lives become like our own children's lives. We attend basketball games for our family and our students. We go to choir concerts, band concerts, and we find extra ways to show our "kids" that we care. And someti
Lessons from a novice teaching life