Teacher summers

One thing about most teachers: summers do not mean sitting on the napping and reading all day long. Many people still have the image of teachers working September through June and having weekend, night-times and "all summer" off. But the truth is far different. Ask any teacher of their family members.

Summer for me has meant taking more courses, finishing a degree, studying new fields, updating skilsl, teaching summer classes,  and, really - don't laugh - straightening out the mounds of paper from the year just finished (or just as often now - cleaning up computer files!). It has also meant scrambling to find a job that you have to leave on Labor Day - and those jobs are hard to find unless you are in a tourist destination.

Summer does bring a different pace, that's for sure. And there is some time to refresh. But there is also a lot of time spent on school work.

So this summer one project is beginning a new blog and figuring out how to best use it. Shall I make it my own and share with colleagues?

Or open this to my classes and invite their contributions.

Right now I am leaning towards keeping this for my own reflections and starting a new blog for each class. We'll use it for some class assignments, and there will be some required work. But after I am confident the students respect the blog format, I will open it for their original contributions: not just responding to my posts, but creating an original post and open to the comments of their classmates.

I did it for freshman theology classes and it worked out all right, although I always wanted to improve.  Next fall I should be teaching English again and I think blogging will easily lend itself to sharing ideas about what we are discussing, reading, working on in class. I also want to be brave enough to ask the students to evaluate our work when we reach the conclusion of a unit.

I know there are terrific possibilities. If anyone has any good ideas, please let me know.

BTW, if you have ever seen the poster that says "The three best reasons to teach - June, July, August!" remember that it's a joke, not a truth.

And thanks!