As June comes to a close, teachers around the nation take time to reflect on the successes and failures of the school year. June is the time we think back to patterns now recognizable in the instructional delivery, teacher-student connections, and conversations with parents. We think of resources we need to purchase to make a certain unit more understandable to students, organizations we should contact for guest speakers, funding we need to acquire to finesse a certain concept we need to deliver.
We look back to the growth our students have made during the school year, both academic and social, because we are not trying to create an army of crack test-takers; we are trying to encourage, enable, and inspire a new generation of students to hold up America’s ideals of hard-work, creativity, and fair-play. At this point of the year, we wonder if students are mentally prepared for the rigors and expectations of the next grade; will next year’s teachers judge us too harshly if the students do not enter their class with the knowledge required of them?
For public school teachers, many time our self-reflection takes into account the difficulties our students face in their day-to-day lives. One of my students has been absent over 60% of the year due to family issues. When he returned to class this week, half of his face was frozen. “What happened?” I asked. “The doctor says my
