A lot of teachers take time during the summer to do nothing school related or to go travel and take vacations to places that it would not be possible to do during the school year. Last summer was different because of COVID lockdowns and quarantines. I know that for me the second semester was exhausting and I was left with the feeling of whether I really taught everything that I needed to teach to everyone. Every teachers will feel differently about this. Last summer since there was nothing else to do, I think most teachers just took the summer off since there was no where to go.
This summer is a little different. More states are open and more things are available to do. Thus I know many teachers who took some vacations abroad which is good. I do not know of any in person personal development for us Latin teachers, at least not the large ones like latin.org or the ACL’s Summer Institute. There are minor meet ups on the east coast but all this is to say that I am using this summer to really just recover. This will be the summer of starting over.
In the book The Art of Teaching by Gilbert Highet, the author mentions a story of a teacher who would throw away all his lesson plans at the end of the school year and start over in the fall. This is the origin of the post title. I sort of do this at the beginning of each fall. I do not throw away my lesson plans since they are all online, but I do look forward by taking into account how each class is different and also the different circumstances of the school. I read another book this summer about how teaching history has changed and not changed over the decades. The author introduced the concept of the “grammar of school” all the unsaid, explicitly visible but implicitly stated circumstances, situations, rules, regulations, procedures, and habits that make up the culture of a school. Each year can be a little different as it was for most of us last year where we were all driven to the online realm in order to deliver lessons and content. This of course changed how I structured my lessons and I did learn some positive methods and strategies that I will use next year.