Learning During Summer Vacation

     In addition to relaxing and enjoying time with family, summertime is a time for teachers to take courses to persue masters degrees, to take part in curriculum development, to read books about teaching and learning, and to prepare for the next school year.

     As a math supervisor, summertime is always a busy time for me as I prepare to roll-out updated curricula and new resources in addition to planning leadership development and professional development for all of our secondary mathematics teachers.  My school district is also on the ground floor of developing a 1-to-1 learning environment and I want to help my teachers and leaders to successfully progress to this new teaching and learning model.

   Additionally this summer, my wife's bookclub is reading The One World School House written by an ex-hedgefund manager turned educator by the name of Salman Khan.  The bookclub invited me to read the book and to join in on the monthly meeting where they will discuss the book.  Considering that education is one of the extremely few subjects that I am comfortable talking about with other people...How could I say no?

     Furthermore, our superintendent is also leading a book study on the book Outliers by Malcome Gladwell.  This book is about successful people who might not have seemed to have success in their future when they were young.  Gladwell suggests that family various situations as we grow can help to shape the future of any child.  Our futures are not predetermined.

     And so, I look forward to entering the new school year with new knowledge about students and learning.  Pretty good for a guy in his fifties!