We wear many faces, don many hats, and invoke many influences throughout the course of a single day. As individuals, we are like that. And as a company, The Mailbox is like that.
See, here at The Mailbox, we’re already talking about back-to-school even as we know most of you are wrapping up last school year. Furthermore, some of our editors are already talking about spring—that’s how far ahead the magazine schedule works. Some of the marketing folks are beginning to talk about our big yearly confab that’s occurring in September. For planning purposes, the editorial development folks spend part of their days talking about 2014 and beyond.
The day after the last day of school, all I wanted was to be on vacation with my family. At the same time, with the taste of a well-chewed school year still fresh in my mouth, I wanted to sit down with a new lesson plan book and get August and September organized, October outlined, and the busy months of November and December cooking on the back burner. So congratulations on finishing the 2010-11 school year. Have you seen our back-to-school books yet?
Tell us your number one tip for decompressing after a long school year. Explain your best suggestion for convincing yourself to start planning for a new school year when it’s the middle of summer.
My best ways to decompress are to read historical fiction for my own personal ‘relaxment’ and to spend time with my immediate family. The family time just has a way of speaking to my soul.
I learned very early on after 1 or 2 summers that if I spent time little by little throughout the summer then I wouldn’t have to feel rushed and panicked during the 7-10 days before the school start date. Teacher meetings/orientation days usually take up so much time, you can’t use those for classroom preparation. You have to have day(s) in advance of those meetings. So for those newbies: try to get classroom access as quickly as you can. Realize that during meeting days you may only get a few minutes in your room during breaks and that’s not long enough to do more than a little sorting or maybe time to get the background paper up for one bulletin board.
Here in NY we end our school year the last week of June so by that time I am eager for some time off, but I learned early in my career that 10 weeks is simply too much time away for me. So I find any professional development or curriculum work I can get my hands on. This allows me to reflect on my practice (which is something I strongly believe in doing) and remind myself of the focus for instruction for the new school year. I love having this time to share ideas with my peers plus I still get that rest time that I needed.