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What Lessons Did You Learn This Year?

Summer days are meant to be savored! If you are teaching, on vacation, or even taking summer classes for the next few weeks, June and July are good months to reflect on the past year and look ahead to plan how to be an inspiring teacher for your new students this fall.

What Lessons Did You Learn This Year?

Now that “Testing Season” is just about officially over and, along with it, another school year, many teachers have time and opportunity to finally take a breath and reflect on the events of the past few months. Even as we tidy file cabinets, tear down faded bulletin boards, and pack away pencils, many teachers will take the time to look back before we begin planning the new school year.

Most of us find it easy to focus on the mistakes we made. And we certainly made some mistakes. No teacher can go through a school year without making big and small wrong decisions. No matter how wonderful your teaching experience was, you’ll always be able to do it better next year.

So, what did you learn this year? Not all lessons have to come from direct experience or from cringe-inducing mistakes. Some of your lessons could have been ones you just needed a little nudge to recall while others may have been those wonderful, cosmic, ah-ha! epiphanies. How you came to your new understanding or knowledge is not as important as the fact that you did. You’ve been changed in a fundamental way as a result of the lessons this school year has brought.

Take a few moments to think about how this school year has changed you and your teaching practices. You’ll be a better teacher for it. Perhaps you can use the lessons in the list below to spur your thoughts as you reflect on the lessons you’ve learned this year.

Continue to the next page to read 50 Lessons You May Have Learned This Year

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