Taking Time to Reflect...What the summer is really asking of us

The school year ends. The noise fades. And then the real work begins.

More than looking back

Reflection is not just a professional exercise. It is not a box to check on an evaluation form or a prompt to answer in a faculty meeting. True reflection goes deeper than that. It asks hard questions and sits with uncomfortable answers. It requires us to be honest about where we succeeded, where we fell short, and where we flat-out failed.

And it is some of the most important work a teacher can do all year.

Where I find myself when I reflect

When I think about the teacher I was in year one compared to year five, year ten, and now, the words that come to mind are maturation, transformation, development, and self-actualization. The growth has been real. But it has not always been comfortable, and it has not always been pretty.

There were seasons in my career when I genuinely did not believe I was a good educator. The content knowledge was never the issue. But there were other areas where I lacked, and I knew it. I had to sit with that. I had to own it. And then I had to do the work to grow through it.

That kind of reflection, the kind that goes beyond the classroom and touches the whole of who you are, is what the summer makes space for. Do not waste it.

The relationships that carry you

One of the things I reflect on with the most gratitude is the people who have poured into me as an educator. I still lean on my mentor teacher. I still reach out to colleagues I taught alongside more than fifteen years ago. Those relationships did not expire when we stopped sharing a hallway. They deepened. And the fact that I still call on them, still learn from them, still laugh with them and wrestle through hard professional conversations with them, tells me everything I need to know about what it means to build something real in this profession.

That kind of connection does not happen by accident. It is built in schools where the culture is intentional.

What school culture has to do with all of it

My first school was James Oliver Johnson High School. Every adult in that building poured into every student who crossed their path. It was not performative. There was no ego in it, no pomp and circumstance. It was simply a group of educators who were genuinely committed to student achievement AND teacher success, and leadership that created the conditions for both to thrive. The culture was organic in its feel but deeply intentional in its design. It showed in everything, from the way students walked the hallways to the way teachers talked to one another.

That experience shaped my standard for what a school can be.

When I reflect now, I think about school culture as much as I think about my own practice. Because the two are inseparable. A fragmented faculty produces a fragmented student body. When adults in a building are not unified, not on one accord, not functioning as a family, students feel it. They may not be able to name it, but they feel it; it affects everything from behavior to achievement to whether a child feels safe enough to learn.

This is worth reflecting on collectively, not just individually. What is the culture of your school? What role do you play in building it or breaking it? What would it look like if every adult in your building was genuinely committed to every child in that building?

Those are not easy questions. But they are necessary ones.

Questions worth sitting with this summer

No matter where you find yourself on the spectrum of growth, the summer break is an invitation to reflect honestly. Consider:

What went well this year and why? What needs to be tweaked before you try it again? Where did you fall short, and what will you do differently? What moments from this school year do you wish had gone differently? How can you improve not just yourself, but your classroom culture and your school culture?

You do not have to have all the answers before August. You just have to be willing to ask the questions.

Growth is not a destination

The most dangerous thing a teacher can do is stop reflecting. Not because reflection is comfortable, but because the students who walk through our doors every fall deserve a teacher who has done the internal work over the summer to show up better than the year before.

That is the standard. And most of us, if we are honest, already know where we need to grow. The summer just gives us the space to do something about it.

💜💚 Teaching: The Real — Real texts. Real topics. Real thinking.