One of the best things about being a teacher is that you get to do it all over again each year.

As my colleagues and I have been reconnecting (between meetings, etc.) this week, there are of course the personal reconnections about what we did or didn’t do over the summer, but talk soon turns to the work we are all excited to do.

Good teachers are always thinking about what they do and constantly adjusting their practice in action during the school year. The start of the new year, though, is a time to start with all of those best ideas in place rather than in progress.

All over this country, late August means that teachers are staying up until the wee hours of the night to get their classroom “just right” for the kids or to put the finer polishes on that first week’s lessons, since we all know that how we begin sets the tone for the entire year. Lessons learned last year shape this year’s expertise; we know what worked, what didn’t, what we liked, and what worked for the students. Teaching is a constant process of culling and keeping, editing and revision. The story of last year is marked up with red ink, and when the buses arrive in these late days of August, we’re ready with our next clean draft of who we are as professionals, that carefully-selected special grading pen at the ready to begin revising ourselves all over again.

Enjoy starting over, fellow teachers, it is one of the best things about the job!