The weather is getting warmer and the days and the days are getting longer and this can only mean one thing….summer is on its way! Weekends are being spent around the BBQ and fire pit with friends and family, vacation plans are being made and there is a lot to look forward to.

I have been thinking a lot about summer (who isn’t after the winter we just had?). Like everyone, I look forward to going “home”,  spending an extended amount of time with Lee and friends, boating on Lake Huron and working on the never ending house project; “Casa Money pit”. I have also been thinking a lot about having the time to practice all the amazing new online tools and #GAFE possibilities that I have come across this year, but not been able to learn more about.  So….even though I am looking forward to summer vacation as much as anyone, I am also looking forward to the opportunity to practice all that I have learned this year and to continuing learning from my PLN.

I have seen and overheard a lot of countdowns in the past month. There are countdown calendars in classrooms and students excitedly get to remove a number from the calendar as the end of the day occurs. I used to excitedly hand out the last calendar of the school year with the last day highlighted and circled as if we had made to the end. But what did we make it to the end of?

I wonder what message these calendars send to our students? Learning is something that shouldn’t occur solely between the months of September and June.  As professionals, we should be modeling our excitement of learning, our excitement of getting to learn with our students; not modeling learning between the months of September and June. Our learning, and our connections to the real-life experiences that we teach, need to continue well past the end of an issued report card. Truly authentic  learning experiences need to make connections to the lives of our students, the world outside of our classrooms and also in the months of July and August.

Learning is exciting. Being part of the learning process with our students is thrilling. Do the count down calendars reflect this?

If we re-phrase how we view and model our learning, we can reflect to our school communities  how we view our time in our schools.

I am curious to see what would happen if instead of counting down the days until school ends, that we counted down the days until we could all meet again and continue with our learning partnerships and learning journeys? I wonder what the shift would be if instead of counting down the days until we have to be together again,  we counted down the days until we get to be together again?

So….92 days until we get to learn together again!