By Kelli Quan-Martin, CSTA Region 1 Director

Stay tuned for virtual summer institutes and workshops coming soon…

Summer Professional Personal Development

With schools ending their year with distance learning, life is not the same as what we might be used to. If you are like me, I am usually so excited for the last day of school and even the days leading up to it. I relished in celebrating the achievements of my students and colleagues, felt a sense of accomplishment as another gradebook was finalized and stored away, and even shed a few tears as my students left the school on promotion day. That was not the case in 2020, and not just because I am not a classroom teacher anymore.

This also means that summer vacation will probably look a lot different too. I always made the claim that I would do NO WORK during the summer, but that tended to last a few short days, a week tops.  Before I knew it, I would be signing up for summer institutes and finding myself back in my classroom trying to get ready to implement all of the new learning that I gained.

As I sit here typing this update, I find that this year’s summer professional learning opportunities are limited. While this is underwhelming, I also find it to be a blessing in disguise. Sheltering-in-place has created new meanings for work and education, but it has also unearthed many of the things that we often overlook or are under prioritized.

So, during this summer, I challenge you to do some personal development and some self-care. If you have not already been doing so, try learning something new, and I don’t mean learn about NGSS or a new instructional practice. Plant a garden. Learn to knit or sew. Start a blog. Jump on the sourdough baking bandwagon or maybe a different form of fermentation. Expand your dancing repertoire with some new TikTok routines.

And as an added challenge… do something new that you can do for yourself AND do something new with those that you are sheltering with. For me, that is lots of DIY home improvement projects and lots of baking with my kids.

Until we can see each other in person, please take care of you and your loved ones.

Kelli Quan-Martin serves as the 2019-2021 Region 1 Director and is the K-12 Science Program Specialist in the Elk Grove Unified School District. Contact Kelli at kquan@egusd.net. 

All photos sourced from Pixabay.com
Vegetables
Sourdough
TikTok
 

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