Summer & the Educator
Somehow summer has flown by—it’s August 19, which pretty much came out of nowhere. If you're anything like me, summer started with grand plans and lofty ambitions. The pages in the calendar stretched on and on, and great adventures were planned for sometime later this summer. And, somehow… summer is coming to a screeching, halting stop.
Back to school sales aren’t ramping up, they are in full swing. Deadlines for semester-based programs aren’t off in the future, they are right here. The days are starting to get just a little shorter. That emergency just-in-case hooded sweatshirt that you stopped carrying around? Yeah, you need that in your bag again. Those hypothetical adventures of summer are just going to have to wait until next year.
If I sound wistful, it’s because I am. Summer is campfires and marshmallows. Summer is rope swings and inner tubes. Summer is catching fireflies and running through sprinklers.
But, summer is also shopping for book bags. It’s color coding your notebooks and checking your class schedules with your friends. It’s buying new posters for your dorm room. It’s the hype and the windup that comes with a new school year.
Around the JWA office education is always on our minds. We think a lot about how to perfect our curricula, about how to keep our materials up to date, and about how we can ensure that our information is accessible for all. But during the month of August, you’ll hear us sighing from time to time. Summer is ending, but we’re not headed back to school. There’s a bittersweet reality to being an adult, one where August ends not with convocation, but with another day in the office.
For the last two weeks of August we encourage you to think about Jewish educators. We’ve been featuring posts about educators on our blog, so go ahead and explore. We’ve also been running a poll about the impact that Jewish education had on the lives of our readers—think of that as your homework and go fill it out. And, let us know in the comments—what does the end of the summer mean to you?
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