Back to Reality

After quite a long journey from Bask country I am back in Quito for a new school year. On the way home, as the taxi was literally zooming through town, it was soothing to look at the colours in the sky and the mountains. There are lots of emotions when you leave your friends and family but the natural beauty of Quito simply hit me and made me think: how lucky I am to be back here!

As many of us, my brain slowly switched back to work mode some days ago. First I received a nice note from a teacher who moved on to another school wishing me a good start. And then many things popped to my mind: meeting new people, re-connecting with the ones we know, taking new opportunities, getting involved and leading new projects, getting up early…and so much more.

And students. While orientation weeks can be filled with a variety of bonding activities and meetings, at times our primary aim can be diluted in what we have to do. How about evaluating what we do this week by asking ourselves explicitly: how will this have an impact on student learning? How can I learn from this to improve student learning?

We, as educators, are about to start another year, but for our students there is only one grade 1 or 6 or 12. So let’s make this year exceptional!