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Relax, Renew, and READ!

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This post has been in "draft" form for almost two months.  I'm officially declaring myself the worst blogger ever.

I would use the excuse that it's summer, but that would mean I regularly update this blog during the school year.

It is summer though and I hope that everyone is finding some time to relax and renew their spirit.  If you are like most educators (at least this one), your job is your passion and it can suck every drop of life out of you.  Summer is a time to reconnect with yourself and those that you love.  Take advantage of the slower pace.

Of course, summer is no time to rest all of your laurels.  There is still A LOT of work to do in preparation for the upcoming year, the urgency level is just slightly lower than it is when teachers and students are in the building.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the additional time at home and on the farm.  I have also managed to get in some reading, although my book pile is growing at a faster rate than I can finish.

There are worse problems to have.


These four titles were the goal for Summer 2014.  I might make 50% as I have one week until teachers return.

Hey, that percentage sounds good compared to the percentage of blog posts I complete.

Digital Leadership by Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal) is a no-brainer.  It's THE book for modern educational leaders this summer.

I had the pleasure of hearing Rick Wormeli (@RickWormeli) speak at the VASCD Conference in December.  So of course I wanted to hear more and ordered The Collected Writings (so far) of Rick Wormeli.  Along a similar note, our division is changing our grading scale for the upcoming year. So my friend Amazon recommended A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades by Ken O'Conner (@kenoc7).

Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: Teaching Kids to Succeed by Debbie Silver (@DrDebbieSilver) was another recommendation by Amazon.  With all of the "grit" discussion and debate of recent years, I decided to give this one a try.

I'm almost finished with O'Conner's book and halfway through Digital Leadership.  Where are you at with your reading goals this summer?
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