All over the nation students and educators are returning to school. In fact in Arizona where I taught for many years, the school bell rang last week on August 1st! Whenever your school year begins, I hope you will enter your classroom or library with a renewed commitment to make time to develop the interpersonal relationships that form a foundation for collaborative teaching.

When I taught fifth grade XX years ago, I made building a caring and collaborative culture in the classroom my top priority. As a new teacher at Harmony School, I did not understand the impact the entire school culture would make on the learning environment in Room #10. By the end of that first year, I surely did…

Since that time, I have spent the majority of my preK-12 teaching career in school libraries. From my very first library position at Elvira Elementary, I realized how the attitudes, values, and priorities of our principal, teaching colleagues, and staff affected teaching and learning in our school. And the parents who walked their children to school and hugged them so long at the gate and the bus drivers who gave bus riders their first school smiles of the day, all had a role in making our school a nurturing environment in which to learn and teach.

Here’s to an astounding year of discovery and in case you missed in last month, a little video to celebrate the caring community of school that is ready and waiting to welcome every learner: http://tinyurl.com/btrandw4u

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