48 Questions to Ask Yourself as You Prepare for the New School Year

With everything so chaotic and school districts struggling to find a balance between keeping schools open while keeping students and teachers safe, there are some questions you should be asking yourself. These are clearly personal and reflective of where you are in your individual journey back to the classroom, but use these to think about why you got into teaching and where you land on some driving questions. These are in no particular order, and some will not resonate, but review what is important to you. The answers will and should be unique to how you view education and your role in it.

1. What do you look forward to each day?
2. Why are you an educator?
3. What does your perfect day at school look like?
4. What is the best advice anyone has ever given you about teaching?
5. What is your favorite part of teaching?
6. What is the hardest part of teaching?
7. How did you come to be a teacher? What drew you to this grade, school, or discipline?
8. What is a story about teaching you love to tell non-teacher friends?
9. What is your favorite lesson to teach?
10. What is your favorite day of the school year?
11. What have you tried with students that worked well? What did not work?
12. How do you make school relevant?
13. How will you learn from your mistakes?
14. Who teaches you?
15. What reasons have you used to not make changes to your teaching or classroom?
16. What changes in your teaching are you going to make based on what you learned in the last year?
17. Have you ever taught a perfect lesson?
18. What are your personal teaching goals?
19. What are your measurable goals around equity and inclusion?
20. How are you going to continue to collaborate with your team while remaining socially distant and safe?
21. What gaps might exist in the social-emotional development of different groups of students in your classroom and what are you doing to bridge that gap?
22. How will your classroom be different this year?
23. Is there anything you know after working virtually that you are excited about bringing back to the classroom in the fall?
24. How do you keep yourself excited and engaged?
25. Does your teaching work in both the virtual and brick and mortar setting?
26. What is your method for classroom management? What does it look like in a virtual setting?
27. What does your classroom look like with safety protocols in place?
28. How do you interact with the parents or your students? How will you?
29. Where do you find details of your district’s ongoing opening plans?
30. What has changed in your process for student agency?
31. How does technology fit into school agency and/or choice?
32. How do you give your students a voice?
33. What protocols are you going to put in place to keep your family safe?
34. How do you take care of yourself?
35. How will you take breaks when you feel like you need one?
36. How do you know when you are experiencing negative stress or anxiety?
37. How do you cope with negative stress or anxiety in a healthy way?
38. What are some strategies you can turn to in order to avoid or mitigate stress and anxiety?
39. How do you know when your students are experiencing negative stress or anxiety?
40. How do you help them?
41. How do you support your students social-emotional learning?
42. How do you build relationships with students?
43. How do you build relationships with coworkers?
44. How do you build relationships with parents and students’ families?
45. How do you do all of that online?
46. How ready and equipped do you feel to address issues of diversity?
47. How do you talk to your students about social issues?
48. How do you show empathy to your students?

There are so many things to think about, and talk about and review. So many people with opinions, but what are you thinking? What makes sense to you and your family? Check out Jen Perry’s blog on building your emotional vocabulary to impact learning during the school year.