by Susan Shapiro

Here on the New Hampshire coast, the first hint of autumn sometimes arrives in early August, just enough to make me reach for a sweater… then smile and say, ‘No, it’s still summer!’

But for educators, August rarely feels like “still summer.” It’s a threshold month, a time to get ready (or already be ready) for the school year ahead. Throughout my career, I’ve always kept an August To-Do List, sometimes simply renaming my “Summer To-Do List,” because time has a way of disappearing.

What does it take to be ready to teach?
Certainly, we need the logistics: what we’ll teach, where and when we’ll teach, and, perhaps most importantly, who we’ll teach. But inclusive educators know that rosters, test scores, and academic files can’t tell us the whole story. They rarely capture the richness of students’ lives, the lives of their families and/or caregivers, their histories, or their dreams. The best way to truly know students is to meet them and listen to their stories, however they choose to tell them, because there are so many ways to communicate.

While we wait, we get to work designing instruction, planning assessments, and creating learning environments. It’s good, purposeful work, the kind that fills any to-do list quickly.

How my lists have changed?
When I began teaching many years ago, my lists focused on arranging the learning environment, choosing resources, and finalizing lesson plans. Now, as a more seasoned educator, my preparation looks different: I spend as much time preparing my mindset as I do preparing instructional materials.

With so many demands on our time as teachers, it’s easy to fall into the habit of imagining a single “best” route for everyone to reach the same goals. But of course, there is no single path that works for every learner. Students vary in how they learn. And so, in addition to the more tangible preparation tasks, my list includes a set of mental reminders (i.e., a mindset about learners and learning).

Mindset tasks to add to your to-do list.
As you make your to-do list, we invite you to consider adding one or more of these reminders:

• Remember: Students vary in three big ways—how they engage with learning, how they make meaning of content, and how they navigate and communicate their understanding. Plan for this variability from the start.
  
• Remember: Variability is contextual. Students approach learning differently depending on the setting…and emotion is always part of that context (think: emotions drive cognition).
  
• Remember: Students come to learning environments with power. Our role isn’t to “empower” them, but to honor and support the learning agency they already possess. Give them opportunities to make daily learning decisions about how they’ll reach their goals.
  
• Remember: Barriers to learning live in designs, not students. A student who can’t yet decode grade-level print isn’t the barrier; the barrier is a lesson that assumes all students have the same literacy skills. Likewise, a student who is not able to show their understanding by composing an essay isn’t the barrier; the barrier is an assessment that offers only one way to show understanding.
  

If you know a little bit about Universal Design for Learning (UDL), you may recognize these teaching reminders as being part of the UDL framework. If you do not know about UDL but want to learn, we invite you to reach out and schedule a UDL workshop for your team. Pathways to Inclusive Education is invested in supporting educators to get ready for school. We’d love to hear from you. We’re cheering you on across calendars and time zones.