Happy New Year! It’s September, and we're celebrating the start of a new school year — a time for reflecting, goal setting, and anticipating our new students. With the return to school, we teachers often return to the advice and wisdom passed down to us about how best to start the school year:

"Don’t smile until Christmas."

"Never let them see you sweat!"

"Fake it ‘til you make it."

Sometimes these words of advice feel mythic, especially to newer teachers. But, this so-called wisdom, for the most part, comes from a time when the culture valued a teacher-centered and dominant force in the classroom.

Today, we're talking with our team about all things back-to-school, including debunking some of these teaching myths about how teachers should begin the year now that we are in the 21st century.