Three Cheers for September

It’s been 22 years since I retired from teaching classrooms full of linguistics students. I was pretty sure that I’d miss them, as well as my colleagues, but the thing I expected to miss most is that September burst of energy, the sense of renewal, the feeling of starting fresh. I loved that feeling as it washed over me — and, I hoped, over my students as well. For most people who aren’t teachers, January 1 is that time. But from the day I leapt into the alternative universe of teaching,...