Summer Vacation

Oh, the joys of summer vacation for all of us teachers! In what other profession can you enjoy two months off (mostly, except for curriculum work or recertification work or summer jobs because you can't make a living as a teacher). Summer is a much needed time to rejuvenate those batteries. And boy, do the batteries need to rejuvenate!

Not that those little darlings that we teach are the cause of low batteries. Well, okay, maybe they are the cause. Or at least one cause. Along with long staff meetings, curriculum meetings, committee work, workshops, PETs, standards, homework correcting, grade calculating, assessments, inventories, budgets, parent-teacher conferences, negotiations, book reports, evaluations, administrators, parent phone calls, technology, snow days, sick days, personal days, sporting events, concerts, plays, room unpacking, room packing up, grant writing, newsletters, plan books, grade books, fingerprints (here in Maine), open houses, parent nights, Maine Learning Results, MEA Tests, No Child Left Behind, priority lists, budget cuts, staff reductions, OSHA, DHS, staff training, DRA tests, SATs, step up day, assemblies, detention duty, recess duty, lunch duty, bus duty, field trips, school boards, professional reading, 504 meetings, gifted and talented, differentiated instruction, modifications, local assessments, not to mentions teaching.

Whew! Maybe I am ready for two months off. Do I smell something burning? Is that burnout I smell. Hopefully two months will be enough. Who says teachers are overpaid? I'm not sure there is enough money in the world to pay for all that we do. So why do we do it? Is it the two months off in the summer? Nope, certainly not. Two months isn't long enough, really. So why do we do all that we do for the pay that we get?

Because being a teacher, despite all the headaches listed above, can be very rewarding. Have you ever watched that light bulb go on inside a kids head after you have sat with him or her for five minutes trying to explain a difficult topic, that light bulb that starts in the eyes and quickly spreads to the mouth and then to the whole body, that light bulb that says, "I get it now!"? Have you ever seen that? That is called learning and THAT is why we teach.