I Love to Feel The Rain in the Summertime

Every year about this time, I start griping about summer. You'd think I'd love it seeing as I am a teacher and this is "my time off." Many have said that having free summers is a great reason to be a teacher.

So, it turns out that this is actually not my "time off." I'm still working, and I'm not getting paid for it. Because I teach, it is assumed that I will do extra tasks happily because it is "for the betterment of the kids, i.e. the society." Actually, I agree that it is. And honestly, I do do the extra stuff because I enjoy doing it. I just hate the assumption, one that is made worse when people throw in a platitude about how lucky teachers are that they get to have so much vacation time. For the record, I've formally taught summer school once and vowed never to do it again (not because of the kids, but because of the burn out I experienced the next year in October). I have, however, worked every summer, revamping assignments, going to trainings, reading(!), collaborating with other members of my department, etc..

Incidentally, the same folks who list "summers off" as a lucky break for teachers are the same ones who smother teachers in common cliches such as, "Teachers are so important. You definitely should get paid more," and then they vote against raising taxes. They're the same ones who say, "Geez. You're job is so difficult. It takes a really special person to do it," and then they treat the school like it's Wal-mart and the teachers like they are customer service reps. Some pretend that they get to tell us what they would like to see happen in the classroom - like ordering off of a menu- and then they file complaints to management when the product isn't what they thought they paid for. I've heard parents tell their kids, "not to listen to that stupid teacher," when their child hasn't gotten his/her way.

Honestly, it really isn't their fault. We've allowed this sort of disrespect in our society in several ways:

*by not respecting that the teacher/student relationship is not a business transaction, but part of a sacred tradition involving mutual respect and understanding^

*by allowing bad teachers to continue to teach^

*by allowing those with the loudest voices to rule the day

*by filling our classrooms with so many students that teachers don't have time to guide each one^

* by making students and teachers adhere to state guidelines/statistics that look important on paper, but that have no real value^

* by allowing money to be the means of deciding who our heroes are
and/or (even more apt) undervaluing members of society who do not have a lot of money^

*etc. and on and on

^= money at the state or local level is involved in some way

I didn't intend this to be a rant. In fact, when I sat down to write this morning, I thought I would talk about the burden of summer - the heat, the lack of structure, the monotony. I guess I should be grateful that, if I want to, I can choose to go to the mall today or to the neighborhood pool. But those things will have to wait until I'm done grading the summer assignments, until I read some new poetry (possibly to teach next year), until I find out about the required reading for the conference I'll attend in two weeks, until I consider how I want next year to be different.