Teachers Love Summer, Too!

The next week will see schools  all over the country with lowered  blinds in empty classrooms; indeed,many have already closed for the summer.  A few weeks ago, a student blogged in this space:  "Today's the last day of school.  I'm so excited!"  One wonders if he considered that the men and women on the other side of the desk were  equally pleased.
Quality teaching is time- and energy-intensive.  Good teachers  lug piles of papers home every night, on weekends,  and over holiday recesses.  There are parents to contact,  student emails to answer, meetings to attend.  Lesson plans must be prepared.  Administrators  must be made happy. The world must be  changed, one child at a time.

Teachers look forward to summer vacation with a plethora of emotions.  Certainly, relief is near the top of the list.  Teachers anticipate the  freedom from  alarm  clocks, traffic, pointless rules about chewing gum and uniforms, and the  myriad picayune tasks that steal time from the reason they are in the  classroom in the first place: to teach. 
Decompression and mindless moments generally fill the  first weeks of a teacher's summer vacation. There are lazy afternoons to spend on a porch with  the pile of books she never got to, fresh air to clear the lingering smell of chalk and floor wax from her  nostrils, and plans  for quality time with the family that often  had to settle for what she  had  left over at the end of the school day.
  There is that  moment of panic when the elementary teacher is blind sided with the thought: "They're gone.  What do I do now?" There are the poignant goodbyes from high school seniors who worked their way into their English teacher's heart and will lead her to keep essays for years  and count her former students as friends down  through the years.
The college instructor thinks sadly of the students who didn't care to "get it"  and  wasted time  and money in the process, even as she smiles at the others who came to her  seeking internships, a better job,  or simply a cup of  coffee and a chat and looks forward to emails  trumpeting triumphs and  lamenting disappointments.

The middle school teacher spends the last day of school organizing materials, discarding those that didn't work even as she mentally drafts new ones.  She reflects that the last  day of school is very much like the last day of the year: pregnant  with promises and the hope that next year will be even  more phenomenal.

For the teacher who is retiring, the thought that this summer  vacation will last for the rest of his life is both sobering and exhilarating.  Travel,  perhaps a new  career, all await,  along with the first delicious day of the new school year which mingles healthy portions of  sadness and glee,  as he realizes he doesn't  have to do that  any more.











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