What Summer Vacation?

“What are you doing on your summer vacation Dawn?” is a question I get asked by many people every summer. Many ask in a wondering way, but others ask in a sort of “Oh you teachers lounge around all summer while the rest of us work our butts off” kind of way.  I always have to bite my tongue in those circumstances because although it may seem like teaching is a cushy job, by the time summer rolls around I truly am in need of a long vacation, but that’s what it rarely turns out to be. If you want to get technical, it’s really a mandatory unpaid work stoppage and no, teachers don’t get paid “for the summer.” Last summer The Mackinaw Center for Public Policy spent a large amount of money sending out double-sided, full-color glossy postcards to teachers so that they could help us quit the union if we wanted. The postcard invited us to picnics where they would give us food and provide computers for revoking our memberships. On the backside of the postcard I noticed that it had a checklist that said,

Go to the Ballpark ‘check’

Drive to the Lake ‘check’

Really? Frankly, most of the teachers I know have separate summer jobs. The ones who don’t are the parents of young kids who spend their time away from the classroom being the stay-at-home parents they don’t get to be during the school year. If you are a full time stay-at-home parent, you know that it’s far from a “vacation.” When my boys were young I always felt fortunate that I could spend my summer months focusing on them. Few careers allow a mom (or dad) the same breaks as their children so that real vacations (a.k.a. trips) can be planned with less hassle. Many teachers take graduate classes during the summer to keep their certifications current. I spent more than a few summers doing nothing but Master’s coursework. In case you’re wondering, currently, my summer break was spent first,  teaching teachers at a reading and writing workshop during the last part of June, which gave me about a week off to regroup and get ready for that. After that I spent the month of July with about ½ of my co-workers teaching summer school. When August rolls around I usually give myself 2 weeks of true R&R before I head back in and start getting my classroom, curriculum, and materials ready for fall. The week before school starts has meetings and professional development days scheduled in. So really, summer vacation isn’t as duty-free as you might have thought and I’m pretty sure I can speak for my fellow colleagues. I guess the point of all of this is that if you’re ever tempted to ask a teacher what he or she is doing for summer vacation, you probably aren’t going to hear an enthusiastic “I’ll be at the lake!”