Summer Vacation and Other Touchy-Teacher Topics

As a teacher, I get a summers off. Apparently there are quite a few misconceptions regarding what teachers do with their “down time,” and as a result, educators come out swinging in response to claims that “we don’t work” during the summers. I agree that most educators continue to develop as professionals during the summer, and even that many will work summer jobs out of necessity.

However, after perusing “Summertime–And the Teachers Have It Easy,” an article apparently dispelling the myth of teacher freedom during the summer months, I found my found some of my fellow summertimers protesting a bit much.  The second paragraph of the article begins with this conspiratorial tidbit:

“The catfish are jumping, the cotton is high, and teachers everywhere are spreading towels on the beach and by the pool, popping the seals on fresh bottles of SPF 30.

Right.

If that first paragraph sounded credible to you, you’re not a teacher, the spouse of a teacher, or a teacher’s summer employer. While it’s true that most teachers take time off in the summer, so do most Americans. 

But the misapprehension that teachers enjoy three months of leisurely bliss was likely conjured by parties eager to keep a lid on the teacher-salary schedule.”

One would expect, then, a follow-up description  of duties that teachers perform during the summertime that are directly connected to their compensated duties. After all, if the point of downplaying the work teachers do during the summer is to “keep a lid on the teacher-salary schedule,” it follows that the work done during the summer would be part of the contractual duties for which a teacher is compensated. This was not the case. 

Instead, teachers were described as performing myriad  tasks that would indeed contribute to their growth as educators. Some will visit other countries to observe educational practices. Some work summer jobs, some will “read several professional books,” some will “reflect upon lessons,” and others will work on authoring books, leading professional development, or attending various conferences. The point is that teachers are not sitting around during the summer, and as one who has worked every summer of my brief career, I will attest to the claims at hand. I’ve read many “professional books,” during the summer and throughout the year. I have participated in curriculum and assessment development during the summer, and I have attended conferences. I have also been PAID for most of this, and the stuff I have not been paid for should be considered common practice for anyone who considers themselves a professional.

Taking classes, working second jobs, and taking other measures to enhance one’s professional effectiveness is not unique to the teaching profession. What is unique is that we have PAID time off to get PAID doing other things. If we participate in profession-related activities that are UNPAID, we get PAID time off to engage in these activities. If we want to sit on a towel and do nothing, we CAN, and many teachers DO. So, to get all touchy about summertime teacher stereotypes does not do us whole lot of good when it comes to garnering respect. Other professions have to do much of the same without the paid time off, so when we parade our prodigious summer activities as evidence that we are somehow afflicted by third parties trying to hold our salaries down, we tend to look a bit ridiculous. In my opinion. 

Imagine: A working professional tells me that I am lucky to have paid time off during the summer, and I say, “Well, I spent my summer reading professional books and attending a conference and teaching summer school.” If I were the other, I’d reply with a “Wow, good for you. I read professional books, work a second job CONCURRENTLY, and work on committees in addition to all my other job requirements.” We are not eliciting sympathy when we pedestalize the work we do during the summer, while getting paid. 

In my opinion and experience, MANY teachers are attracted to the job because of the vacation time, and FEW if any would do the job and all the summer time extras if they had to work year-around. Teachers generally have a good gig. I’m sure many of us would appreciate a bit more cash, and a bit more respect, but I doubt it will come by touting the extras that many  do during paid time off.

It’s summertime, and I have TREMENDOUS freedom to develop as a professional. That is a gift, and it should not be paraded haughtily, indignantly, sarcastically, or self-righteously.

Content, get in the back seat. And learn to be content.

It’s summer school, and content matter is once again playing second fiddle to “instructional methods, cooperative learning, and interaction.” I’m not saying I’m against any of these, however it strikes me, somewhat ironically, that the kids needing support in content are the ones in summer school. And the solution is to ignore their deficiencies. I’m not exactly sure what the point of summer school is. I highly doubt summer school students are improving achievement-wise, and I would argue that we’re not necessarily even aiming for boosting academic mastery for the students in summer school. 

Every year I have this nag in the back of my head that says we’re wasting money, and every year the nag makes more sense. At any rate, with smaller classes, I think I’ll have a good shot at engaging all students, integrating small group instruction, AND inculcating young minds with necessary content. It’s definitely doable, and that is where I will focus my efforts. Doing it all. Should be a snap. 

All this, in closing, causes me to reflect on chapter 1 of E.D. Hirsch’s The School’s We Need. He cites Antonio Gramsci (a communist intellectual) who argued that children, especially those of the “oppressed class” (many of whom, it has been argued, we serve in our summer school program) must “be taught to master the tools of power and authority, the ability to read, write, and communicate.” They should ” learn the value of hard work, gain the knowledge that leads to understanding, and master the traditional culture in order to command its rhetoric” (p. 7). I fear we are throwing our “disadvantaged students” a fun-summer-school-bone, when what they need is a fat slab of focused, intense, content-oriented remediation. 

Here’s a summer school rumor:

“If you’ve taught summer school the last two years, you’ll be at the bottom of the list.”

“Why?”

“To give people who didn’t get to do it a chance.”

Yes, this is pretty much the same thing my dad told me and my brother when we got the new Sega Genesis: “It’s your brother’s turn now.” Given, teaching is supposed to be a bit more nuanced than prepubescent boys playing archaic video games. What to do. Could be just a shady rumor, but this is the word on the street.

So for the regular school year, the longer you’ve taught, the safer you are. For summer school, the opposite applies. Shorter days, different curriculum, and different standards for deciding who gets to teach. And for added comedy, last summer we had competitive interviews for summer school. Therefore, those teachers that were selected via the interview process will now be shuttled to the back of their line because “they’ve had their turn.”

Bugging Classrooms via 7/08

In a fitting end to a summer school session that began with an admnistrator telling us that “these kids have been beaten down all year long,” this group of enjoyable youngsters has proven that they are no slouches when it comes to administering a little beat-down of their own.

After returning from the restroom, one of my students informed me that there was huge, buzzing, green-backed beetle bouncing back and forth in the hall outside my door. I stepped outside to have a look, and of course it turned out to be one of those situations where I couldn’t resist taking one or two awkward swipes at the dive-bombing insect. One or two turned into 15 or 20, as my competitive side got the better of me. Next thing you know, I’m having a serious, cooperative, hands-on lesson with one of my students on how to swipe a bug out the sky. Thankfully no one came upstairs, or they would have seen me and one student twirling, ducking, leaping, and pawing at the air. Finally we chased it into another teacher’s room (it was empty, except for the teacher). Finally, my professional instincts got the better of me, and I delegated the task of bug-capture to my student, and began walking back across the hall. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a veritable colony of these beetles meandering about the outside of another classroom door.

I made the mistake of poking my head inside the classroom to check with the instructor as to the bug-status of his room. He told me that he had killed three already, and then all hell broke loose in his room. I shut the door quickly, and promised to round up the remaining critters on my own (but not before leaving him to contend with small-scale chaos. I could hear him accusing various students of releasing the horde of beetles through the door.

Finally, with the help of my student, I rounded up the beetle battalion into a Yuban can, and sent him outside to release them. I’m not sure of who brought the bugs to school, but all but one of the beetles refused to fly, so the joke sort of fell flat. It made for a nice end to one of the wackiest summer school sessions I’ve ever been a part of.

Overall, this summer was a huge improvement from last year. But I hope, in the future, we will refrain from referring to summer school kids as helpless victims of the beat down.