Summer Vacation or Summer Detoxification

The next time I run across someone with a stupid grin on their stupid face who says to me, "Well...you'll never be rich teaching, but how about the perks of having your afternoons free, weekends off, and 2 months of vacation every summer?", I will likely beat them across the head and neck with the nearest, heaviest object around me. As for having afternoons free...I have yet to encounter a teacher worth their salt that is able to leave early everyday. There are always meetings to attend, plans to make, students to tutor, parents to talk some sense into, and the list goes on. In regards to those weekends off, a smart teacher will try their best to get all their planning and grading done while at school,which occurs mostly after school, because our 'planning' periods (hahahahaha!) are almost never used for actual planning because we always have Mt. Everest size stacks of menial, and largely, useless paperwork to complete, or we have to attend often pointless meetings. Therefore, our 'weekends off' are frequently spent trying to catch up on grading and planning that non teachers believe we have so much time to do.

It seems that people that do not teach think it must be wonderful to have 2 months off every year during the summer, and to be honest it's awesome! Why may you ask is it so awesome?

Non-teachers will say things like...I can't imagine being able to sit home and relax all summer, travel, spend time at the beach, not having any deadlines to worry about,...etc. To these blissfully ignorant souls not in the teaching profession I would like to say two things. 1) Remind me that if we ever meet I owe you 4 slaps across your face, and perhaps a throat punch for good measure and 2) What you refer to as summer vacation, teachers refer to as our summer detoxification. Summer break is a time for us to decompress and let go of all our built up stress acculumated in the process of dealing with unruly students, non-sympathethic parents, low pay, long hours, and a state government that appears to be working against us rather than for us. It is also a time for us to heal physically and mentally from the variety of sicknesses collected throughout the school year ranging from the common cold we caught from little Johnny to the mental instability so many of our students left us with, because they seem to don't understand the English language as we had to drive ourselves to the brink of insanity repeating the same things over and over, repeating the same things over and over, repeating the same things over and over, repeating the same things over and over....whoa! Sorry about that. I just got caught up in a horrific flashback.

With all that said non-teachers, the next time you talk to a teacher instead of being condescending about us having our summer off how about thank us for a job well done and for letting you live to see another day!!