Last Day!!
Posted by mimi on Jun 3, 2009 in dish | 0 commentsToday is the last day of school…and am I ready!! One more exam to give, then it’s grade grade grade, then clean clean clean, then pack pack pack stuff to work on over the summer because, contrary to popular belief, teachers do not get three months off. Let me repeat that:
TEACHERS DO NOT GET THREE MONTHS OFF.
The “three months off” canard is one commonly tossed at folks like moi, who happily toil amongst other people’s children in the public schools, from people who like to snipe at the “failing” public school system. Public school teachers, apparently, are just slightly higher on the evolutionary scale from “welfare queens” and those who enrich themselves on the government’s dime without doing any work. Amazing how corporate crooks like Blackwater and Halliburton are never mentioned in these conversations, although they’ve siphoned off billions more tax dollars than my puny salary ever will, even after I’ve put in 30+ years and start collecting retirement.
Just so you know, here’s what my summer is shaping up like. The last day of post-planning is this Friday. We’re back in school for pre-planning the third week of August. That’s ten weeks, not three months. In that ten weeks, I if I am professional and want to have a great 2009-2010 school year (I am, and I do), I must complete the following:
- Four day IB training seminar in St. Pete in June, travel expenses to be borne by moi and then reimbursed at the standard rate (which means part of it’s coming out of my pocket)
- Five day AP training seminar in St. Pete in late July, all travel expenses to be borne by moi and then reimbursed at the standard rate (which means part of it’s coming out of my pocket)
- Redesigning my current AP course so it includes IB standards so my students will be prepared for both, since our school’s program isn’t large enough to support separate courses
- Re-reading all of the books I assigned for summer reading (that’s for AP, IB, and honors English, about 15 books total) so that I can discuss them intelligently and answer questions on the Google Group I set up for my students so they walk in on Day 1 ready to work
- Four or five days of curricular planning for various groups at school so the teachers walk in on Day 1 ready to do amazing things in the classroom
- Resting. I’m exhausted. Like most teachers, I “leave it all on the court” by the end of the year. Trust me, you’re getting a full year’s worth of work in the 38 weeks I’m actively at school. The stuff I do in the summer is bonus.
Of course, none of this work is compensated. It’s my time and my dime. And that’s not counting what I have to do to accommodate DH’s summer schedule for his teacher training, which doesn’t happen at any of the same times as mine. That would be, as they say at my favorite high school, “too much like right.”
Did I mention that teachers don’t get paid over the summer? Right. That’s another misconception. We’re paid when we’re in school. No kids in the seats, no money in the wallet. That’s why you see so many of us delivering pizzas and wandering the aisles of Home Depot in orange aprons all summer.
For now, though, I’ll be glad for the break. I’ve had a headache for four days now (a common exam week malady). Then I’ll be back at it, because all those kids who aren’t mine deserve the best I can give them. And frankly, the best I can give them is pretty damn awesome.
