As Alice Cooper famously crooned, “School’s
out for summer!” But that song ain’t
just for children. You’ll hear plenty of
teachers singing along this week.
If you are one of those who is
muttering, “Those spoiled teachers get the whole summer off,” then I have a
scenario for you. I would love to lock
you into a room with 30 children for a school day.
Not only do you get to juggle all
thirty personalities with and against each other, but you have to coax them to
behave rationally and in a kind manner for 7 hours straight. You will referee spats regarding
name-calling, “accidental” tripping and pencil stealing. And, “Joey just wrote
on my paper!” You get to put band-aids
on their boo-boos, check foreheads for fevers and make sure nobody wets their
pants or barfs on your shoes.
Sure there are a couple of breaks for
you to relieve yourself and grab a snack.
But before you can do that you must convince all of the short people in
the room to line up, close their mouths and not touch each other while they
walk down the hall like good little humans to their destination.
And then you get to field the notes,
phone calls and e-mails from all of the parents of these children who want to
know what time they can bring in birthday treats, when is the field trip, could
you please not sit Sally next to Joey because he says mean things and oh yeah,
Betty had a rough night and may have tantrums today so please be extra nice.
There is the second layer of parent
contacts that inquire about why Ashley didn’t get the lead role in the first
grade musical and how come Owen didn’t get 5 stars on his math test? And of course, there are the 4 different
individualized behavior plans to implement daily.
Hungry? You have exactly 45 seconds left to eat a
banana before the recess bell rings and the children return for a messy art
lesson. But before art you must field
all complaints of bad sportsmanship from the playground. If Timmy isn’t satisfied that Paul was
corrected for stealing the rubber ball, you’re likely to get a phone call after
school from Timmy’s mom, ya know. Better
to deal with it now.
Now imagine 180 days with Timmy,
Paul, Ashley and all of the others, good and naughty.
Exhausted yet? Now you get to plan, teach and grade papers
from lessons on all topics ranging from pre-algebra to metamorphosis. These engaging lessons must be multi-media and have
adaptations for English language learners as well as gifted students. And you'd better teach them well because at the
end of the year you will be judged by how well these children performed on
hours-long standardized tests. But you
will GET TO use your weekends and evenings for the planning and grading because
all of your paid days are filled with human interaction and meetings.
And if YOU get sick? Wake up with the stomach bug or a fever? After you call in sick, you still get to go
to work and set up the classroom, type up plans and have the day organized for
a substitute teacher to take your place.
Then you can go back to bed to feel miserable.
I’m fairly certain that without a
break for summer, you wouldn’t have teachers.
Any sane ones, anyway. Summer is
a time to breathe, rejuvenate, plan, go to teacher conferences, read, and
remember why we work with kids. I love
children; they are hilarious, curious, amazing and kind. And by August I will be looking forward to
seeing their chubby little faces again.
For now I’m going to rock out with
Alice Cooper for a few hours. Care to
join me?
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