Even though May is only getting started, the teacher part of me can almost taste summer in the early morning springtime breeze. The snow has finally melted (I live in Minnesota, so I feel I need to condition that so I don’t jinx anything), the sunrise is getting earlier, the days are warmer, the number of school days remaining are down to a reasonable number for beginning a countdown, which is either 23 or 24 for us, depending on whether or not you count the day after the students leave; I don’t. We are definitely in the homestretch of the school year.
This is the time I start thinking about what needs to be done before I can close off the year good. I know what grade I’ll be teaching next year so that helps me out with deciding what materials I need and what I should pack up to either pass on to another teacher or have shipped off to another school. All of the state testing is completed, so I’m able to at least start thinking about what grading I already have completed and maybe getting a head start on completing parts of my progress reports. It’s a great feeling to be able to walk away from school on the last day and know there aren’t any loose ends.
What happens after that, though? There is a small percentage of the working population that ever experiences having approximately eighty days off each year (and I’ll remind anyone who wants to moan about teachers enjoying their time off: Our summer break isn’t paid so we’re essentially laid off for those months, and we easily have to cram thirteen months of work into the nine and a half months we spend at school each year, so we tend to feel it’s been well-earned). From my experience, most teachers spend their summers in one of two categories: Enjoying the time off and relaxing, or taking advantage of the time off to get things done.
Last year I was a get things done guy, spending at least six hours of most days parked in front of my laptop drafting a new manuscript. I’m glad I did and I’m proud of the accomplishment, but it didn’t leave a lot of time for savoring the time off, especially with a manufactured deadline waiting in late August. However, when it was time to go back to school, I felt a little like I’d missed out on something — not any one thing in particular, but just an overall sense of lost opportunity.
I haven’t started thinking much about my summer break yet. There’s still a month of school to complete which will definitely have some adventurous moments to it, and a birthday to navigate, not to mention a few weeks of life where anything could happen. I’m close to deciding about getting a dog, and I have a few projects I really want to get done. Right now though, I’m hoping to find a reasonable balance in my summer this year. If I strive to end my school year without any loose ends, it would probably feel just as good to start the next one the same way.
And relaxed.
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