Common Myth

There is a myth that teachers get a summer off every year. This myth is very untrue. During the summer months, teachers take care of everything they neglected to do during the school year. Teachers very rarely spend time working on school related things only during contractual hours. There are those who come in early every day, stay late, or both. These neglected life items may involve:
1. Seeing a doctor- When you are a teacher, you have sick days except, you never want to use them, it is more trouble to call in, write adequate sub plans, see a doctor, and deal with the whole mess when you get back than to just come in sick. So, almost all doctor appointments are taken care of during the summer months.
2. Graduate school- Ever try to take a night class? Yeah, it usually sucks. Try to take a night class when you have grades due next week and a mountain of papers to take care of, all the while trying to feed your self/family and there is an open house this week?  Impossible. So, many of us educators take summer classes to get our continuing education accomplished. Remember, if you don't keep up with that, you can't re-new your certificate or advance to a different level of certificate. Also, I as a music teacher am only legally allowed to teach music. By getting another endorsement on my teaching certificate I will be allowed to teach other subject areas if my program was to be cut or if I wanted to change subject areas.
3. Vacation- Yes, this is summer vacation but, it is the only time we can take one. Because we have no school during the summer, we don't get vacation days during the school year. This may be part of why we get so ticked  off when parents take their kids out of school during the year for a vacation to a far off place. We can't make it up later.
4. Summer School- A glutton for punishment I guess. Many educators choose, and sometimes are required to teach summer school and those populations that would not thrive if they were to have several months of not being in school. If you know a special education teacher, please ask of you can make them dinner, clean their house, babysit their kids, anything to help out. These people are beyond exhausted.
5. Moving, family obligations, etc.- Remember that no vacation days thing? Yeah, all the tasks that people use those days for besides vacation must be accomplished in the summer.


So, next time you are about to tell a teacher that it must be great to have the summer off, stop talking and remember that they are just trying to catch up with the rest of their life. We have missed a lot during the school year.