Ever wonder what a teacher does with 2.27 months off? Here's my description of the first few weeks of summer for a teacher:
Week 1 - Recovery. Also known as the post-school hangover. You sleep twelve to fifteen hours a day, watch TV, and read for fun, reveling in a life with no bells like a dog blissfully rolls in a pile of smelly garbage, tongue lolling about and eyes half rolled back into his head in pleasure.
Weeks 2 & 3 - Catching up. There are a million things to do around the house that you've let slide for months, like laundry, dishes, vacuuming, taking the garbage out, cooking dinner, etc. You call people who almost forgot you were friends. You get out of town and sunburned. You try to forget you're a teacher and pretend you're a real person.
Week 4 - Fuzzy confusion. You begin to emerge from the haze of heat and daze of delirious relaxation when disturbing flashbacks to your former life strike like an unforeseen attacker: maybe you impulsively check your school email, sub for a summer school class, or--mind-bendingly--stop by your dark, empty classroom to pick up something you forgot. Disoriented and bewildered, you step back as if you were an amnesiatic patient flustering for an explanation.
And the outside world starts to seep in: you have to do a mundane chore like grocery shopping; friends mention they can't party all night long because they have something called "work" in the morning; an automatic bill payment goes through on your bank account without a problem--you realize you have money to pay it, because some income has been credited to your checking.
How did that get there?? you think cloudily. I haven't been going to work! But it's so warm out, and you still have all afternoon, and what was it you got online for? Ooh look, a video of a cat barking like a dog! And everything is fuzzy, hazy, dazy summer.
Week 5 - Guilt. By this time the people around you are starting to notice that you don't do anything. And they're beginning to say things. So on the outside you try to justify yourself, like "Hey, I do stuff! I'm writing a song! And my memoirs!" or "I'll have you know I've completed an entire season of two separate TV shows. So there."
But inside, the guilt is sprouting--easily, from its fertile bed of compost that you've been heaping into it for the past month--a tiny green sapling of reprobate responsibility. You knowyou have something to do. You know there is something you should be thinking about, a very important project to which you need to be getting. After all, you're still getting paid. Shouldn't you be earning it?
Staving it off with self-arguments like "It's just back pay for the hours and weeks of extra time I put in during the school year. It's completely just!" helps---for now. But the rest and rejuvenation of relaxation has done its job well, and it's just not enough anymore.
You know who you are. You are a teacher. Your work is never finished.
Week 6 - There's still time. Now that you've realized you have an urgent obligation to uphold to your students, you are pleased to realize that summer is not quite over yet. After all, it's only July! It'll get done for sure. There are plans to be made; there are lessons to prepare; there are students to help. You take a deep breathe and roll up your sleeves.
That's the plan, anyway.
Currently I'm still hovering in the black sub-space between weeks 4 and 5.
What will happen?
I'll keep you posted.
