May 9

June 6 Is My September 4

It’s hard to believe that there are 14 total student days left in the school year. If you want to do advanced math and take out the “fun” days like our field trip and our carnival day plus the half day, that’s really only 11.5 days with students. Add to that an additional two days for professional development, and you have a grand total of 16 days . . . but really it’s those 11.5 days that count the most. Because in that time span, I plan on completing a major multimedia project, doing a bit of career research, writing at least one multi-paragraph response, give my kids a little reality check through a spreadsheet since I hear, “Mrs. Greenwood, I am going to make $15 an hour in the career! I’m going to be rich,” more times than I can count. Oh, and try to reinforce some apostrophe and terminal punctuation.

In 11.5 days. Why? I’m still not sure, but truly, it can be done, so why not?

But come June 6, I’m no longer a teacher in a classroom since I will fondly be in what others enjoy calling “Summer Vacation.” Me? I just like to call it “Recouped Time That Was Spent Grading Essays and Projects on Weekends,” or RTTWSGEPW for short (still working on the acronym; give me time!). Truly, I am grateful for summer vacation because without it, I would have burned out after the first three years. It’s hard being an English teacher when you are spending nearly every weekend grading some kind of writing. And if you slack off, as I am wont to do, you pay for it when you try to pick it up. “I can grade three class sets of essays today,” I’ll say, “Let me just check Instagram for a bit.” So, yes, summer vacation amounts to nothing more than a few weekend days here and there and transplanted into the months of June, July, and August.

Pens usually get me through the day . . . but sometimes, it takes more than that to get rid of the stress

Pens usually get me through the day . . . but sometimes, it takes more than that to get rid of the stress

This summer will be slightly different for me since I’m taking several graduate classes online, which is something that I have put off for too long. When I first started looking at programs, I assumed it would take two years, but when I really started crunching the numbers, I came up with the crazy notion that I could do it in one. Crazy, right? Problem is, it gets a little weirder. June 3 is technically my first day of summer vacation. The last time I was on a summer vacation this early was as a high school student in Ohio. Snow days are pretty much common place for us in Pennsylvania. Heck, one winter, I went 14 days without seeing my students due to a horrific snowstorm coupled with a technology conference. But this school year, we had one snow day total. One. Uno. Single. It’s enough to make a woman who doesn’t really believe in stress start to download meditation apps by the bucketload.

In this, I am not alone. A Washington Post article focused on the findings of a survey of over 30,000 teachers by the American Federation of Teachers, and the results were quite simply nothing new if you are a teacher. At least 70% said that they “felt their work was stressful,” and nearly 80% felt either “physically or mentally exhausted” at the end of a workday. Honestly, I’d like to meet the 30% who said they weren’t stressed. Perhaps they hold the answers to a lot of our questions!

So this summer, in and amongst the five grad classes I’m taking, I’ll be giving my house a great big old purge (think Jack Nicholson’s Joker from Batman), watching Pushing Daisies for the sixth or seventh time (because I can), knitting my husband a sweater based on the Dude’s cowichin in The Big Lebowski (he’s stuck with me for 25+ years; I owe him that much), running in the morning (because it beats running in the afternoon), and catching up on some reading (YA, adult, nonfiction . . . bring it). Why? Because the alternative is to go completely psycho, and nobody has time for that.


Posted May 9, 2016 by mrsgreenwood in category Recharging

About the Author

The path to teaching is not always a straight one. Prior to finally admitting I wanted to be an English teacher, I worked as a technical writer, graphic designer, pharmacy technician, and instructional assistant. Being a teacher, however, is the most rewarding career yet, save for one . . . being a mother to 26-year-old twin daughters. When I'm not teaching, I'm either reading, knitting, taking photographs, running, or writing, but teaching is never far from my mind. I truly love my job and am privileged to work with many talented colleagues and students alike.

2 thoughts on “June 6 Is My September 4

  1. Cathleen Cuppett

    Hi, Jill. This is Cathleen (Cathy) from ECOMP6019. You hit the nail on the head with this blog. Summer is just making up for all the weekends and evenings spent doing school-related activities.

    I am taking 3 Lesley classes this 8 weeks, and the first two weeks happen to coincide with my college’s last week of classes and finals week and traveling to my nephew’s graduation.

    So needless to say, it is quite stressful around here (especially with all of the emails from students who want to know if there’s anything they can do to raise their grades).

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