I earned this vacation

Yes, we have earned our winter vacation. I am sure all you business folks out there think that teachers have it easy. We have summers off and holidays… well there is a reason for that, we NEED them. With pleasure and the feeling of rightness I am still in my PJ’s at a late 7:08 am. It is true we might be off, but our internal clocks still wake us at the crack of dawn – oh vacation. We need the time to get ready for the next group of months, problems and issues that find their way into our classroom. We need the time to dye the gray that now plagues our hair from daily stress of trying to reach a kid that isn’t “getting it”, and put on a mud mask to relax the wrinkles that are forming from the endless demands from our schools to raise test scores, reading scores, behavior… We need this time.
But do not kid yourself we are teachers. And if you are like me (an inner city teacher) there are no funds to go away. We are not like the people of the business world that after all their hard work have the funds to hop a flight to some warm wonderful place to sit by a pool and sip fancy drinks with umbrellas in them. No, we get paid teacher salaries so we find joy in sitting on our couch reading a book of choice – oh yes the joy of not having just to read what is needed for your classroom. We think vacation is actually spending the $5 and getting a special coffee at Starbucks. In truth if we had the funds to go to some exotic far off place - I for one would most likely be spending that on the kid in school who I know is homeless and should get gifts on the holidays. Or on buying something nice to the mom of a student who works two jobs and still can’t make ends meet. Maybe I would spend it on sending over a Christmas dinner to the grandma who has taken in not one or two but a handful of kids who had no one else to care for them.


So you see we are a rare breed. We are under paid, under appreciated, but yes we get vacation. And if you ask any teacher most likely you will find them during some point in the upcoming days: lesson planning, making projects for their students, studying new curriculum, doing research. This is what vacation is to us, this is what we have earned!
Have a great holiday my fellow teachers out there. And keep on keeping on in 2010. This is the year you change the world.

Around the world and back again,


The Teacher in Purple