Today is the last day of the school year for me. It seems like I should be celebrating, but instead I've just finished setting up the coffee maker to auto-brew at 5:30 tomorrow morning, because even though I'm technically on summer break, I'm going in to work from 8:00am - 4:00pm. Between now and then, I'm working on some planning for next year.
I know that it seems crazy to non-teachers that I'm already thinking about next school year, but the fact of the matter is, that teachers don't actually get summers off. The students come back on Sept. 2nd, but I have to turn in curriculum maps, learning plans, assessments, rubrics, and other bits and bobs some time around Aug. 18th. Then, I'm back at work for three days of training from Aug. 20 - 22, and again from Aug. 27 - 29. So yes, while technically after tomorrow is over, I don't have to go back into the building until August, I still have a lot of work I have to finish. I should also point out that, because I teach two classes, I have to do all this planning and organizing twice. Furthermore, while most people teach as part of a team where there are multiple teachers who teach the same class, which makes it easier to get all the work done since the load is shared, I don't have teams for either of my courses. While I appreciate the autonomy this gives me, I am doing all the planning and preparation completely on my own.
To be fair, I will be getting paid for my work tomorrow and my work in August. However, the amount of planning I need to do is not going to get completed in one eight-hour day, and all the rest of it that I have to finish is work I'll be doing without compensation. Exactly how much I'll have to finish and how long it will take me will depend on how much I get done tomorrow, and that will depend on how much time I spend sitting in meetings and how much time I get to spend actually working.
Welcome to my summer "off".
No comments:
Post a Comment