"You Teachers Sure Have the Life!"

I'm sure that many, if not all of us, hear that all the time. This can especially be heard now during spring recess. While the "hardest working men and women" of Corporate America and private industry are slaving away hour after hour, the educators are sitting back in their collective lounge chairs soaking up the sun and drinking Pina Coladas. If only that were true...

I acknowledge the fact that I am incredibly enjoying the time I have been able to spend with my wife and daughter this week. The weather has been incredibly perfect, and it has been great. At the same time, I have woken up three times so far thinking about things that I want to change or accomplish in my classroom before the end of the year. I have sat down on this very laptop to make a Millionaire game as a final review for the NYS Science Assessment. I have also worked on our next writing project, and I do miss my class. Granted, this has taken place between walks to the park, watching Elmo and singing songs, but even still it has happened on "my" vacation.

What non-teaching America needs to understand is that teachers really do need the downtime. The summer sounds so long - 2 whole months of being off. 184 days of work each year. It all sounds like a dream. Of course this doesn't count the time that you work outside of the classroom, for there are no overtime hours to be counted. This doesn't count the reflective and practical time that one might choose to use to better themselves as educators and as people. This doesn't count the fact that we cannot take a week off in the middle of November just because we feel like it. Our break times are controlled by contract. Please don't hold it against us. Teaching is a great job on many levels, but it is also a very difficult job to do. Many other occupations earn 3-5 weeks of paid vacation anyway.. they just spread them out.

I am certainly not taking anything away from other professions, as there are many taxing occupations out there; many I certainly would not trade places with. For some reason, too many in our American culture like to trivialize the entire educational institution. Think about that. These types of thinking and (worse yet) spoken words really show us the importance as to which educating our children is perceived.

Despite the fact that our jobs are often considered "easy" and how our salaries should be lower (just as Newsday), our work has a direct impact on both the success of the future and the current prices of homes. When was the last time that the work of private industry was on the forefront of almost every election. Hmm... Healthcare? Oil production? Think about how important those two issues are, and then consider that education is right there with those two powerhouses.

I don't expect teaching to earn a perception as the most difficult profession, but I would hope and expect that people in general will learn to understand that what we do is important and 'not so easy'. Yep.. we do deserve this break.

I'd love to know what others think!