SUMMERTIME FOR TEACHERS

As long as I have been a teacher, every summer I have heard--"It must be nice to get paid and not have to work for a whole summer." These non-teachers always think we are getting paid for our summers. In actuality we get paid, but it is for hours we've already worked--they just save it for the summer.

This afternoon, though, I saw another side to that comment. The idea that teachers don't work in the summer. Barb and I met with two teachers. Both of them were organizing their rooms for next year. One teacher had been reading and planning for a long time. Today we helped him move furniture out, rearrange others and even move his desk to a corner in the back of the room. What fun we had and what a great new look! Can't wait to see the finished project.

The other teacher was in the middle of reorganizing her books. They were all over the floor. Three of her kiddos are coming in next week to help put their library together--an advantage of looping.

She had the best idea of a "teacher-sized" desk in one corner with cubby holes all around it for all sorts of writerly stuff. That is their writer's corner!

So, the next time you hear someone say teachers are lucky because they get their summers off---send them to me and I'll show them what teachers REALLY do in the summer!