'The case against summer vacation'

1. Some of us really do make much more than this.

2. Never said $77K was "whopping". But it sure isn't "vastly underpaid", either. And since it's 1.5 times the nation's median HOUSEHOLD income, I'd bet most of the country wouldn't see it as a joke. Maybe the paper-pushers on Wall Street, perhaps.

 

Using the nation's median household income is a red herring, because teachers should be compared to other white collar, college-educated professionals, not the vast army of retail workers and such that skew that median. I have friends who work as department managers at home improvement stores who make more than $70K. The outrage directed at teachers, in particular, is really misplaced. Yet it happens all the time. It reminds me of the thread where someone was griping because government employees get good benefits. So we want teachers to be better, but paying them more than poverty wages is a sure formula for outrage? Same with the government employees. We're expecting the "best and brightest" to practically volunteer for these jobs. Why, when we would never have that expectation in other professions?

 

Gee, 10 posts ago you were bitching about teacher salaries skyrocketing "when the unions get involved." How do you think teachers are going to get benefits or time off, if the "unions" don't get involved? Because the school boards will want to offer them better packages just out of the goodness of their heart?

 

blahblahblah lazy teachers blahblahblah unions blahblahblah pension blahblahblah private school blahblahblah when I was a kid blahblahblah summer vacation blahblahblah . . .

How much is a "shit-ton" anyway? More than a short ton? Less than a metric ton?

 

Friend of a friend's son goes to year-round school. The mom says it's a big pain. She and her husband work and it's hard to deal with childcare during the short breaks vs. camp or other regular summer activities. Her son also has a hard time with transitions and the on-off is hard for him (he's 7 or 8 years old).

 

I teach. We get 10 weeks off for summer and start school in the middle of August (8/10 this year).

Days have been added onto the school year so much, there's not the traditional "summer vacation" of years past. We go 2 weeks longer than we did when I was younger, and probably 20 days more than my parents did in the 1960s-70s.

As a teacher, I can see the merits of both, but the year-round calendar makes sports difficult. It's harder than you can believe to get kids (and sometimes, coaches) motivated to drag themselves to basketball practice and games during winter break. If we had multiple 3-week breaks in there, it could be chaos. And already, spring break has become the party event of the year at every suburban school in the country. Adding more, shorter breaks during the school year might encourage such behavior even more.

In high school, I'm not sure how much knowledge is lost, as much as it's just hard to get kids motivated to learn anything when it's 95F outside and they're just getting up in August. But it's that way coming back from EVERY break, whether it be one week or 10.

 

I just knew part of this thread was going to be full of people bashing teachers. Sad that some people are so clueless, especially a child of a teacher.

Starman, I don't think Junkie was complaining about unions demanding more money for teachers if they went to a year-round schedule. He was pointing out a potential problem with the change. I know in most of these plans teachers end up working a similar number of days, but losing the summer break would still be an issue.

Nobody should get into teaching for the summers off, but it is a nice benefit, one that many teachers take advantage of to focus more on continuing their educations or supplementing their incomes. I know quite a few teachers who work at summer camps.

And the money just isn't there to give them the raises. Or to pay the other staff to keep school buildings operational year-round.

Also, in addition to things like taking classes and working at camps, teachers and administrators also use the summer to deal with curriculum changes. Schools add new classes, plan new alternatives. Basically, they work to improve the education they are providing rather than leaving it the same every year. That just isn't going to be possible with no summer "vacation."

Dyno pointed out another issue. What exactly are parents going to do about young kids during those short breaks as opposed to a long summer break when camp is an option? Summer camps can get expensive, but not as expensive as day care for two or three weeks at a time -- if we could even find that.

 

We have one "balanced schedule" district around here. They go the same number of days as the rest of the state, but have a week more Christmas break, a week more at Spring Break and start back three weeks earlier after summer break.

They use the extra time to provide intesive catch-up for struggling students or enrichment for all students.

One of the biggest issues they have is parents from neighboring districts "enrolling" their kids at the balanced schedule schools when the other districts are on break.

I taught early elementary and was not only in favor of a longer school year, but a longer school day. For whatever reason, many parents expect more parenting behaviors out of teachers these days. If I'm expected to feed your kid, make sure he or she has warm clothes and provide the child's only emotional support, than I want more "on-the-clock" hours with that child.

 

If in the US they are forced to get their masters within five years of starting out, that's a whole different ball game then. I don't know anywhere in Canada where that is the case -- maybe certain private schools require it, I don't know -- but for the general teaching populace up here that is not the case. If they want to continue their education on the side, that is all well and good. The vast majority of the teachers where I grew up would hit the road for four-six weeks at a time during the summer. I know because I would cut grass for them during the summers while they were gone. Many of them were also my neighbours.

My mom recently returned to teaching after 10 years off, in that time she managed two different retail stores -- not at the same time but over different periods of time -- and I know during that time she worked harder and longer hours than when she was a teacher.

I have difficulty exalting teachers for working harder than anyone else, a figure many of them feel entitled too.

 

Beef, long hours in retail is a fact of life. I was a bookseller for fourteen years so I know the environment. But the skill set in managing a retail store is entirely different from teaching.

 

Now we're getting somewhere that doesn't make you look like a jerk. I completely agree with you that there's a problem with people who get tenure and coast. I've heard way too many accounts from my stepfather about professors in his department who teach one class per semester and only come in the two days the class is in session. I even remember when he had one such instructor he *required* to come in five days a week.

So yes, I'm not one to genuflect blindly to all teachers. There are deadbeats in that profession like there are deadbeat journos. There are also people in the teaching profession who are dedicated to their craft as some of our best people are to ours.

 

Absolutely different skill sets are needed wasn't the point I was trying to make. The point I was trying to make was a comparison in hours and how hard one works. Was just trying to make the point that many people work long, hard hours and that this bowing down before teachers because of "how hard" they work has me shaking my head.