Tid Bit Sad

Every year, at this back-to-school time, I get sad. Sad for the summer being over, because, even though there's a good month of warm weather left, when school starts, that's all she wrote. Maybe a couple of good weekends, but really, the summer's over for teachers and students. And this is when I start to whine and cry. It's not that I don't want to start a new school year, and it's not that I don't want to work, cause I do want both those things. It's just sad that summer's coming to an end again.

I worked hard in my classroom last week, so much so that when teachers report to school on Monday for our week of training and meetings, I won't have to stay after to get my room in order. It's practically done already. I can concentrate on my new task this year: teaching a 1st grade/2nd grade multi-age classroom. I'm nervous still, excited A LOT, and ready to just get in there and get my hands dirty, meet all my new short people, and just WORK. I love to work. Really, I do. So why am I whining because it's back to school time?? Because I love having this freedom for about 8 weeks every summer (it used to be 3 months, not anymore!) There's nothing better than having that.

While I'm thinking of it, here's a myth I must clear up about teachers. Most people think teachers get paid for 12 months of work, including the time they don't work during the summer.

WRONG.

Here's the real deal: Teachers get paid for 10 months of work. They can choose to have their 10 months of pay be spread out over 12 months, or they can choose to be paid over 10 months. Most teachers choose to be paid over 12 months, so they don't have to budget their money during the 10 months of working for the 2 months of summer vacation. So teachers don't get paid to be on summer vacation, it just means they have chosen to have their pay checks spread out over the year. I get really irritated when someone accuses teachers of getting paid to sit on their asses in the summer and still make money. We're not making money, we're just getting what we earned! There are so many "myths" about teachers that really irk me, but I'll go into details about that later. I get real pissy about this! Can you tell?

Okay, back to the back-to-school issue. I'm trying to cheer myself up about going back to school. I have many reasons to be excited about it. I have a new classroom, new tables (BRAND new), I get to see the people that I love to work with daily, my classroom is on the first floor, one of my best friends just got hired at my school (can you imagine how that happened?-more about that tomorrow), I have $200 worth of supplies waiting for me in my room that I DIDN'T have to buy with my own money (that's amazing these days!!!!!!), and I think I'm finally starting to feel better about the new school year. There are far more good things outweighing the bad things, which basically boil down to getting up at the ass crack of dawn and having to wear business attire every day again. Ugh. My school is strict about the dress code, and it sucks. So those are my biggest complaints. So it's not so bad, as I look at it now. I guess I just needed to bitch a little bit to anyone who would listen.