kzbteach

Teachers, give yourselves a pat on the back. Whether your summer plans include taking an intensive summer graduate course, completing an AP training program, working a second job to supplement your income, taking professional development classes to maintain your licensure, walking through the extremely premature school supply rollout at Target, working on curriculum, or maybe even all of the above, you’ve nearly survived another school year. I hope you find the time to unwind, relax, and have nights filled with sleep that isn’t interrupted by a school-related nightmare— it’s well deserved. 

Because summer is approaching, there’s no better time to address the phrase that I personally hate hearing. If you can relate, be sure to like this post at the end.

One thing I can’t stand is when people say to teachers, “bUt yOu hAvE tHe sUMMeRs oFf.” If you’re a teacher, someone has surely said this to you. If you’re someone who says this to teachers, let’s hope that by the end of this, you understand that teaching isn’t at all about having the summers off. In fact, teachers don’t get paid during the summer, it’s deferred income.

Statistically, teachers make around 1,500 decisions per day while at work. That’s around 7,500 decisions per week, 30,000 per month, and 270,000 per year. These numbers are also true for other demanding professions, such as air traffic controllers and emergency responders, among others. These are just the decisions that are made during work hours, never mind those made during the morning and afternoon commutes, when you jolt awake in panic about a student issue at 3AM, how to reply to a parent email, and so on. 

Being an educator requires a lot of professional maintenance. In some states, teachers have to get a Masters degree to continue to be teachers. When do they do it? Well, after work or on the weekends! Coursework can take anywhere between twelve and twenty hours per week, with programs sometimes taking two years. Many states also require teachers to earn PDPs, or Professional Development Points, which are earned through attending professional learning workshops, completing assignments, taking graduate classes outside of a degree program, attending faculty meetings directed towards professional growth, and more. 

Vacations are scheduled for you and as a result, flight prices are exorbitantly high because everyone’s trying to travel at the same time. In this economy?!

Now, to further illustrate my point. Let’s look at a typical school day.

Picture this:

It’s an average Tuesday. It’s seven in the morning and you just turned the lights on in your classroom maybe five minutes ago. A student appears in the doorframe and begins asking you questions about what we’re doing in class today. Other students chase each other down the hall, screaming. It’s loud. The coffee hasn’t kicked in. You’re in survival mode.

You head to the copy machine. One of them is broken and the other one has a line forming beside it. Someone’s making a fifty-page packet for their class of forty. The “out of toner” message pops up on the only working machine, and the hope of getting those copies made for first period dissipates. The crowd of teachers groans and disperses, each one traveling to the other side of the school to find a working copier, or simply hustling back to class to pivot, and even occasionally change their entire plan for the morning within five minutes.

The first bell rings and the first class of the day files in. You haven’t even said hello and there are already three people asking to move seats to sit with their friends and five people waiting for the bathroom. Someone feels like they’re going to be sick, so you call the nurse. You manage to quell the chaos long enough to introduce the activator. One minute in, several hands shoot up, armed with questions that could be answered by reading the directions. Your ideally seven minute activator takes twenty minutes. You won’t finish today’s lesson, and the entire plan for class is derailed. You take a breath, and you begin the ten minute lecture, careful to avoid exceeding the time limit and disturb the flow of the primary-recency effect. Midway through those ten minutes, someone throws a pencil across the room and it hits a student in the head. Someone laughs, another person yells, someone stands up, things are getting tense. An argument breaks out. Someone storms out of the room.

You eventually manage to put the fire out, reprimand the pencil-throwing, and you continue, fully aware that whatever you just talked about is probably already lost. You hand out a short partner activity and someone asks to use the restroom. You politely tell them that they can go when they finish the activity. They are relentless. They begin to disrupt the class with their pleas. You can’t hear the question someone’s asking you. You finally let them go. You remain calm but your shoulders are in knots because you’re stressed. Not from this particular interaction, but because this happens every day. But you love the kids and you love your subject, so you persevere.

Versions of this scenario transpire for four more hours with different groups. You never want to hear “six-seven” or in the warm weather, “can we go outside because Ms. so-and-so brought her class outside” again. There are crumbs on the floor from someone eating a snack- probably a Nature Valley granola bar (iykyk) and your precious handouts that you spent hours making are crumpled up and strewn about the floor.

Your planning period finally rolls around. You put your headphones in to grade some speaking exercises. You get through half of one and someone comes to your door. The small talk starts. You try to usher them away and at first, they don’t take the hint. You eventually get your time back and realize you only have time to grade two or three max. Your phone rings. Guidance needs an update on a student. You get almost nothing done.

The bell rings signifying the end of the day. You have five minutes to use the bathroom and get yourself to the faculty meeting. 

You get home and your social battery is critically low. You want to just lay on the couch and disassociate for a while. You run errands, maybe take a walk, eat dinner, and continue working. The lessons won’t plan themselves. Before you know it, it’s almost midnight and you’re heading to bed, ready to do it all over again.

Nobody becomes a teacher to have the summers off. And, if they do, they probably didn’t last very long in the field. Teaching is one of those jobs that forces you to adapt to an ever-changing environment. It’s nearly impossible, but you do it anyway. 

Like many of you, I’ve spent my summers taking multiple graduate courses to maintain my license, being trained to teach an AP class, dedicating hours to curriculum design, and working a second job. I also have felt the burden of paying for an overpriced flight due to increased February and April break demand. Small issue but it’s real. 😅

So anyway, hopefully I’ve made my point. If someone says this to you, send this their way. 

– Katherine, May 2026