The End of the Year

I'm closing out my seventeenth year of teaching this week. This time of year is surreal. Teachers, students, and parents alike are all scrambling to figure out how to manage the transition into summer and the massive shift in routine that comes with it. But teachers have the added crazy of extreme busyness (closing out the year comes with a checklist of items, most with hard deadlines, while trying to manage "it's almost summer" behavior from their students) followed by nothingness.

My checklist this year feels more manageable than I am used to. Tomorrow is the official last day of school, and I may be able to check out of the room before I leave tomorrow. I have to sign report cards, store the AV equipment, and my own cleaning left to do - the stuff the students can't help with. Of course there's more I could do. There's always more that could or should be done.

I'd really like to go through and purge the materials I know I'll never use, the stuff that's been accumulating in the space through many previous teachers, but I'm not sure that's actually doable this June. I have to wait for the music teacher to move out of the space that will be given to the incoming sixth grade teacher before giving her the sixth grade materials. Once I get the materials that aren't even for my grade level out of the way I can begin organizing in earnest - which likely means I won't be doing any of that until next June. Even if I plan to do it in August, I know from experience that it will be unlikely I will find the time.

Most teachers spend the entire school year, from the days in August when they are setting up their classrooms, feeling behind. We say to each other, "I'll be caught up in June." Spending nine months feeling like there is always something you should be doing followed by having nothing that has to be done urgently leaves many teachers feeling out of sorts this time of year. I've decided the best way to deal with this enormous transition is to book travel immediately after school gets out. I know traveling is difficult, or possibly not even an option, for many teachers who live paycheck to paycheck or have summer jobs. But I came to this conclusion when I personally avoided the beginning of summer teacher doldrums when end of the school year travel was thrust upon me two summers in a row.

One of those years I was travelling to see my grandmother one last time, and be there for my dad when she died. The other one was for summer professional development that was cool enough that the conflict with the last day of school (I left for Space Camp three days before the end of the school year) was a minor detail. Last year I met a teacher friend from another state in Las Vegas for a couple of nights. This year, I'm headed to Japan with my family. If you did the math, you already know it took me over a decade to realize immediate travel is a great way for me to transition into summer. But I'm very glad I finally figured it out.

I firmly recommend some kind of trip - even if it's just spending two nights camping at a local campground or in a hotel in the city near your suburb - as the best way for teachers to deal with the complete change in routine that summer break brings. The destination doesn't matter so much as getting out of your daily routine in every way. It's a true break, which allows for the "normalcy" of being at home without your classroom's, students', and school's needs at the forefront of every waking moment seem just a little less bizarre when you come back. Looking into cool summer PD probably wouldn't hurt either...