COLUMN: Summer's End Around the Bend

Image by Denis Collette...!!! via Flickr

By Tobin Barnes
Depending on how you look at it, a goodly part of the summer is now gone. Calendar-wise, or solar-wise maybe, about one-third has passed.

But that bogus calendar-summer stuff that supposedly begins around June 20 and ends around September 20 has never made much sense to students and teachers, like me. Even Labor Day as the official end of summer, around here anyway, doesn’t mean much anymore.

Summer really ends when the high school football team starts practicing—the word “football” is lethal to any concept of summer—and classes begin a week or so later. And around here, that happens in the 20’s of August.

So what does that spell for the rest of summer, now that we’re in the 20’s of July?

Well, for me, a teacher going into his 34th school year—53rd, if you count my own education—it’s the time of year when summer starts slipping away. To put it hyper-melodramatically, it’s kind of like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s groundbreaking five steps that people go through in the acceptance of up-coming death.

Yeah, hyper-melodramatically.

First, there’s “denial”: No way! It was the Fourth of July just a few days ago.

Next, “anger”: Those blanket-blanks keep moving up the start date earlier every year.

Then “bargaining”: Maybe if I sleep three fewer hours a night, I’ll get more out of the time left.

Fourth, “depression”: Why did I go into education—maybe insurance or real estate would have been better.

And finally, “acceptance”: Okay, no more naps in the afternoon. I’ve got to get used to toughing it out through a day.

Uh huh, I innately sense the lack of sympathy from all the working-stiff, non-teachers out there: “Boo-hoo, cry me a river, you big baby. Try life in the 50-week REAL world.”

Yeah, that’s right. I agree. I know I’ve got it good. As the old hackneyed joke goes: What’s the three best things about teaching? Answer: June, July, and August.

And though education, like any profession, has plenty of ups and downs, for most teachers, like myself, it has far more ups than downs—far more. Yes, I’ll freely admit that it’s been an enjoyable career, summers included. I’d even recommend it—with reservations, that is. (And I’ll perhaps speak of those reservations after I retire, when I can be—how shall I put this?—more objective.)

Despite the so-called slack schedule, education is obviously not for everyone. After all, you don’t see people lining up out the door, itching to teach a few sections of English or algebra. The mere thought of standing in front of twenty-some teenagers—or for that matter, seven-year-olds—would be pretty darned scary for many people. It still, after 33 years, gives me pause once in awhile.

When I first started, in this same school district all those years ago, they said there were at least a hundred applications for every opening. In other words, feel yourself lucky to get a good teaching job.

Those figures might have been stretched a little, but, yeah, I guess there was competition back then.

Now, it’s more like only a handful of applications for any given education placement. Sometimes it’s less than that. In some districts, jobs go unfilled. You know there’s got to be some reasons. Also, there are reasons why a hefty percentage of new teachers—half in urban areas, sometimes just as big in rural areas—leave the profession within three years.

But if this economic downturn continues, maybe that will change. We’ll see.

Well, how about other things? What else comes with the end of summer?

Usually, some darned hot weather, of which we’ve miraculously had hardly any so far. This has been a blessedly cooler-than-normal summer here in the Black Hills. Thank you, thank you.

Oh, and one other thing. The end of summer also brings the Sturgis motorcycle rally to our part of the country.

But I’ll talk more about that next time.