Sneaky Thoughts

It's pretty common that we teachers spend part of our summer planning for the next year. Goodness knows we seem to fall short of planning time during that year, and most of us are always bent on doing it better next year. I've been doing this gig long enough that I don't want to change a whole lot, but I might be getting a little stubborn in my old age, too. I swear I've been there, done that, and had the parent conferences about it. Nevertheless, at the end of the year, I knew there were some things I needed to work on...now what were they?

Oh, yes! That bag of journalism books behind the couch. Something about beefing up my curriculum. Less time for students to be sitting around doing things that could get us all in trouble.

Every once and a while, I have a flash about the need do some planning, but then I get distracted doing more interesting things.

Last year, I put my foot down and said that I would be taking the entire month of July off. No work. No talk of work. No planning. No research. I thought it was a wonderful compromise to being able to enjoy a guilt-free vacation and needing to spend some time preparing for my hectic life in the classroom. This year, I made myself no such promises, yet it wasn't too hard to do it naturally.

Some of you might call it procrastination. Whatever. I'm still on vacation. So, be gone thoughts of work! It is not time for you! Go have some iced tea! Chill out already!