At the end of the day they go home to the stress of struggling to make ends meet

Note: This article was written for the Fort Myers News Press: Check out the original article here.

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This “Summers Off” trope is a practiced response. No comment outrages teachers more, with the possible exception of, “I didn’t know the test was today!” If you want to elicit a snarky response from a teacher, remind them that they get summers off.

A response to this trope could be a side box in any high school economics textbook. If “Summers Off” were adequate compensation in the face of lower pay, we would not have a teacher shortage. Clearly, summers off is not enough to compensate for the expectations of the job at the given pay. It is a basic economic concept. When labor is scarce, compensation must increase.

I have been asked, “Why did you go into teaching knowing how much you were going to be paid?” It is a good question. I decided to be a teacher in 1986. Back then, the average teacher salary was about eight percent lower than that of a similarly educated professional. Summers off were adequate compensation considering this pay discrepancy. Back then, teaching was a solid career for a middle-class life. My teachers were not rich, but they lived in nice neighborhoods. We never saw them waiting tables or delivering pizza after school. Returning in fall, many teachers talked about their travels during summers off. As a young history nerd, this seemed like the life.

Things have changed. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the pay penalty for teaching is now more than twenty-six percent. Male teachers are sacrificing more than a third of their earning potential by choosing teaching. According to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, the living wage for an adult with no children in Lee County is just under $50k. That is just below the starting salary in the Lee County School District. That is just covering the essentials.

So, when you meet a teacher, it is not good form to say, “Wow! Must be nice having summers off!” You will get a dirty look. That teacher likely does not have summers off. Summers, for many teachers, mean increasing their hours at their second job so they can put away some Christmas money.

Even those who are fortunate to have summers off, need that time to repair the damage done to their psychological well-being during the school year. According to a RAND study, teachers report working ten hours more per week than comparable professionals. The same study noted that teachers were more likely to experience job related stress, including depression. I know teachers diagnosed with PTSD.

After thirty years as a teacher, I have known scores of people who entered teaching from other professions looking forward to those relaxing summer breaks. They were happy taking the pay cut to have more personal time. Can’t blame them. Many of them were excellent teachers. I can count on one hand how many of them lasted more than two years. After wracking my brain, I can count on one finger how many lasted more than five.

On the other hand, I have lost track of how many teachers surrendered their summers off and thrived in other careers. Yes, teachers can do your job. You probably can’t do the teacher’s job. We got a lesson on that a few years back when parents were outraged with the prospect of having to teach their own kids for a few more months (with online teacher support). They could not handle their own kids, let alone a hundred and fifty other people’s kids.

You see, teachers have skills that every organization wishes for in their employees. Teachers have superhuman work ethic combining creativity, critical thinking, organization, and planning that can put any ten Personal Managers to shame. When something happens and all that planning gets scrapped by a fire drill, or a surprise assembly, or any of a million things that derail a teacher’s plans, they adapt. I was never a Marine, but all my former students have heard me use the motto, “Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.”

In perspective, imagine your most challenging day. This day was unrelenting, requiring you to be mentally and physically engaged without a break. Even stopping to go to the bathroom was a sprint. There was no time to breath. No time to process. Just when you thought everything was under control, something went wrong, and you were at square one. By the time you got home you could barely turn the key to your front door. You had reached the limit of your mental and emotional reserves.

That’s a day that ends with Y for a teacher.

Teachers do this wrapped in a tight cloak of interpersonal attentiveness, empathy, and emotional intelligence. Every teacher worth their salt compartmentalizes the stress of the job and focuses on the needs of their kids—your kids!

Then, at the end of the day, after staying late to get caught up on planning, paperwork, prep, or some inanity that has been thrust on them by the district or the state, they go home to the stress of struggling to make ends meet. Tonight, there are teachers grading essays on their steering wheels because they are driving Uber or Lyft to make extra money.

If you think those summers off are worth it, if you think you can handle it, apply online. The District is desperate. They will likely find a place for you. But if all you are is mouth, a classroom is not for you. Those kids will eat you alive! Unfortunately, much of our leadership is all mouth. They talk about attracting and retaining world-class teachers. When it comes to offering world-class pay—nothing. Then they fall back on, “Well, teachers get summers off.”

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