How do teachers spend their holidays?

If other teachers are anything like me then I am sure they have already spent a large part of their holiday marking and assessing work and planning for next term. Even when I am not consciously spending time on the more formal aspects of teaching, I know that I am still subconsciously thinking about my class. How can I make this lesson better? o0o isn't that an interesting craft item, that could be use for this lesson. How can I help child x with reading better? How can I support child y with their number work? These are just the thoughts I have running through my brain most of the time.

I hear a lot of criticisms of teachers, one of which is that we have an awful lot of holidays. This does vary country by country but I personally cannot deny that we do have a lot more holidays than other working folk. For example, my husband gets about 4 and a half weeks holiday a year. What I would say is that when he takes his holidays he really does take a break from his work. He doesn't open emails, he doesn't consider any of the things he might do when he gets back to work and he has no contact with colleagues or clients. Whereas for me this is pretty much the complete opposite. I take home books to work on, I continually have thoughts of how to make my teaching better going through my head and I also know that when I do return to school, the lessons need to be ready to go. Therefore planning cannot be avoided entirely in the same way as my husband can avoid doing any work at all in his holidays.

However, although I do think that good teachers do work during their holidays to make their teaching better, I also think that we need to remember to take the time out of working that we really need so that we avoid teacher burnout. In the UK, teacher turnover is at an all time high. I really believe this is because teachers feel (as shown in the photograph) that they should be planning and working during their holidays. I think that teachers even feel guilt when they are not doing work during the holidays. Partly this comes because teaching is a job that is never 'complete'. There is always something more that you could do to make a lesson better, there is always another resource you could make to help an individual child. But I really do feel that all of this is leading to teachers feeling stressed, overworked, and unable to do their jobs properly. This is not a good outcome.

Therefore, as in the picture above I believe teachers need to ensure that they take some of their holidays as 'real' holidays. This means NO marking, NO opening books, NO collecting of items to use in teaching, NO creating resources and putting teaching to the back of your mind. It DOES mean, playing games with your family, reading for pleasure, and family time such as meals, going for a walk, a night at the cinema. All the things that other people enjoy during their holidays.

If you cannot honestly say you have taken four weeks out of teaching this year in this way, then you have NOT had your holidays. You may have had more time out of the work place than other people, but you haven't actually had any time away from working.

So, while we still have a few days left before returning to school, think about whether you have had time away from work. If you haven't then make at least one of the next few days a 'YOU' day and do something that makes you happy.

Happy New Year!

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All photographs used in this blog post come from Pixabay and can be found using the following links:
https://pixabay.com/en/reprint-similar-to-analog-edition-908900/
https://pixabay.com/en/family-game-game-board-game-588908/
https://pixabay.com/en/family-eating-at-the-table-dining-619142/
https://pixabay.com/en/teacher-classroom-school-class-403004/