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What Would You Do with Five Months Off?

6/20/2014

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Imagine you have a job that pays you not to work five months every year.  What would do with all that time?  


I had big plans for those two 10-week breaks before I landed a job where they were a reality.  I was going to scuba dive all over the world.  I was going to rent beachfront bungalows for entire months.  I thought about trying to write a book.  It was going to be epic.  Then I got married and had a kid.  Bye-bye selfish dreams.


Now I have the time but don't have the time to enjoy that time the way I had planned it.  These days when it comes to semester breaks I think in terms of "my work" and "their work".  Instead of leaving my family and sitting on a beach I come into the man cave that is my office at school and fool around.  Sometimes I get inspired and write a short article or apply to present at a conference.  If an invitation to speak at a teacher training event comes up or some editing work is requested I can focus on that without having to worry about a class schedule breaking my concentration.  Sometimes I try to improve a rubric for one of my courses or think of ways to make it a little better.  These breaks are the reason why I have time to help volunteer organizations like KOTESOL.  But mostly I don't work and that's what a vacation is really all about.  It's about making the stress melt away and, if you have a job you enjoy, actually giving yourself the chance to miss it and hopefully appreciate it more.


It turns out that I don't like not having anything to do.  I make work for myself but it doesn't feel like work because I like to see productive outcomes that are the results of my labor.  MY labor not THEIR labor.  When the new semester rolls around it's back to doing what I was hired to do and that's fine because if I enjoy the five months off I am afforded annually I'll be ready to get back in the classroom and get back to work.


When I teach job interview skills I include the question "How did you spend your last semester break?".  I probably wouldn't hired a candidate who answered that they got drunk and played video games but someone who burned themselves out taking a full load of intersession classes and working a part-time job wouldn't be a shoe in either.  Happiness comes from balance and that's what "my work" gives me.  I have the option to do it on days that I am inspired and the option not to do if the well is dry.  


What would you/do you do with all that time?

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Are All Teachers Hypocrites?

6/1/2014

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As teachers, we have a duty not only to teach our students the content of our courses but how to function in society so that they have the better chance to be successful.  We often have to show tough love by enforcing deadlines, creating seating charts, and strictly correcting errors on writing assignments.  But when class is over are we practicing what we preach?  More often than not, the answer is no.


More than half of the presentation proposals that were submitted for this year's KOTESOL International Conference were submitted in the three-day period before the deadline.  A quarter were sent on the last day.  Ten more submissions came in after the deadline.  Educators had more than three months to prepare and send their proposals but chose to wait until the very last minute.  We roll our eyes when freshmen behave like this and then do the same thing ourselves.


Another example of teachers behaving like students can be observed while attending academic conferences.  When students go into a new class for the first time they tend to sit in the back of the room.  A few keeners will sit in the front but the room usually fills up from the back.  Go to any conference and you will see the same behavior from teachers.  We sit in the back, pull out of phones, and try to sneak out if the session is boring.  Sound familiar?


A third example can be seen when teachers post things online (English teachers are also guilty of this).  Typos abound.  Words are misspelled and errors with homophones such as there/their/they're are frequent.  "Why didn't you check you're work before submitting it" we ask our students.  For the same reason we didn't read our own post before clicking send, I guess...


Do as I say and not as I do.  Teachers need to do more than make rules in our courses.  We need to model strategies for success and actually practice what we preach.
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    Tim's Thoughts

    Here are some short ideas that probably don't deserve to be published but I felt were worth sharing.  

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