It is the fourth week of the summer holidays and I’m starting to get antsy. I want to do work to get ahead. I want to relax and enjoy my holiday. Work. Relax. Work. Relax.
A quick flick through Facebook memories reveals I go through this flip-flopping every year. Especially in the first few weeks. I want to plan my first six weeks AND drink Pimms in a pub garden, dagnammit!
Never look at teacher friends on social media. Nothing you see will make you feel better. If people are working, you hate them. They’re better prepared than you. They’ll be laughing on 31 August and you’ll be crying over your half-finished long-term plan. If they’re having fun, you’ll resent them. They’re enjoying their holiday. They are making the most of the six-week break.
You can’t win! So, you may as well lose - and style it out.
Over the years I’ve perfected the knack of not really doing work, but feeling like I am doing work, in order to justify all the relaxing.
Here are my tips on how to do no work while at the same time convincing yourself that you’re being productive:
- Binge-watch a series on Netflix as part of your research for the “cultural context” or “relating my subject to the real world” element of next term’s topics. Watching Orange is the New Black? That shows you how prison culture is presented in the current day and, like Blake’s “mind-forged manacles” raises the question of to what extent the prison is a metaphorical one. And maths is in there, too! Let’s calculate how many times their sentence will be extended if Piper snitches on her fellow inmates.
- Work on your swimming. Every student needs to be able to swim 25 metres; it would be a shame if you couldn’t be a good role model and be able to claim that you can do the same. So, measure the distance between the side of the pool and the pool bar, and just keep going…
- Re-read your class reader (if you’re a primary teacher) and read anything if you’re a secondary teacher. You’re allowed to dedicate this time to your personal reading because you can discuss this reading experience with your students. Or something.
- Look at your planner. Now put it away. Top work.
- Delete loads of emails - but not the important ones. Or, just delete them all and work on the premise that if something was really important, the person will contact you again.
- Go shopping for work clothes. You don’t even have to buy anything, but just thinking about it counts as work. It’s practically CPD.
- Rewatch Summer Heights High. For research purposes only, of course.
- As a teacher, it is vital you stay up to date with what kids these days are into. So go to the cinema (naturally picking an out of town late-night showing so you don’t actually have to interact with any small children or young adults.
- Look in your school bag. Throw out any rubbish. There: one less job to do in September.
- Get a copy of your timetable, create a colour-code and colour in each class.
And voila. You’ve worked like a Trojan all summer. You definitely deserve to drink that Pimms in the garden now. And you haven’t even had to crack open a workbook.
Grainne Hallahan has been teaching English in Essex for 10 years. She is part of the #TeamEnglish Twitter group