In a few days I start my twenty-sixth year of teaching.
For all those years I have been stuck in the academic model of living: summer and winter/spring break off where I have more time free than I want, and then other times (like final exams, letters of recommendation deadlines) where I am so overwhelmed I am barely hanging in there. It is irregular and seasonal. Yes, it is the feast or famine lifestyle for me.
I have had ten weeks off from work, and as usual I am itching to get back.
Not so much because I cannot wait to see my new classes and greet the students, but that I am ready to put my daughters back in school. Summer was a welcome tonic in mid-June where the beach welcomed us, but now I crave a regular schedule and more structure for Elizabeth and Julia indoors. My eighth hour at work is often easier for me than my fourth hour non-stop with my daughters. I am ready to deposit them into a teacher’s classroom for them to deal with — “Good luck!” I will say to all involved there. Exactly the same some other parent will say to me as they deposit their child in my classroom. I get it. I understand. It is the same at the end of every summer. Most parents I know feel the same.
Regardless, each new school year in August starts with an explosion of energy and optimism. It is a fresh start, the slate cleaned away and blank. We all deserve a fresh start now and again. We will have new classrooms, new teachers, new students, new soccer seasons, and captaining duties for my men’s 4.5 tennis team. The family Google calendar will start to fill up uncomfortably much. But I have few responsibilities this fall compared to a year ago, so as not to repeat last fall — which was just insanely busy. Unhealthily busy. To be more specific, we jettisoned AYSO for club soccer. Why is this easier? Instead of being blackmailed to coach and referee myself, we will pay others to do it. The quality of coaching and refereeing will go up considerably since I am not doing it, and my time and energy will be somewhat freed up. Money well spent! And I don’t have to coach Elizabeth’s junior tennis team because her higher level soccer team precludes her doing any other sport. I am relieved.
It is hard to find the sweet spot as an active family with growing children — to plan exactly so as to arrive at the “golden mean” between not busy enough and too busy. Too busy is like trying to spread too little butter across too much bread: there is not enough time for everything, and so everything gets half-assed, to some extent. We cannot dedicate sufficient time to do our best. Too little to do and we sit around the house and grow bored and querulous. The sweet spot! Oh, to find that ever changing sweet spot.
Well, we are off to the races next Wednesday on the first day of school. A family of students and teachers. Wish us luck! It won’t end until June of 2020, where you will find the Geib family crawling across the finish line in exhaustion.
Goodbye, summer of 2019! And hello new school year.
