I haven't posted a blog the past few days for a good reason--once vacation is over and i go back to school, my free time dwindles down to a precious few minutes a night. It really bothers me when people who have never taught make comments like teachers only work 7 hours a day and have two months' vacation. I bring schoolwork home more nights than I don't, and I invariably spend my entire Saturday doing schoolwork (writing tests, grading tests, preparing lessons). I write books in my spare time, but guess who much I get to work on them during the school year? nada.

Teaching is a very rewarding profession--I am certainly not complaining about that!--but it is a very stressful profession too. One report indicated that only air traffic controller is a more stressful job on a regular basis. My chiropractor told me that she has more clients who are teachers than any other profession. It is also a more time-consuming job that hardly any nonteachers or spouses of teachers realize.

I think it's fair to say that if teachers did not have two months to unwind and have a bit of a life, very few would actually stay in the profession.