[you&me]

Originally Posted by Russic

The perk of summer vacation is a complicated and nuanced one. It depends on a bunch of factors, like what your level of burnout heading into July is, what stage of life you're at, and what the rest of your family is doing.

A huge segment of my social circle is teachers, so I can assure you there is no general consensus here. If you're 50, your kids are 20, summers off will be defended until your dying breath. If you're 35 and your kids are 5, and you're not married to a fellow teacher, summers off are hardly "off" at all, your one obnoxious job just becomes a different obnoxious job.

So debating whether summers off is a perk or torture is sorta silly, because it will vary so much from person to person.

As for the money argument, I think they paid reasonably well for what they do. Most teachers I know have zero problem with how much they get paid, but what they want is smaller class sizes, more support for children who are mentally unwell, and assistance in dealing with parents... ya know... things that won't ever happen. So money it is. It's literally one of the only resources they can negotiate on. Ya, they come off greedy to some, but there's not a lot else to negotiate on.

Agree almost everything you said... Except the bolded above.

Are you saying the "different obnoxious job" for teachers is... spending the entire summer with their own child(ren)?