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Originally Posted by Spurs
As I said there are pluses and minuses, and I say this from experience. I preferred my ability to travel when I wanted versus my wife having to only travel at the worst times of the year to go, especially to many of the vacation spots that you would take kids to.
I am not saying it is all bad but that it isn't all good as people try to paint it to be.
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This is wild. There aren't minuses to having summers off...particularly in Canada where so many vacation spots and activities are seasonal. How many campgrounds open for May Long and close after September Long, as an example? Half the year roads aren't even at their safest for travel. Kids are off during the summer (for families), so nothing could be more convenient. What time of year can you enjoy your yard, paint your house, build your fence, go bike riding in Fish Creek, etc. etc.?
And then in winter...who doesn't want a couple weeks off around Christmas to spend time with loved ones?
To say their time off doesn't coincide with the best times of year for vacation days is, honestly, super dumb.
Quote:
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.
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I hear this and I always wonder if people are saying it with a straight face of just trying to get a rise out of the rest of us who started work with two weeks off a year (it's three, now), but had to work the first 12 months before being eligible for any time off at all.
Burnout can hit anyone, but barely anybody has two months off to look forward to just a couple months after their last week off, which was just a couple months after their last two weeks off.
I've been silent in this thread as I'm not in the mood for being the poster boy for pointing out that being a teacher is a terrific career (for whatever reason teachers want us to think they have it rough, which I believe is their union trying to incite them, but whatever), but nobody should be humouring this ridiculous notion that teachers don't have absolutely outstanding holiday benefits. They run the same schedule seven-year-olds run FFS.