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How Not To Waste Spring Break (or Summer Vacation, or Christmas Break, or Saturday, or Tonight!)

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“I’m bored”
No success will come from squandering time. Time is too precious to waste. The summer months and holiday weekend that we are afforded in the education business should not become an excuse to catch up on all the latest greatest movies and pack away the bon bons. Instead, these times seem to be best spent by analyzing where things stand with your current teaching position. What has worked so far this year? What will work better if I start doing it after the break? If it’s summer, how can I start out the school year more prepared than I did last year?

So what will I be doing over spring break?Another good thing to do is catch up on house upkeep. Sell extra CDs you have at home. Throw away old papers. Have a yard sale. Not only will it give you some extra cash, but it will also make the home less cluttered and you will feel better while you are there.

Valuable things that the typical school year time doesn’t really allow me to do all that much.Teaching summer school is an option. Personally, I would prefer to develop other aspects of my life rather than teaching year round. I have work I can be doing at church. I have volunteering that I can be doing. I can go visit my parents. I can read. I used to spend the time playing video games or messing around on MySpace. Now I have come to the point where I see how much valuable time those things have been wasting for me.

So what will I be doing over spring break? For one, I will be starting a business (go to the courthouse to file, open a checking account, do some web design work for it). I also plan to go visit my parents while my sister will be in town to visit them. I’m planning on organizing my office at school, selling around 75 CDs, going to a basketball game with a friend, and playing with my dogs. Valuable things that the typical school year time doesn’t really allow me to do all that much.

Joel Wagner (@sywtt) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting. He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. So You Want To Teach? is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.

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Joel Wagner
Joel Wagner (<strong><a href="http://www.twitter.com/sywtt">@sywtt</a></strong>) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting. He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. <strong><a href="http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/">So You Want To Teach?</a></strong> is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.
http://www.SoYouWantToTeach.com

4 thoughts on “How Not To Waste Spring Break (or Summer Vacation, or Christmas Break, or Saturday, or Tonight!)

  1. Thank you for reminding me not to waste my time this spring break. I am going to definitely enjoy the time while getting some much needed chores completed. Yes, I still read your blog. I just don’t have time to comment as usual b/c I”m so busy.

  2. I appreciate this post, Joel. While I do agree that vacations are an ideal time to take stock, I find that I spend way too much of my time doing school instead of using personal time for taking care of my needs and the needs of those I care about. So, as I look ahead to a two week vacation, which will commence at 2:45 pm on Friday, I will do some school, but far more of the personal things.

  3. Miss A: don’t worry about not commenting. I don’t have much time to even update my own blog, let alone keep up with the others that I read. I’m sure we we get closer to May and June, we’ll start to see an increase in comments all around the edublogosphere. It’s nice to hear from you when you get the chance, but feel no pressure or obligation! I’m sure we all have enough potential stress going on in our own little corners of the world without the added online stress we put on ourselves! :)

  4. I’m looking for ways to not waste my summer and appreciate the ideas. I have to say, the mention of a CD collection and browsing MySpace made me scroll back up and check the date :)

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