Summer is coming. During this time of year I feel more and more like I do so much "working for the man". I don't know if there is actually more silly work to be done or if the view of summer looks so tasty from here that my job looks more mundane. A fellow teacher caught me in the hall last spring and said "I feel like we're on a cattle drive, and they keep moving California.".
It's not the late nights and late mornings I am most looking forward to, it's the change in my role. In the summer, I get to stop being one of the herd with paperwork and hoops to jump through. I can become a leisurely scholar and think about the idea of teaching.
This summer, it's Chattanooga for a workshop on Project Citizen, then sponsoring the Okla Youth and Govt officers at the Conference on National Affairs in Black Mountain, NC. The coolest trip of the summer will prove to be the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. I just found out I was accepted today. Let's pretend that the application process was highly competitive, I don't know that it was, but I am in.
The trick for me the rest of the year is to find ways to bring more of the scholar mentality to my life. The stories I tell about my job are real but I don't usually report them if they enrage me. It's usually about how I get the best of both worlds. I teach the big ideas of the world to kids who...well...think you will die if you hold in your farts (I know that's gross and I hate to restate it, but it's the best summary I have of my life).
So now I am looking forward. I leave you with the image in my head right now. I use it to practice photo hosting without Hello and to give you an idea of what it is to read a book in a rocker looking at this view and then leave the book to see some of the Nation's smartest kids in debate.
Good, good times.
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