LEAven Blog
What Will You Do This Summer?
The old cliché goes that “the best things about teaching are June, July, and August.” In my experience, nothing could be farther from the truth. We teachers appreciate the summer break and there’s no doubt that summer allows us some well-deserved respite from the thousands of questions that we field every week and the relentless paperwork, preparation, grading, parent conferences, and other day-to-day problems we must solve. The list above, as you know, is just the tip of your iceberg of responsibilities.
For all of you, summer’s “relaxation” is short because you’ll still be thinking of the preparation for the next school year, going to the “U” for another teaching certificate or advanced degree, having to teach a different grade or new course(s), or becoming a first time principal!
Here’s a brief list of ideas to make your summer “break” a time for mental, emotional, physical, recreational, and spiritual renewal. These are only meant to stimulate your imagination about the summer break. When you’ve finished reading these, create your own list.
- Take a walk, ride a bike, swim, etc. Physical activity is great for “clearing the mind.”
- Read a book that has absolutely nothing to do with work.
- Have lunch with friends and don’t talk about school.
- Make something for someone else.1
- Learn to play a musical instrument. For example, you can take recorder lessons online from a number of sources. Make Mr. Klotz at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZdy7Hc9x-g your recorder teacher. A recorder is inexpensive and you can amaze your friends or students when you play “Hot Cross Buns” (lesson 3). You can also learn how to read music online.
- Visit a local museum, arboretum, iron mine,or anyplace else you want to see, but haven’t yet visited.2 Just say, “I’m visiting my local fire station and bringing the fire fighters a birdhouse (or homemade cookies or donuts) for them today.” (See footnote #1)
- Learn to swim, sew, bake, paint with watercolors, etc., at your Community Adult Education Resource Center. Courses aren’t too expensive and are taught by people who love what they do.3
- Plan a one-day road trip to somewhere less than 100 miles from home to visit a “thing” that you’ve always wanted to see. You won’t have to rent a motel room, and you only have to pay for gas and incidentals. Do it with your family, or if you are single, share the day with a friend(s).
Spiritual Health Suggestions
The most important piece of recreation you can do over the summer is take care of your spiritual life. When my spiritual life was faltering a few years back, I decided to recharge it by studying one Bible story every day. With eyes closed, I flipped through the pages of my Bible and stopped (when I thought I was well passed the Old Testament) and found my index finger pointing to Matthew 2 – The Visit of the Wise Men (missed Malachi by a couple of pages!). 4 I went to some Bible commentaries and dug into Matthew 2 for a couple of hours in my office. As I studied, all a sudden out of nowhere, I came up with the little rhyme below:
“It so happened, late one night,
A star appeared and, at its sight,
Some magi, professors from somewhere in Persia,
Looked, and overcame inertia…”
What resulted from my summer Bible study were scores of Bible plays and two musicals done in rhyme.5 Not only was my spiritual life greatly strengthened, but so the spiritual life of my university, my drama students, and the thousands of people who saw those plays. I could never have predicted the blessings that would result of my summer study of the Scriptures.
As teachers of the Christian faith we must remember that just because we teach religion it doesn’t mean that we are somehow exempt from personal Bible study and spiritual growth. Here are three Spiritual re-creation strategies that you really can do if you aren’t doing them already.
1) Pray every day for friends, family, students, the ill, the poor, and the world. I sometimes even Lutheran teachers forget to pray.
2) Set aside time to read and study the Bible for yourself!
3) Take time to breathe and meditate daily on your abundant blessings from God.
I pray that God might bless you richly during your summer recess!
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in
righteousness, that the man (or woman) of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV)
1 In the Minnesota summers, I make birdhouses, walking sticks, and other “stuff” for kids, friends, and neighbors. You can’t think about work when making a birdhouse and your gift will put a smile on someone’s face. I also write little poems in respond to emails that I receive from friends. Lately, I’ve been making wooden “Equilateral Trinity Triangles” and crosses for Lutheran schools that I make from recycled wood!
2 We got lots ah dem iron mines up der in nordurn Minniesodah (sic).
3 This isn’t about more school prep, but you could “kill two birds’” by learning something new for yourself that you could share with students. Just sayin’.
4 I must admit that I tried to avoid Leviticus.
5 Twelve of them were published in a book titled, Sure Can Use a Little Good News and the two musicals were “Man Overboard” (The Book of Jonah in rhyme) and “Don’t Get Burned” (The three men in the fiery furnace). This also resulted in ten theatrical productions of the Bible plays and musicals spanning ten years, and a seventeen year run of my plays and more musicals with my Concordia University – St. Paul touring drama troupe, “The Good News Players.” Studying the Bible leads to all sorts of possibilities that we couldn’t imagine.
