1. Teaching is a wonderful but really demanding job. If we didn't just stop for a week or so every term, we'd combust. Fact.
2. Children are brilliant. A break from them (especially when they don't even belong to you) is equally brilliant.
3. The school day/week/term, does not allow for such onerous tasks that can be categorised under the banal heading of 'Life Admin'. For 'Life Admin', read haircut, MOT, dentist, awkward conversation with bank manager, etc.
4. Most teachers I know see half past nine in the evening on a regular week night as a crazily late night. The holidays allow us to exist as normal human beings and roll into bed around midnight: kerazy.
5. It is not natural to get up at six o'clock every morning and to start your job the very second you walk through the door. Afternoon naps are essential to well-being and are therefore a fundamental part, nay right, of the school holidays.
6. Most teachers like to be intellectually challenged. The holidays allow them to, ooh, read an actual novel - and not just a book they've got to teach.
7. Contrary to the nonsense bandied around by Gove and his slanderous minions, teachers are not clock-watching shirkers, but dedicated professionals whose daily working lives are the equivalent of being dropped into a spin dryer, mid-cycle. We need to escape the frenetic pinball machine (pardon the mixed metaphor) every so often.
8. Someone has to book holidays that keep travel agents afloat in the ridiculously over-priced slot that is the school holidays.
9. Teachers are *whispers* real human beings too. They have family and friends that they need to reconnect with. My fabulous friend, Sazzle (also a teacher) calls it 'regrouping'. It generally involves pyjama wearing and attempting to get to the bottom of the laundry basket.
10. Come into work with me for just one day and shadow me or any one of my fabulous colleagues: you won't need to read numbers 1 to 9 above.
I appreciate this post may wind some people up; I care not. If you're really that bothered, go to university, complete the massively challenging teacher training and hop on board. It's a blast!
PS. Happy half term to all you lovely teacher folk!
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