Buying Busy

In going back to school this year I have discovered two things about education: It is time consuming and it is costly.  It looks a great deal as if the carefree summer I so greatly prize is going to be cut in half by educational activities.  I suppose it's about time; I can't have summer vacations forever.  Eventually, like so many other teachers, I'll have to sell them for something: a second job, more education, extracurricular activities that pay a stipend, etc.  But I look forward so to my summer of freedom.  Mind you, I don't waste it.  I keep busy every possible moment with climbing, reading, cooking, traveling, biking, hanging out with friends, hiking, camping, watching movies, and adventuring as much as possible with as many friends as I can squeeze into my life. 

But this year it looks as if there will be no drastic hair change to look forward to, and only a marginal increase in free time until June is over.  Three days one week are taken up with training for the new Common Core that will be implemented next year.  One week is a trip to Boston for my Teaching American History Cohort (I can hardly complain about that, true.).  Another week will be consumed by a 2 credit teaching creativity class I'm planning to sign up for. (It's for my G/T endorsement, and since I'll be teaching one class of G/T next year, I'll need all the help I can get for that.)  And today, I decided to sign up for a class on the Holocaust for my one remaining free week.  Sigh.  It's all stuff I'm looking forward to learning (with the except of the Common Core training--bleck), but it will cost me hundreds of dollars I don't want to spend, and the opportunity cost in adventure and relaxation time makes me cringe. 

But it will give me knowledge I will need to teach next year.  It will mean that I'll have amassed a great deal of cheap college credit, about $425 for 12 credits, and that I'll be more than half way to changing lanes on my salary schedule.  I may be able to make it up to 15 credits if I really sell my soul.  I'm proud of all that.  I feel like I'm progressing in my career, using my time, becoming a better teacher, and learning things I've always wanted to learn. 

But some part of me is saying that I'm just buying being busier.  By the end of this school year and summer, I will have paid $425 to lose 1/7 of my evenings to class (not counting homework for class), one day of teaching a month, a free weekend during my winter, and a month of my summer.

Sigh.