Teachers are unsung heroes. They are selfless humans who pour their hearts and souls into the lives of children. However, their compensation often leaves a lot to be desired. This explains why many teachers take summer jobs instead of summer vacations. In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, we thought we'd share a few things that happen when teachers don’t take their much-needed time off.
1. BURN OUT. This is obvious, but well worth mentioning. While the stress of teaching is both physical and emotional, there is scientific evidence that taking vacations is a must, and it helps on every level. In fact, a University of Vienna study found that when people took vacations, they had fewer stress-related afflictions like headaches, backaches and heart irregularities. But the results weren’t just temporary: they still felt better five weeks later.
2. CLOCK OBSESSED. Unlike people in the corporate world who have ordinary start times for meetings, teachers become fixated on the clock. Everything is regimented. If a teacher is late, it sets everyone and everything back. Further, they must adhere to weird start and end times–like 7:55 a.m. or even, 2:14 p.m. Vacations help get teachers’ eyes get off the clock and on to the soothing blue hues of an ocean or a soul-stirring sunset, which goes way beyond just the aesthetic: it’s soul food.
3. THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS KICKS IN. The longer teachers go without a vacation, chances are, their output will suffer. Considering this, here’s a fact to pay attention to: Ernst & Young conducted an internal study of its employees and discovered that for each additional 10 hours for vacation time that their employees took, their year-end performance ratings improved eight percent.
4. INSULATED. Not that a class room is suffocating: on the contrary, it can be a powerful incubator for young minds, as well as mentally stimulating for teachers. But like everyone, teachers need a change of scenery. But here’s why. According to Hope Heldmar, a teacher we interviewed, getting away, far away, from the class room, like traveling, allows you to “see the world.” She said, “You’re able to bring back stories to help teach your kids, to help you connect with them. These experiences can help with everything from a word problem to science.”
5. NO TIME TO BE STILL. Aside from teachers becoming impatient, missing important details and letting things bug them that normally wouldn’t, they’re also on a churn, a never-ending treadmill of lesson planning (among other things) at night and on the weekends. Doing nothing is so important. Here’s what Tim Krieder says about it in his book, “The Busy Trap”: “Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration – it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.”
In honor of National Teacher Appreciation Day and Week, we’re doing some serious appreciating of these amazing, selfless heroes ourselves with Beach4EveryBreak. We’re giving away four stress-busting trips to one outstanding teacher who will get to vacay during his/her four yearly breaks at these sandsational resorts: Secrets The Vine Cancun, Now Amber Puerto Vallarta, Dreams Delight Playa Bonita Panama and Dreams Dominicus La Romana.
How do they win? It’s easy. In a creative poem–sonnet, limerick or haiku–tell us why your nominee should win and they could be hitting the sun ‘n surf. You’ll get good feels all over and of course, so will they.
Regardless of whether you’re a teacher or not, everyone deserves a summer break. All you have to do is call 1-800-915-3162 and one of our sea-savvy Beachologists will set you up on a rockin’ all-inclusive vacation package to the Caribbean and Mexico. If you want to browse our beaches on your own, just go here. Moral of this story: Everyone needs the beach. Lesson learned.
