Summer Teaching?

I need a lesson from George Bush - I'm so noncommittal.







Hey Ben,

So, I've been getting a lot of phone calls and e-mails
instructing me to complain to you for various reasons about
the whole summer teaching thing.

Allow me to be a voice of reason for a moment. Understand
that I'm pretty ambivalent and indifferent to it all -
intellectually I may agree with the voices of dissent on
this, but really, I'm here to do whatever I'm asked to do
until I get that diploma from Ole Miss. So, I just have a
few questions and points for you to clarify...

First of all, is it even feasible at this point that
complaining to you and anyone else, no matter how united we
are, will prevent this deal from going through?

What are the real benefits to the second years besides the
experience? I see a great deal of various rewards for the
program itself, the school district, and the first years,
but it really does seem like we're getting used and screwed
out of something better.

Lastly, and by far most importantly, the general consensus
is that most of us will be doing the bare minimum to get by
during the summer. Since this 'outrage' I'm sure will
sparkle and fade, the lingering fact is that none of us will
particularly care at all to do a good or even mediocre job
teaching the summer school students or helping the first
years out, which is a disservice to all involved and
contrary to the whole point of this. I'm not saying I'll be
in that lot, my personality being that I'll try my best
whether I like it or not, but in all honesty, it will be
difficult to bring an A game this summer if the majority of
my peers will be proactively against bringing their A games.

Oh, actually, one more thing: money. I'm not sure
necessarily how I feel about this - on the one hand, I
wasn't expecting to get paid for being a student this
summer, but on the other hand, we're going to be regular old
workers now instead of students. Philosophically there's a
difference I suppose but practically there really isn't.
Perhaps I'm being a bit greedy, because I know already that
money will be tight this summer for all of us and it will be
even worse for me personally for a few other reasons
(weekend trips back to Jackson to spend time with the
significant other among other things), but perhaps also
there's a middle ground to be reached, like a small stipend
of some sort. Even a check for $250 for the month for the
second years to help out with a home away from home, which I
can't imagine would run the bill up too much for Teacher
Corps, would certainly make it all a lot more manageable and
make me personally a much more willing 'free' laborer.
Again, maybe I'm being a bit greedy about this, but still,
doesn't hurt asking, right?

Anyway, Ben, I just want to get a clearer picture of what's
going on here, and I'm not nearly as upset about it all as
many others, but I am a little tired of having the same
"this isn't the program I signed up for" and "we deserve to
be paid" conversations without being able to stay out of it.