We get it. You’re a well-meaning friend, acquaintance, or family member who is curious about how our lives are going or wanting to know when we’ll be more or less available to hang out. Perhaps you’ve got your bowl of popcorn out, preparing to watch the demise of American education (especially higher ed) and you want to know when it’s okay to tap out for a bathroom break, so you don’t miss anything spectacular.

But please, stop asking us when school starts. It’s tantamount to a personal attack at this point.

See, for many of us teachers, summer break is when we can relax and breathe again. I know I went a bit feral this summer, letting my side shave grow out and barely wearing makeup (which is worth mentioning since, without makeup, my face looks like that of a hungover 15-year-old; hardly ideal for a college professor).

Many of us are returning to hostile work environments: we can’t say gay, we can’t respect students’ pronouns and nick/names, we are told to arm ourselves because gun violence is *shrug* inevitable in schools. Granted, some of us face hostile environments at home as well, so I suppose for some teachers, returning to school in the fall is a relief.

Plus it’s not like I laze around eating bon-bons in the summer; first of all, they would definitely melt all over me in the Indiana summer heat, which is made both worse and weirder by global warming. Second, I’m pretty much always working (writing, dancing, etc.), I just get to eat lunch at home instead of meal-prepping for a week’s worth of lunches, and that is a special summer-time joy for me, since I also delight in visiting my local farmer’s markets to pick out fresh produce to cook throughout the week.

The rhythm of summertime life allows many of us the rest we so desperately need, as so many teachers are teetering on the edge of burnout. It’s been worse, of course, in the pandemic, with the pivot to online teaching (and I swear, if anyone says “pivot” to me in a regular conversation I might just scream, that’s how sick of it we are), along with the larger emotional loads we carry when our students need additional help figuring out things that are more intuitive in IRL settings, and the expectations that we do more with less that, well, teachers have basically always had put on us.

And I’m in higher ed, where at least I don’t have to buy crayons for my students out of pocket (but I’ve watched my mom and countless other teachers do so over the years). We have, however, been informed that due to budget cuts we will be responsible for moving the trash from the bins in our offices to designated trash cans around campus. This is not hugely burdensome – which I can only really say because I have minor invisible disabilities, which is not true for all my colleagues – and hopefully this new policy will lead to many riffs on the “taking out the trash” jokes; maybe while taking out the trash we can also take out neoliberalism and the eagerness to embrace AI? (my new fave rant on the matter is here, I don’t know who this person is other than a data scientist but I love their brain)

Thus, any reminder that school is starting soon is also a reminder that we teachers are tasked with the gigantically important job of helping guide our culture’s young, while not given adequate pay or supplies or support to fulfill said task. It’s a reminder that our time without grading papers and checking for plagiarism is over, and if there were ever an onerous task, trust me, it is having a policy stating that AI use in the classroom is plagiarism, but still knowing I’ll need to enforce this policy, which both is an energy drain for me and something that feels like quite a failure, given how I try so hard to give extensions on papers when requested and assert to my students that I want to read their thoughts, not stolen words that have been sifted through a mediocre sieve, like the crappiest confectioner’s sugar to go atop the world’s worst cupcake. That I still have to eat, because it’s my job.

You could contribute to these reminders, or you could just say that you hope the semester starts off well for us, and perhaps leave some wine and chocolate at our doorstop while you’re at it, since between the low pay most teachers see and the continuing attacks on academic freedom at all levels of teaching, we’re gonna need it. I’m not saying I’ve been having increasing panic attacks leading up to the start of the semester, but I’m not not saying it either.

So, thoughts and prayers please…or not, because I’m an atheist-voting, agnostic-leaning Jewish-flavored human. Let’s go with tots and pears instead, because I am a very food-motivated critter, like many both domesticated and undomesticated creatures.

Or, maybe things will be okay. I lost my ID on campus a few days ago (darn those dresses with pockets that are not very deep!), and was emailed the next day to let me know that someone found it. I met some of our incoming students and they are inquisitive, lovely humans. I am working with colleagues to design some new courses that will address lesser-known aspects of history and culture while teaching critical thinking skills, and those are some of the things I love most about my job, seeing the students reach those “aha!” moments about how complex culture is, how important it is to do good research, how much we all have yet to learn about this ridiculously cruel and and wondrous and multi-layered social world we inhabit.

In case you’re wondering, today’s the first day of classes for me. So wish me luck (and again, not gonna say no to wine), and wish all the other teachers and learners and support staff and really everyone in education good luck as well. Help us do our jobs by not traumatizing us with reminders about our jobs, maybe instead using that energy to vote in people who trust teachers and understand that there is something worth saving here.

See you on the other side of the semester, and solidarity to you, my fellow teachers.