Summer Reading

This past week I began my twentieth year as a high school social studies teacher.

After the excitement of last school year, this summer was a much-needed break. In fact, I gave myself more of a break than I normally do. Many non-educators often comment about how nice it must be to have summers off. But here’s the thing…it doesn’t matter what the date on the calendar says, we never stop being teachers. I typically plan a little here and there all summer to get ready for the next school year. I start that process at the end of May. It makes things much easier to start back up in August if I don’t leave too much to do.

Except…I didn’t do that this year. From the day school ended in May all the way until the last day of June, I forbade myself from doing ANYTHING school-related. I NEEDED the break after nine months of teaching both in-person and virtual. Once July hit, I eased back into “teacher mode.”

So what did I do with my time? You know, I’m not actually sure. I know I played Fortnite and Minecraft quite a bit. We took a short family trip to San Antonio. I started watching Game of Thrones for the first time. (I’m almost done…three episodes left. Hopefully, the ending isn’t as awful as I’ve heard it is.) Beyond that, I just relaxed as much as possible and tried to take care of myself. As of this writing, I’ve dropped eighteen pounds since the end of May. I’d like to lose about 15 more. I’ll probably write more about that later.

I also read some, but not as much as usual for a summer break.

I’ve written previously about how being a history nerd has its advantages while shopping in bookstores. Often, there will be really good history books in the bargain section because most average readers don’t want to take a deep dive into biographies of people who died 150-200 or more years ago. But I do! At the beginning of the summer, I found a biography of Frederick Douglass by David Blight in the bargain section of Books-A-Million. I bought the Pulitzer Prize-winning book for $5.00. Gotta love it.

When I teach about abolition and the buildup to the Civil War, Frederick Douglass inevitably comes up, if only as a passing reference. I have a lot of content to cover, so there are years when I don’t even mention him by name. But then once the war is over, Douglass really isn’t mentioned again in most textbooks, or, by default, in my AP US History class. That treatment of him in survey courses really doesn’t do Douglass justice. Even though slavery was abolished after the Civil War, he remained a pivotal figure in the next few decades as he continued to fight for equality for African Americans and women. Douglass died in 1895, one year shy of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision that legalized de jure segregation. I can only imagine what his response would have been if he’d been alive.

I’ve also been reading a moral philosophy book. It’s a little deep, so I can only read about five pages at a time. Even then, I’m not sure how much sank in, but I suppose it’s good to challenge my brain a bit. The only other book I read this summer was Elie Wiesel’s Night. It’s a quick read, and a little depressing (okay, a lot depressing), but his Nobel Speech at the end of the version I bought was very inspiring.

Now that the school year has begun, I’m not sure how much leisure reading I will do. There are other projects and such around here that I want to get started on once it cools off in the next couple of months.