Traveling vs. Teaching
To Go or Not To Go on that Professionally Inconvenient Vacation
Oliver Sacks was a hunk.
The neurologist slash author became well-known for his writings about various neurological disorders he came across in his practice including one described in the title of his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. One of his other books became the 1990 movie Awakenings. Robin Williams played Dr. Sacks.
In the yoga room of my Oaxacan bed and breakfast I found a book of his titled Oaxaca Journal. I had read his autobiography a few years ago so this slim book with his name in print larger than the book title itself caught my eye as it lay amongst a pile of typical travel books, popular American fiction, and one German title. He had become a more popular author by this 2012 edition I was now reading.
I don’t remember how I came to be introduced to Dr. Sacks, but I know for sure what led me to his autobiography: the studly pictures of him in his strapping youth sitting on a motorcycles and weightlifting. Discovering that he was a gay man only accelerated my interest in the British neurologist’s life story.
Oaxacan Journal follows the intensely curious Sacks and some members of the New York chapter of the American Fern Society on a botanical tour of Oaxaca in the early aughts. They are looking for ferns. That’s it. Just ferns. The book is definitely a nerd read or, at least, starts off with a nerd premise.
However, Sacks pulls you in with historical interludes about Oaxaca and Mexico as well as compelling descriptions of the various personalities traveling with him. I also loved how I was often visiting the very same places he was writing about in the journal. It was a perfect book to read on my vacation in this part of Mexico.
There is one point in his trip where an elderly Dr. Sacks decides not to go an a high elevation excursion because the rattling bus ride would only aggravate his bad back. When his friends return excited by the ferns and flora they had seen he admits regretting his decision to stay in town.
But at this point in his life he admits that traveling has become harder for him physically.
That scenario in the journal parallels a conversation I overheard at LAX when I was returning from Guyana this spring.
An older woman was telling a younger couple as we all waited by the baggage carousel that she and her husband had just returned from the Galapagos Islands. The woman, who must’ve been in her 60s, added, “We only have a few of those trips left in us.”
What she said struck me.
It’s so very true, we have a finite number of trips in us. Most of us are not going to get to see everything we want to see or go where we want to go. And time is always running out as well as is money, as well as is our physical stamina.
In 2017 my boyfriend’s Swiss cousin was getting married in Croatia. We were invited. I was teaching kindergarten in the Pico-Union-Koreatown area of LA.
The problem was that the nuptials were scheduled the same week as the first week of school.
The amount of angst in me about missing the first week of school was pretty high. I mean, IT’S THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL!
The professional price for me to go on this trip was going to be pretty steep.
Not only was I limited to a certain number of personal days IF approved by my principal (who was reluctant but understanding), but I also in addition had to take days off that I just wouldn’t ever get paid for. No sick days allowed for a wedding after all.
Also, my absence would start the school year on a bad footing with the students, the parents, and even the administration. I mean, what irresponsible, unprofessional, selfish teacher takes the first week of school off?
Well, this one does.
I went on the trip anyway. And it was an unforgettable experience of a lovely family wedding in pictureasue Rovinj, Croatia as well as a side trip to Venice, Italy.
I don’t regret taking the trip despite the fact that my classroom management suffered for at least the first four months of the 2017-18 school year precisely because I had missed that crucial first week in kindergarten. It was a tough decision, but I was never going to get the chance again.
I know many teachers who find themselves in this position at least once in their careers.
Depending on your seniority, your bank of personal days, your relationship with the administration, and the uniqueness of the trip, I’d say take the damn trip.
Bon voyage.