I decided the last time I taught summer school that it wasn't even remotely worth my time for the money I got. Seeing students every single day just wore me out, and I never did get as much other stuff done as I planned to, because the teaching was so exhausting.
I'd advise against it, especially if you're going to have to be spending more time in the office anyway. But that's just my experience!
I taught summer school my first two summers at St. Martyr's, then had a glorious summer off last year, and now am back to it this summer. I'm kind of dreading it, since it is work and I won't get as much of my own writing done as I did last summer, but it does pay well, and I knew that we were going to need the money. Our system sounds different than yours, which perhaps makes a difference; we meet two evenings a week, for 3 hours each meeting, for five weeks. The evening sessions take a lot of energy, and I'm so wired afterward that it throws off my sleep cycle, but the upside is that I have the entire day beforehand, and it's only twice a week, so I do still get other stuff done. I also have to say that I've found teaching summer school to be very rewarding; students are only taking two classes max, and that combined with the long class sessions means that the students actually pay a lot of attention and really can focus on the material much more than they do during the regular term. Also, I committed to myself the first two years not to teach any new material; this is a course that I regularly teach every fall anyway, and so I minimized the amount of preparation down to almost zero, which made a huge difference. I may break that rule for this summer since I want to restructure the class, but at least I'll be doing prep for the summer that will have an direct payoff when I'm teaching the class again in fall, so I'm willing to live with that.
Anyway, I don't know if any of this is helpful, but these are my thoughts on summer school. I'd still rather get a huge check for research funding and not have to teach, but that it outside the realm of possibility, so I take what I can get!
couldn't you use part of the moving into the office time for research, instead of teaching (those hours that you pictured teaching)?
I've taught every other summer for the past 6 years. each time I am surprised by how it takes over my days with the intensity of the classes. the students are usually highly motivated. the courses were almost always ones I hadn't taught before, so that might be why the preps took all available free time.
each time I think I won't do it again, but the combination of good money and new opportunity usually perusades me to do it anyway.
I usually teach during summer, but we get 12.5% of our annual pay for the first two summer courses, and I usually teach a web class so I'm not tied down to # hours per day in a classroom. (Just ### hours per day in front of the computer.)
That said, I am not convinced it's worth the money. I just can't resist the money, plus I like the course I usually teach. If you don't like the course, I'd run as fast as you can in the other direction.
As an undergrad, I did four years of summer school. From my perspective as a student, this was always my favorite term. I could spend two weeks or a month focusing on one or two subjects. It was hard work, and I didn't get much sleep, but I was able to be incredibly focused, a rare luxury for me, since my degree program usually had me taking 7-8 classes a term. I found that I wrote my best papers during the summer, studied harder, and participated more in class than I did during the regular year. Another plus was that the class sizes were always quite small, so classes felt like graduate seminars. Classes were casual (profs wore jeans or shorts), we felt free to speak up with questions, and everyone showed up every day, because each day in class was like a week -- too much time to skip. The profs and students often had lunch together. I really enjoyed chatting with them and learning about them as people.
I know that the profs and the students alike got really tired, but I treasured my summer school courses as times when I did some of my best learning.
A few years ago I taught my first summer class and loved it. The entire class was made up of teachers who came back for continuing education hours. They were great. The only drawback is that I couldn't assign the same amount of work as I would have during the school year (because there were only so many hours during the day to cram in the info), but the tradeoff in terms of intensity of learning was worthwhile. So if you do teach the class, scale back some of the assignments and reading from what you'd assign during the regular year (it will save your sanity as well as your students').
So yes, exhausting, but yes, rewarding.
I won't be teaching this summer and I am looking forward to the freedom to read and write. I don't mind teaching summer school per se--everyone's right, it is intense--but I would like to carve out a big chunk of time for reading, writing and organizing my life (personal and professional) and not feel like I have to get moving to meet some deadline.
How much of a move will you be undertaking? 20 huge boxes and three filing cabinets? 2 boxes and 1 filing cabinet? Depending on how much time you need to pack and sort and unpack, you may be able to swing teaching and researching.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
I did it once, tried a second time (the course didn't make enrollment, and I didn't feel like taking the pay cut that would go along with that), and decided that I would refrain in the future. But we're paid much less for summer sessions--after taxes, it's about $1000 (ugh).
The actual teaching wasn't especially draining, but it did eat up a lot of time. Moreover, the return just didn't seem to merit the effort. But YMMV.
I've only taught summer school once, and it was the summer between finishing my temp position and moving to my first TT position, so it wasn't ideal at all, but again, the money was the draw. I've taken language courses in the summer as a grad student, and liked the atmosphere a lot - it's a good setting for that kind of intense work, and you got an interesting mix of students b/c there were often people who went to other schools during the year picking up summer classes to get in their credits. I felt like I didn't get to know the students I taught in the summer, though, because it was such a short period (not the individual class meetings, which were longer, but that I only spend 5-6 weeks with them instead of 15).
Since then, I've never taught in the summer and I don't want to - I think I need the time to recharge and get excited again about starting teaching again in the fall. But if you decide the money is worth it (I'm hoping to teach in one of our summer study abroad things in a year or two, b/c I think you get about $7K for it!), I would suggest making sure it's a course you really like, and only covers stuff you're really comfortable with and don't need to prep much for (teaching all morning, then going home to realize you have to prep for the next (long) morning is kind of depressing). And also maybe easing up a little on what you expect them to do, because it is such an intense schedule. A friend of mine who teaches every summer admits that he doesn't try to get them to do as much as during the year, even though technically it's the same class/same number of credits, because it's just really hard to ask them to do a semester's worth of work in such a short period.
Good luck deciding! That money is awfully attractive...
We get paid a whole month's salary to teach an 8 week (one hour per day) summer school course, which is significantly better than $2500. At this pay rate I've taught summer school many times. However, I find that it's really disruptive of my research, so if I can get at least a month of summer salary from some other source (grants), then I won't teach summer school.
I've never taught summer before, but I did teach a winterterm class this year. A 3-credit course in 10 days, which included 2 exams, a paper and, oh yeah, teaching on New Year's Eve.
I got paid decently ($3000), but they taxed the living daylights out of it, so I think I got about half.
It *is* very strenuous to prepare a 3-hour class every day for 10 days. Even if you teach in summer, which may be more spread out, I think it would end up being more long classes than usual. What got me through was the prospect of all that $$$...$3000 divided by 10 days, even if it includes all the work I did preparing the classes, is an attractive figure.
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