Eric Baylin's
Songs to Brighten
A Teacher's Day

The concept of a day of rest dates to ancient times, but the notion of a two-day buffer between five-day work weeks is a relatively new innovation. And what a brilliant, life-saving innovation it is!

Imagine a teacher's life without weekends -- those two days we use to re-coup and re-charge for the next round of classes, meetings, parent conferences, fire drills in the middle of student presentations, and unexpected visits from supervisors. Surely, we would all develop nervous tics, accelerated memory loss, and personality disorders. The weekend -- truly a sacred time and well worth celebrating with song.

Thank goodness for weekends.
You surely know why.
Without those two days
We would never get by.
From Monday to Friday,
We give all we've got.
By the time the week's over
We've emptied the pot.

Well, the stress starts a'mounting
By Wednesday for sure.
By late Thursday p.m.,
We may not endure.
Come Friday, our spirits
Pick up around noon,
"Cause the weekend is coming,
And, oh, none too soon.

There's time for fine dining,
And sipping fine wine,
To stare out the window,
To order online,
A chance to sleep later,
A chance to breathe clear,
Until late Sunday evening,
When Monday looms near.

Imagine if we didn't
Have those two days.
We'd work till we dropped,
And we'd still get no raise.
Don't call me, don't e-mail;
The weekend's for me.
It can all wait 'til Monday,
For two days I'm free.
We may not be changing
The world right away,
But teaching rewards us
Without that much pay.
No doubt it's fulfilling,
And yet we depend
On those two days -- and better
A three-day weekend.

Song lyrics copyright 2005 Eric Baylin