For reasons beyond my pay grade, my former school district had decided to bring all of us back into the classroom for the last day of the school year for a half-day on a Monday. Somehow that seems like a fitting metaphor for my experiences in public education, the need to generate a lot of energy and effort for minimal outcome/results. I’m glad that I took this picture, or I might not have remembered that on that last day all of the periods were 20-minutes, and that our normal homeroom period (Mentorship) was a full hour at the end of the day. Why a full hour? I have no idea, and the hour must have passed without incident, because I have no memory of what we did for the hour.
Then after we dismissed our students, teachers met in the cafeteria for one last goodbye. I think I got a little “thank you” placard-thingy. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon closing out my classroom, removing all of my personal belongings and organizing things for whomever would follow in my footsteps.1 I worked on my room until 5PM and then finished up the next day around 10AM.
I have to laugh when I think about my exit-interview with my administrator, when she commented that I would get bored and miss teaching. She was a hard working administrator who came on board when we were losing administrators and teachers by the dozens and really tried to keep things afloat. But her comment showed how little she knew me. I have not had one moment of boredom in the 365 days that have passed since turning in my keys and driving away from campus. I sometimes miss interacting with some students and my colleagues and some of the sense of accomplishment at facing the endless challenges of fitting square pegs in round holes. But there hasn’t been any boredom over the past year. I’m just now getting comfortable setting my own schedule and deciding on what was worthy of my time and attention.
I loved what I did (for the past 28-years), but I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to have this new chapter in my life, that I’m still here trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing, that I get to meet and make new friends and new challenges. I’m almost done re-editing my academic portfolio and it’s been an amazing opportunity to revisit all the places and people I’ve worked and studied with. And there are quite a few whom I began this journey with who are no longer with us and that’s part of the story too. Tomorrow is the anniversary of when I turned in my keys and left campus, but today was the last day when I met with students and we said our goodbyes. … Fond memories…
Tags: 365 days later, adventures in education, nothing says retired, retired teacher, the intentional educator
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FOOTNOTES:- Truth be told, they had hired someone, I sent administration a detailed list of robotics inventory and what could be done next year to improve the program. I never received an acknowledgment of my information and the person they hired quit less than two weeks into the new school year. From what I hear they used substitutes all year to house students in the room, but I’m doubtful that they ever did anything with the robots. Sad.[↩]
