The very first years of retirement from teaching seemed so golden and filled
with the joy of choosing to do whatever I wanted to do. I could not wait for
the first summer to end to see what it would feel like on the first day of
school and I didn't go!
Another friend, already retired, and I celebrated the
first day of school by going out to breakfast! I savored the feeling of freedom,
the childlike abandon with which I could spend my days. There were gardening,
the exercise club, sewing whenever I wanted to. In fact, I was doing whatever
I felt like doing and whenever I wanted to do it.
In one of those years,
I became interested in computers
and worked at learning about using them: Photoshop, Illustrator, MS Word, Corel
Painter and just about any computer program I could find. I was even staying
up to all hours creating websites! What fun!
Yes, it was wonderful.
But then, I began to wonder what it would be like
to be back at school, to hear the bell ring, see kids scrambling at the door
after lunch to enter the school for the afternoon session, to go to faculty
meetings, to complain about this and that with my peers. Most of all,
though, I missed the feeling of happiness that comes when a hard fought lesson
turns on a light in a child's head! I wanted to see that expression on kids'
faces again! Being a substitute teacher seemed a very good way of getting back
to the classroom and all those experiences, but not all the way back, to pick
and choose which days to go, or, to not go! That worked for a couple of years.
One thing led to another...
I am back in the classroom, hearing those school bells ring, attending meetings, teaching! Yes! I am teaching computer (all that knowledge I acquired in my days of freedom)to students in Kindergarten through Grade 8! I teach them everything I love about Photoshop, MS Word, Excel, Power Point. I love it!
I have signed on at both schools for another year.
Sure, I am ready for
summer vacation and a much needed rest, but I know that when the shadows grow
longer, as they do here in Rhode Island sometime in mid to late August and
the dew stays on the grass longer in the early mornings, I will be ready
to go back to school. I will be saying "Oh,
I cannot wait for the first day of school!"
I am enjoying my retirement in a much different way than I thought I would!
Joanne Johnson, "Retired" Teacher