Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. ~J. Lubbock Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.~Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A. Milne There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes When a man retires and time is no longer a matter of urgent importance, his colleagues generally present him with a watch.~R.C. Sherriff Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can't retire his experience. He must use it.~Bernard Baruch
Retirement is the long awaited dream, the arrival of days when a person
hangs up his or her working clothes
in exchange for those of a person of leisure.
Or so I thought, until I somehow... well, read the story to find out!
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:
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:
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 class at 2 schools(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, and 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!
Part of my work at each school is maintaining the websites I have built for the school. A list follows describing some of what can be seen at the websites.
These links to my school websites will open in a new window.
Joanne Johnson, "Retired" Teacher
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