Keeping retirement weird. I retired five years ago from teaching. Here’s how that day went. A post from 2012.
June 8th 2012
We celebrated another end to another project at 9:30 this morning.
All of the students lined the main hallway. Then on cue the fifth grade girls and boys paraded down and out the front door to waiting parents taking pictures with their phones.
They are done with us. We are done with them. They are on to middle school.
In the span of ten weeks they will go from the mightiest to the lowliest.
As it has always been.
Most of them aren’t truly aware that this is the transition they are about to embark on. It may occur to them in early August. Then there will be a sense of terror for some as the realization sinks in.
But they will survive.
Some will return next year to say hi, seeking the feeling that you get eating comfort food.
Then they will disappear completely.
A few will come back their senior year in high school. They will show up and speak to their former teachers with a politeness we never thought possible when they sat in our classrooms.
However, they will not be speaking to me.
This year Karen, Cathy, Glenna and I paraded behind them.
We are the retirees.
Joining the parade was not our idea. The fifth grade teachers invited us. I thought it was a bit awkward. I felt this was the fifth graders’ moment. I had been honored enough with a series of Keeping retirement weird. I retired five years ago from teaching. Here’s how that day went. A post from 2012. | Fred Klonsky: