Missing Teaching Does Not Mean I Want to Go Back In The Classroom

As I freshly minted graduate, I mean retiree, I miss my old routine. I miss the joys of school. Most of all, I miss the people: my colleagues and students with whom I have learned for most of my life.

While I look back fondly on my life as a teacher, I do not want to go back to the classroom. I could add a “yet” there, but the truth is that I don’t know if I will ever go back. I’m not sure. I certainly do not miss the papers or the politics!

I have relished my summer, which for the first time ever was a real vacation.  I felt free in a way I never have in the past. As the school year starts, I am enjoying finding a new rhythm and finding new ways to learn, share, and contribute. My post-teaching life is still very novel.

People asked me what I was going to do in retirement. Some challenged me saying that they struggled to “fill” their retirements or find purpose. Rather than jumping into a new job or selling the house and moving away, I am giving myself at least one year to explore and find out who I am when I am not teaching. I am calling it my gap year.

The “rules” I have given myself are that I am not going to make any major commitments for about a year. I am not taking another teaching job. I am not taking a long-term substitute position. I am not going to fill my time with busyness just to be busy. I am keeping my hand down - for now.

However, that doesn’t mean that I can’t sign up for classes (I already have) and start projects. That doesn’t mean I am sitting at home; I just don’t want to be as busy as I have been when I was working full time.

Nor do I think I will be bored. I am very good at filling my time; maybe I am too good at it and this is an opportunity to slow down, reflect, and rediscover.

I have a long list of things I want to explore. My “to be read” pile of books is ginormous and my “to be watched” list of movies and TV shows spans decades. I am so fortunate that my wife retired with me. We will explore this together. We want to travel and share our newfound freedom.

Almost everyone has suggestions for me. I should become a travel agent, writer, charity volunteer, college essay consultant, or life cycle officiate. I have lost track of the number of times people have said to me, “You know what you should do…” I am not rejecting all those ideas. I will explore some of them. Right now, however, I don’t want to become something else. I want to really to explore this in-between state and enjoy my new retired status.

I live next door to the school at which I taught for thirty-three years. I hear the bells ring! I see the busses and kids and my colleagues going about life as usual. I do miss it. More so, I miss them. Yet I can miss being a teacher while not wanting to return to the classroom. I helped with the concession stand at a recent football game and I plan to attend other events. I am looking forward to the fall play!

But time runs in only one direction and I cannot go back. So I will continue to blog and photograph and explore  - and share some thoughts here. Don’t mistake my nostalgia for a wish to return. I am on a new path and, thus far, I am relishing it. Keep reading: I’ll keep you up to date!