Re-Retired

My two weeks coming to a close at The San Francisco School and I have to say my energy remains high. I often wonder if I could have made it to 50 years of teaching here and the answer seems to be yes. Of course, two weeks is different from all year and I have to remind myself that subbing requires no report cards, staff meetings, yard duties, defending the school’s culture and character when it seems to be endangered. All factors that indeed led to my decision to “retire.”

 

But in terms of the energy flow between me and the kids I’ve just taught, the full range between three-years-old and 8^th grade, I feel just fine. Nice to wake up planning the next nuance of the next class and look forward to seeing some of the same kids again.

 

And I’m far from done! Tomorrow after my last school class of 5^th graders, I head down to our summer Orff training spot in Carmel Valley to teach at an Orff Mini-conference, back on Sunday, off on Monday to fly to Toronto and then three more weeks of teaching at a different school. So it will be a five-week marathon before I exhale and feel the sensation of retiring again and doing real retirement things like walking in the Yorkshire Dales and biking in the Dolomites, some four weeks without a class plan in sight! 

One of the grand pleasures of being a music teacher free from required material and paint-by-number curriculum is the freedom to teach what you love and choose what you do each day based on what you feel. What song do I need at this moment? What song do the kids need? Does the culture need? 45 minutes from now, I’ll lead a Singing Tim with K-3^rd graders and am thinking about doing a song I’ve never taught at the school—What a Wonderful World. Alongside playing the Louis Armstrong version. That’s what I’m feeling now.