You�re approaching retirement?
You have been teaching all your life?
Teaching children and teaching languages has been much more than a job for you, it has been a way of life, it has been a calling, a vocation, it has given your life sense and meaning.
You have been aware of the fact that you have been fulfilling an important function in your society, an important task that gave your life purpose.
Surely you found it more and more difficult to put up with the noise, the ever-increasing paperwork, the diversity of children, the fact that your society might expect far too much from school that parents are not willing or able to give their children any more. You came home more and more tired and relied on that little nap after school, before you pulled yourself together to prepare the lessons for the following day. But you had this purpose and this function and you loved to see those kids� or young people�s faces and enjoyed their moments of eagerness and interest.
Now this is soon going to be over, you are reaching your expiration date as a highly functional member of your society.
School has been such an important and such a large part of your life ... are you afraid of being left with too little? Of being bored, feeling useless? Or are you eager to do all the things that had to be put off for so many years because somehow between your own kids and those you taught in school you never had time?
Did you prepare yourself for this moment? Did you have illusions about it and have to unexpectedly re-define your post-teaching life? How do you deal with the big hole that is left in your day, your mind, your way of thinking?
How long after retirement do you think you will stop reading and coming across things and automatically reflecting on how they could be put to use in class?
Are you afraid that you, who had to juggle so many things at the same time and who ate "multitasking" for breakfast, lunch and dinner for decades, will soon find little chores tiring and complex that got done
Please share your thoughts and experiences with me. I�ve got a while to go, but many of the co-workers I�ve been with are leaving or have recently left, so these thoughts preoccupy me.
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