On Friday I met a young guy who I hadn't seen for a long time. Well, I should go back and edit my last sentence. He really wasn't a young guy anymore. He floored me by telling me that he would retire from teaching in two years!
In my teacher years, did I tell you I've been retired for 22 years? , I was a department head for the last 10 years. I was a department head in three different areas. I enjoyed being department head as we were able to work as a group and set up a standard program in an area. It's much more efficient to work as a group.
One of the things I got to do from time to time is be part of a committee that interviewed teachers applying for a position. Somebody would go through all the applications for a job and pick out three that we would interview.
So here's where I first met "young man." He was one of the three picked for an interview. One applicant was in his 40's and had taught in a rural area. One standard question was how would you teach this lesson? The guy missed it completely. The second applicant was a woman in her 30's who was working on a master's program. We thought she was just looking for a short term position. The kid was 21 and applying for his first job. He nailed the lesson. After the interviews and we were going over things we decided to take the kid. Give him a chance. If he didn't turn out we could let him go as it was a contract but we wanted to take a good look at someone for a permanent contract and this was a chance for us and him.
Well, that was 1992. Obviously we kept him. Obviously he could teach. I liked watching him teach as he would involve the kids in the procedure. No just sitting there in a day dream for those kids. They had to participate.
So the other day when I met "him" I was surprised that for him retirement was right around the corner.
Time had really gone by me on this one.
