For high school teachers who are "midway in our life's journey" or nearing the end of your teaching career, I encourage you to watch Riley Moynes' TEDTalk on "How to squeeze all the juice out of retirement." This talk can prepare you for some retirement transitions that aren't always so pleasant yet hold much potential for growth and flourishing. Even if so-called retirement seems far away, there are some good things to start thinking about in terms of how you can flourish in these later years.
Moynes sets up the following (not-always-sequential) four phases of retirement:
1. Vacation
2. Grief & loss
3. Trial & error
4. Renewal
I experienced about two months of vacation (Phase one) last summer after retiring from full-time high school English teaching. Early in the summer, I was signing up to teach and try out a few sections of English at the local community college in the fall (Phase three). I'd taught college-level English courses before, but throughout the year I discovered important shifts in my planning as I noticed a mix of college-ready and not-quite-ready-for-college students in my courses. My part-time work was often full-time planning.
Moynes' rightly characterizes Phase 3 as "a time of trial and error. In phase three, we ask ourselves, 'How can I make my life meaningful again? How can I contribute?'"
At times this summer, I slipped into grief & loss over my working relationships (Phase two). Having retired rather young, I've sometimes anxiously been considering whether I want to start a new career. To help me lessen my anxiety, a wise mentor suggested that I think in terms of how I might do life differently during this span of time. That did help.
Looking back, I see how aptly Rick Moynes categorizes the "big five" losses of Phase two:
"We lose that routine. We lose a sense of identity. We lose many of the relationships
that we had established at work. We lose a sense of purpose, and for some people,
there's a loss of power. Now we don't see these things coming. We didn’t see these losses coming,
and because they happen all at once, it’s like, poof, gone."
On a different note for me, almost a week away from starting to teach my college composition classes, I'm enjoying some more trial & error thinking (Phase three), and I get little whispers of renewal in terms of purpose, function, enjoyment, and flourishing (Phase four). Perhaps returning to blogging is part of that renewal.
I somewhat blogged my way through the pandemic and produced a little over 100 entries before discontinuing early last year. I think Moynes' four phases relate well to grief and loss that many of us experienced in relation to the pandemic.
Speaking of renewal, I've enjoyed revisiting Park Palmer's The Courage to Teach. He's also inspired a more recent publication about The Courage to Learn. More on those books in future posts. Palmer helped found The Center for Courage & Renewal, which is a good place for educators to visit, especially if retirement is still a long way off.
