Maybe I will go back and get that civil engineering or architecture degree. But I’ll get the designer thing set up first. 
The best part is that the youngest students will HATE you for studying and bringing up the class average. Just don’t ramble on about your life experience, no matter how pertinent it may seem. Then they’ll have a reason to hate you.
Hmmm. I’m starting to notice a common theme in all these responses… Guess I might have to tell that voice in my head to shut up…
One of my favorite professors was in her late fifties when she got her PhD. Her grandchildren planned the party to celebrate her achievement. She’d taught at the elementary level for most of her life, and then decided she wanted to teach English at the university level. Just thinking about her now makes me smile, because I admired her so much for pursuing her interest like that when some might have told her she was too old.
Go for it.
Daffyd, are you dealing with the English public-school system (Toronto District School Board) or the English separate-school system (Toronto Catholic Disctrict School Board)? Or are you dealing with the public French system or separate French system? (I know someone who teaches at le Collège Français, the public French high school, in downtown Toronto.)
Have you looked at a position in Mississauga? That’s a different English school board.
Have you tried for a position at a private school (anything from Upper Canada College (where the upper crust’s kids study) to private religious schools (Islamic, Christian) to private schools for immigrants)?
One more, do it. Got my Masters at 49.
Being in the center of downtown, I’m pretty much trapped with the District in Toronto… and being Gay, I’m not exactly welcome, and wouldn’t be comfortable working in Catholic or Religious schools…
I saw there are other districts like Mississauga, but they would require ALOT of commuting… And after having to commute for hours every day in California for many years, I can’t even imagine doing it here - especially when it snows! Just getting across the downtown can take half an hour in good weather here it seems!
I live about a block from the College Francais, so I know where you’re talking about… and even though I just got back from 3 months of French classes in France to improve my French, I don’t think anyone would want me speaking French in a classroom (or anywhere else) yet…
My friend is Gay and lives even closer to the Collège. 
A google search on “private school toronto” yields interesting results.
Yes, commuting is Teh Evil, especially on the 401. I’m so glad I take the bus.
Three months of French classes in France? I’m jealous. I think I’m going to go back to the Alliance Française on Spadina in the fall and resume classes again. I miss it. And there’s always that low-level feeling of shame at not being able to speak it.
Hey, I’ll be 48 when I graduate too. Welcome to the club! We’re kind of exclusive, but you qualify. 
My Grandfather returned to school around age 40 and managed to get a medical degree with TWO different specialties, he was an ophthalmologist and an ENT specialist. He practiced medicine for many years before retiring. Go for it.
I’m an older student currently at a four year university. I went back at age 38 and am 41 now. Older students are actually very common at my school. It’s been great, and I’m even thinking about grad school now.
I love hearing the stories of people going back to school in their 40’s and taking up new careers… Just these few things are helping me to overcome that internal voice that says I’m too old…
Since it’s a course for people who already have college degrees, I don’t think it would be filled with “kids”, but I don’t want to be the “old man” of the class…
That’s the exact reason we bought a place downtown… I think we use our car maybe once a month since we moved here… It’s so amazing to be able to walk to everything in the middle of a huge city.
It’s even more shameful when you come back and still fumble around and sound totally English… Although I can now watch movies in French and pretty much understand them.
I’ve been trying to decide between taking classes at Alliance Francaise or finding a tutor on craigslist… Decisions, decisions… 
Thanks! My goal is to graduate before I get mail from the AARP though… Or is it the CARP here?
Just another voice saying that it’s not too old Daffyd. I’m 42 and in June will finally finish a law degree that I’ve been doing part-time for five and a half years. I’ve found the study in my “more mature” years considerably more rewarding than that of my late teens.
No guarentees. Obviously it isn’t the same school, but my grad school class was about half 25 or less, a quarter 30ish–with a fair range on the ish, and a quarter 35 and up–with a few being way up.
I had one classmate, male, who fought in Vietnam. (The Vietnam war was mostly over before I was born, and I was in the 30ish group).
In conversation with people not neccessarily making midlife career changes, I think it is sometimes easier for women to go back to school after the age of 40–especially if they have children, they can explain their career choices by their children’s life stages “Now that my children are in school full time/ college/ high school/whatever I wanted to get a better job/a job compatible with their hours/do what I wanted to do for a change”.
Men of 40 are sometimes expected to keep being the family breadwinner, and be content until the time comes to retire.
Of course, as a Gay male, who has recently moved to Canada, you already have some ways in which you defy many people’s expectations.
And really, it sounds like you aren’t happy with your current career opportunities, so going back to school to enlarge your options strikes me as a good idea.
Yeah, I think that “tape” is running in my head - the “You’re supposed to be a teacher until you retire” tape. My mind is still getting wrapped around the idea that the situation here is totally different than in California…
Then again, I got over the “you have to be nuts to move to the COLD” tape, so anything is possible.
That’s really great! I had been tossing around the idea of looking into law when I was still in San Francisco. There’s a school there that trains lawyers who want to work in social justice, and that appeals greatly to me.
But I like the idea of HR too, and I’d **totally **freak out if I was 50 something when I graduated.
It’s CARP. CARP stands for Canadian Association of Retired Persons, but they seem to be promoting themselves for the fifty-plus crowd, retired or not. They have a magazine. I saw an issue of it in my father’s hospital room. Elizabeth May (leader of the federal Greens) was on the cover; the first time I’d really read of her.
Alliance Française has a better library.
Though it’s not like there aren’t any French books in the Toronto Public Library. Or French radio and TV in this city. (I recommend Espace Musique, the second French service of Radio-Canada (the CBC)), and bandeapart.fm.
And actually having to go somewhere and speak with others is always a good incentive. I figure it’s like being a gaijin in Japan: you’ll never be a native, but you can settle in. I’ll never be fluent in French or sound like a native, and I’ll probably never speak it well enough to get a job in French, but I can already buy bus tickets in French.