And who would suspect a retired teacher?
When my mom (also a teacher) retired, one of her friends bought her a calendar labeled “Sunday Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday”.
Things changed considerably since 1985. Some of it was for the better. Corporal punishment was still in use for the first few years of my career. I was glad to see it phased out. Teacher pay was lousy when I started out, improved a good bit in the 90s, but then stagnated. NCLB made standardized tests the most important thing in the world to administrators. It still is. At the individual classroom level, the biggest changes were driven by mainstreaming of needs students. By and large, all it did was short change every student.Needs kids have special needs over and above what the average kid has. Often, I had several needs kids, with different diagnoses, dumped into a crowded classroom full of average kids (who, being poor had problems of their own) and was told “Teach.” Typically, the emotional support students monopolized most of my attention. Aides were paid nearly nothing and worth it. The special ed teachers would have preferred things not be that way, but they were limited in how much they could do about it. In the end, nobody was happy and nobody had optimum results.
I don’t understand this at all. My sister in law is a teacher and had exactly this same problem; the special needs kids were mixed in with the rest like they’re all the same, and all it accomplished was to turn every classroom into a special needs class, which then puts everyone behind because the special needs kids can’t keep up and the lessons all have to be slowed down for them. This helps no one, it’s obvious it helps no one, and they do it anyways. :mad:
Mainstreaming was always something of a mystery to me. Nobody seemed to be in favor of it. Yet, there it was.
Retirement ROCKS!!
I’m a retired high school teacher.
All I wanna do is RIDE my motorcycle!
I retired, only to discover I couldn’t stand it in six months. So I became a teacher.
When you retire from teaching, you can go into law.
Congrats, Scumpup. I am a ways from retirement, but I have started planning.
When my dad retired, we gave my mom a T shirt - “Retirement. Half the money, twice the husband”.
Regards,
Shodan
Congratulations on surviving long enough to retire. Find some good hobbies so you don’t get sucked back in.
Which Leftist Utopia is this? I’ve taught in places like this. No one can seem to understand that if no one earns less that 50% on any assignment, then 100% = 50%, and there’s no point in working for a high score.
Been there, done that. I even had both the elementary principal and superintendent tell me that all students in the 3/4 grade mixed class needed to score highly on the state tests, even the two special needs students who were not able to speak coherently or recognize the letters of the alphabet. I’ve had a 2nd grade bipolar student attempt to beat up many students in the class, and scratch and hit me when I stood in his way. The principal of that school only punished him when he broke the wire-mesh reinforced glass in a door, or splashed orange juice on her pantsuit during a screaming tantrum. Shove a child out of a chair and start kicking him before he could get up? No problem. Try to overturn the computer table while indulging in a yelling fit? She just took him to her office to play games. And it was all my fault. I’m such a bad teacher I’m retroactive. He had a behavior file that went back to when he was 18 months old, but it was still my fault that he would not sit and work at school.
I am afraid I’m a glutton for punishment, because I will be going back to the classroom next year, after an absence of 2 years. 4th grade. I’ve got decades to go before I can retire, so I’m praying I can make it.
So I’m confused - was it a good thing or not?
I’m 56 and looking at retiring in maybe four years, so I’m thinking a lot about this, and I think I have plenty to do, but I do worry about getting bored.
She teaches in Orlando in what’s supposed to be a model school for using technology in the classroom. But it seems TPTB are more interested in glitz and scores than education. And we’ll not get into the BS of teaching the kids how to pass the standardized tests…
Interestingly, when she taught 5th grade science in Virginia, she taught the material, not the test, and her students got the highest science scores in the county on the state test. She only devoted a tiny percentage of class time to practice tests, just so her kids would be familiar with the format and the types of things they’d be asked. Kinda like what one would want a teacher to do, ya think?
She’s talked about quitting and pursuing another line of work - sad, really, because she’s a good teacher. Yeah, I know, as her mom I’m supposed to say that, but I’ve helped in her classroom a few times and watched her teach - she really is very good. In fact, in her second year teaching 7th grade, she was made team leader over several more senior teachers, so it’s not just me bragging on her. 
Thus endeth my hijack.
A fellow teacher, who was a highly qualified special education teacher, once told me that he thought mainstreaming/total inclusion was driven mainly by a relatively small set of parents who didn’t want to believe that their special needs children were “different.” I think he might have been on to something there. I knew many parents of needs children who weren’t happy about their children being placed in classrooms where they couldn’t keep up or have huge amounts of individual attention from the teacher. I never knew even one who bitched that their child was in a too restrictive environment. I will note that I taught a couple generations in that school and many of the parents had had IEPs as kids.
It was definitely a good thing. The bored part lasted about a month, which surprised me, because I used to be a lazy SOB, so I decided I needed SOME structure(I didn’t go berserk, retirement is supposed to be fun) I began a walking program; one day was set aside visiting people in a nursing home; formed a breakfast club with a few locals; joined a few knit and crochet groups to get me out of the house. I also realized that my finances were working out better than I had planned(knock wood)
When I was employed, occasionally, former co-workers who had retired would come back for a visit. They all looked younger, more relaxed and definitely high on life. And now it’s happened to me. 
What is preventing you from starting a 2nd career?
I retired 5 years ago and love it. I get up no later than 4 am each morning. Write a bit till the sun comes up and then go to work on my hobbies. I take a lot of computer breaks, sometimes too many. I haven’t traveled near as much as I planned as my expenses in the form of a girlfriend are more than I had planned for.
I’m amazed we have only seen one response with negative connotations. I know I don’t fit the mold of the average retiree, but after 7 months I’ve really started to crave the workplace. I have no problem filling my days, but miss being a productive member of society (and yes, I’ve gone down the volunteer path). Congrats Scumpump on your retirement, but I just don’t understand it. I will post when I find a career I can do til I die, that will be worth celebrating.
Security systems at art galleries and jewelry stores have gotten really good the past few years.
The problem with teaching these days is that politicians seem to have a need to compare every institution to all the others, and so they came up with a system of measurement but one that is very simplistic, with just a single number in some sort of league table. They use words such as ‘accountability’ and ‘transparency’ when it is clear that they actually mean the exact opposite - rather like 1984 I feel.
Obviously a high pass rate is a good indicator, however this is only a product of everything else that has been done well, in effect it is a symptom of a well run institution.
The problem is that by imposing targets, then all those other things become unimportant - and the temptation to game the system is irresistible for local managers, especially when careers and funding are at stake.
So ways of gaming the system can be to
Artificially award higher grades than merited,
Teach strictly to the test and eliminate any creative or inquisitive learning, this involves doing loads of practice tests and just learning answers by rote.
Sign up with a different awarding body whose qualifications are easier to achieve
Substitute academic subjects with vocational subjects - this could work however whenever I have seen this done, the vocational subject had been over rated in attainment levels and the theory aspect of it was significantly diminished.
Find subjects to teach that are not as rigorous as others - for example swapping out Chemistry, Physics and biology for the more generic ‘Science’ class - since Science is far broader it is not possible to go into any part of it in real depth - so you get a skimming of what it encompasses.
Change from ‘difficult’ subjects such as engineering based to media or social based.
Select courses whose content is mostly assessed through collaborative projects and coursework and evaluated in house, instead of being evaluated through an end test or exam that is run by an external body.
Find ways to stream out anyone who might present a merest risk of not achieving the standards, you can do this by having entry tests - or put learners through lots of lower grade qualifications instead of a few higher grade qualifications.
I have seen some teachers pretty much give assessment answers to the learners,
Its a little bit like the uncertainty principle, you can know the outcome, but as soon as you make it a target measurement, then it tends to distort everything around it.
I used to attain more L2 qualification per year than the entire rest of my workplace did put together, with offenders whose numeracy and literacy would generally be the equivalent of 10-11 year olds.(this is for men whose true age is from 20-60) Naturally this did not make the specialist contracted education company look very good.
Result - my course was shut down in favour of doing other work that hit other workplace targets such as number or offenders present multiplied by the number of hours they were present - you’ll note that this new target does not have any measurement for the amount or value of the work achieved whilst in attendance - result is that the offenders often sit around with nothing to do all day except play board games and cards - still… it does help our prison toward achieving the targets.
I was reassigned a job in our grounds maintenance and horticulture workshop - its much nicer, far less demanding mentally although its more physical work, its almost like semi retirement.
Enjoy your retirement.
Congratulations. I am about four months from a well planned retirement.
Which of the following will you be getting?
snow globe
spinner
wooden puzzle
bent nails puzzle
dart board
standard x-ring target
wood carving tools
leather craft tools
air brush and duco cement
76mm peeping tom gun