Ten more days and I will have completed 30 years as a Public High School Science teacher (I'm 56 years old), all at the same school! It is definitely time for me to go. I have always had 30 years as a benchmark to aim for retirement. I would like to start collecting my pension after contributing 12.875% of my paycheck for the last 3 decades.

For the first 27 years I coached either Basketball or Football or both, but for the last 3 years I have not coached anything and only taught science. I had to give up coaching due to injuries suffered in an automobile accident that cracked 2 cervical vertebrae and 2 thoracic vertebrae back in February 2015. In many ways, these last 3 years have been the hardest. I did not realize how much I missed coaching until I was not doing it anymore. It was a huge investment in time, but I enjoyed my time with the boys on the practice court/field and the competition of the games. The kids I worked with then, for the most part wanted to be there and wanted to learn about basketball or football. The last 3 years in the classroom only, has been a much different story. I have only been exposed to unmotivated apathetic students. If I would have had the classes I have had the last 3-5 years early in my tenure, there would have been no way that I would have been able to last 30 years in the classroom!

I cannot begin to explain how students have changed over the last 30 years. The most glaring change is in the decline in emotional maturity. When I started teaching 30 years ago, most of my students were very much young adults. Now I feel that most of my students' behavior is more in line with elementary school behaviors! Of course I have gotten older and my tolerance for their immature behavior has lessened considerably. Part of this decline is a direct correlation to the addiction to electronic devices! They can be both a blessing and a curse to a students ability to learn in the classroom setting. I'm going to leave it up to a younger teacher to take over and channel the student's addiction to their devices into an avenue to learning basic scientific principles of the life and physical sciences. More power to them!

Another big change is the makeup of the student population as a whole. As a first year teacher(1988), my students were probably 80% white, 15% black, and the remaining 5% were a mixture of Hispanic, Asian, etc. A couple of years into my teaching career, my city became an immigration center for our region of the state. Our first wave of immigrants were Russian, Ukranian, or other regions of the former U.S.S.R. and Southeast Asians (Cambodia, Laos, & Vietnam). Then it was Bosnians and Albanians and Kosovars. The next wave were various African nations and Middle Eastern countries that still continue. Lately we have been seeing a lot of Burmese (Myanmar) refugee students. Throughout all these various groups there was a constant rise in the Hispanic population. Now our small independent city school district with 5 elementary schools, 1 junior high school, and 1 high school there are 51 different languages/dialects spoken! An example of this diversity is my 6th period class this year. I call it my United Nations class. Of 28 students that started the year in the class (I'm down to 21 as students have moved, changed schools, or been moved to the Alternate School), I have one white student, a female. I am the ONLY white male in the classroom! I have had a few other instances like that over the last few years as well. My biggest discipline problems this year in that class have come from the friction between a few of the Hispanics and 3 African-American students (not to be confused with my AFRICAN students, as I have 7 students from the countries of Tanzania, Uganda, and Somalia. They are well behaved students for the most part). One constant has held true in all my years of teaching. My biggest discipline issues have always arisen in classrooms with VERY DIVERSE populations! Sometimes there can be too many cultures thrown together all at once!

We also almost became a member of the school shooting fraternity at the beginning of this school year last September. Thankfully the group of 4-5 students said something that other students overheard and reported it to our administration and our principal promptly got our local police involved. It was determined that it was a credible threat (written plans including a map of the school building with areas of attack were found with notations of the locations of all security cameras) and the students were removed from school. The oldest was 18 so he was arrested. He just recently plead guilty to terroristic threatening and has begun serving 2 years in prison. The rest are minors. I had the 18 year-old in a class last year and I am not surprised he was involved. I also had one of the minors in a class this year. I was surprised that he was involved. He and the other minors are continuing their education at home under supervision of our school's administration.

Concern for my own safety has definitely increased over these 30 years. I am a CCDW license holder for the last 22 years, but the most dangerous place I frequent I am not allowed by law to carry my weapon of choice to defend myself! Heck, I had to stop carrying a pocketknife a few years ago because when I pulled it out to sharpen a pencil (pencil sharpener was broke) a student complained to a principal. I was asked (very nicely) to not bring it to work anymore!

Over the years the makeup of the faculty has steadily changed from just right of center to a definite lean to the left. Thankfully my principal is fairly conservative and a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment. We have shared much about our firearm hobbies. He even had an outing at his family's farm where he took the 4 Assistant Principals shooting one Saturday. One (the female) had never shot a gun before. So at least he is trying. One of my closest friends on the faculty is a fellow science teacher whose husband is a Trooper with the Kentucky State Police. He was one of the first responders to report to my accident site on I-65 and he has been a frequent guest speaker in my Forensic Science classes. So there are a few of us conservatives in the education!

I am looking forward to my last 10 days, and life after teaching in a public high school. I thought I would be a substitute teacher, but that is probably not going to happen. Another opportunity has presented itself. For the last 14 months I have had a part-time job at a local gun shop & indoor range (a fellow teacher and FB coach who has worked there for over 2 years put in the good word for me to get hired. Thanks Chuck!). I had worked mostly just Saturdays and Holidays but some afternoons after school as well. My main responsibility is working the range counter checking in shooters and part time Range Safety Officer. But during Spring Break (I worked daily at the LGS) the office manager asked me what my plans were after I retire from teaching. He then asked me to come work for them full-time. My days off will be Wednesdays & Sundays while working 10:30-6:00 on Weekdays and 9:00-6:00 on Saturdays. I am looking forward to working around ADULTS and having an employer who actively encourages me to exercise my 2nd Amendment Rights on a daily basis! I also am looking forward to a job that I don't have to take home with me. When my shift is up, I go home and don't have to do any type of planning or preparation. I am looking forward to that! I just hope that I get to take a little bit of my gun shop pay home with me and not spend it all on guns. I have 2 on layaway now. I guess I am similar to an alcoholic working in a liquor store! I would like to work at the gun shop for as long as they will have me and while I am in relatively good health. Here's hoping it is a couple of decades!

Congratulations!

Looking back at 30 years, have you had students come back and speak with you about how their life turned out after high school?

Any surprises or awful disappointments?

Congrats on the retirement. Sounds like you had a great career. My father and brother did the same. I hope retirement is great. Sure you did many great things for a lot of kids, their kids and maybe their kids

It is now time to find out what the real world has waiting for you now that you are not in and part of the system. It will be an eye opener. You will soon grow to hate those that you thought were on your side and doing your bidding. They do not need you any longer. I would not stand for one thing they stand for going forward.

Congratulations, enjoy your new life.

Congratulations... and congratulations!

Sounds like a plan that's coming together nicely.

congrats on the retirement

I'm 58 and I figure I have another 10 years to work...

good on ya

Congratulations, I hope your retirement is terrific!

Congratulations! I am eligible to retire but am not ready to. My wife retired last month.

sig239dlehr,

You're going to love retirement.

I've been retired for quite some time and love it. I'm always busy and that's what make retirement so much fun. Having purpose...

Like you, after official retirement, I worked full time at a fun job, but one day said to myself, why? Why am I still working? I didn't really need the extra money.

I quit to do volunteer work on days I felt like it. Having this latitude allowed me much greater freedom. So, given our time on earth is short, I pulled the plug on working.

You'll see.

Having the freedom to tell your employer 'take this job and shove it' is a wonderful thing.

Congratulations!

Congratulations on a monumental achievement! Most educators last approximately 5 years on the job. Lol I have 6 years and 4 months to go to reach my 30+ years in the classroom. I’m a ESL, Social Studies and Special Education teacher.

quote:

Originally posted by sig239dlehr:
As a first year teacher(1988),

Funny, my first year of high school was 1988.

Enjoy your school retirement and new job!

You will find out retirement jobs are a different thing completely. No pressure, you are not doing this "because you have to" but because you want to.

It will probably take you a little time to settle in. I still am acclimating, retired after 47 years in new car dealership parts departments the end of June last year.

Congratulations.

Enjoy your retirement, you have earned it.

Congratulations!

You will really dig retirement, I know I do.

Congratulations on retirement and the fun new gig!

Congratulations!

I really enjoyed reading your perspective and how things have changed over the years. I had some great teachers and coaches who had a huge influence on my life. Thank you for investing your time and helping so many young people over the years. At the time I didn't really appreciate or understand the sacrifice our coaches were making. As I got older I really began to appreciate the amount of time those guys spent away from their families. Truly a labor of love.

Thanks to all who have responded with congratulations on my pending retirement.

To answer Edmond's question, yes I have met and talked with many, many former students and by far most of them have become very successful as adults. Multiple physicians, attorneys, business people of all types. I even have had one student that is a successful Division 1 NCAA basketball coach (he and I used to skip our 40 minute lunch, go to the gym and play as many "one on one" games as we could get in in 30 minutes and then take quick showers to get back to class on time, now our lunch periods are only 30 minutes). I had another that my letter of recommendation helped to get her in Harvard. She graduated from Harvard and proceeded to get a doctorate from Yale University where she serves as a Dean in some capacity. Many of them I have met as I have taught or coached their children. I have met many former students again at the Gun Shop as they come in to use the range.

Even though I gave up coaching a few years ago, I stay active in high school sports as scoreboard operator for all of our home Football, basketball, and baseball games. Our Athletic Director has asked me to continue to do so after I retire for as long as I want to. I have been very fortunate to serve in that capacity in 5 State Championship Football seasons and 1 State Championship Basketball season. In 2017 we became the first public school in our state to win State Championships in FB and Boys Basketball in the same year.

So as I am looking forward to retirement, I will always have many fond memories to reflect on from my 30 years as a teacher and coach for Bowlng Green High School!

Congrats,, you deserve it.

Congratulations! I was a middle school science and math teacher for 10 years before venturing out to start my own business.

I relate to your story as my mother was a high school coach(Softball, tennis, track, volleyball)for 27 years. Like you she spent three decades at the same school. The tennis facility at her high school was dedicated to her a few years after she retired. I don't think I can recall her ever being as moved as she was that day.

Enjoy your retirement!

Congratulations on a fine career, sounds like you saw quite a change. You had a front row to the major changes in the last 30 years, amazing. Thank you for doing your best to mold the kids into respectable young adults. Enjoy your next phase, should be fun!