Into the Harbor

I have been out to sea for a long time, the sea of teaching and being a captain of my classroom. Many  years ago I signed my first contract as a sixth grade teacher. I knew enough about teaching to fill a thimble but my enthusiasm and naivete helped me believe I could keep signing contracts for years ahead. And I did. Thirty-one times, to be exact.

My time at sea has been an adventure, for sure. There were days of beautiful calm and serenity. My lessons clicked with the students. Heads nodded in understanding. Laughter burst forth over a shared funny moment. Hands were raised in thoughtful response. And I believed we would arrive at our destination in a timely manner. And sometimes we did.

There were also days of rough waters, filled with crashing waves and uncertainty. Unruly students with miserable attitudes, demanding enormous amounts of attention. Lessons gone awry and not well received. Meetings with unhappy and irrational parents. Forms, forms and more forms. E-mails queued up to kingdom come. Days when I was googling, jobs-for-has-been-teachers.

Most days were somewhere in-between. Not exactly sunshine and still waters. But not frothing waters and scurvy, either. The days when the rhythm of a classroom chugs along. Warm-ups are completed. Lessons are introduced. Assignments are given. Diligent students do their work. Stubborn students test the limits of tolerance. Papers are graded and returned. To-do lists are completed and another one is written. Students are greeted for the day and given a farewell as they exit with the final bell.

And now it is time to pull the ship into harbor. I am closing this chapter of my life. I met amazing folks along the way. My colleagues and I weathered many storms. We laughed until we cried and we shared the language of educators, determined to do what is best for our students. I listened to countless in-service speakers, some memorable and others not so much. I taught many subjects at three different grade levels. I conducted hundreds of parent-teacher conferences. I learned the names of a new crop of students each year and I watched them navigate their own waters of life. I felt the tides of "best practices" ebb and flow. And I hunkered down for the next technological flavor of the month. Teaching is never dull. And I have no regrets for choosing this profession. Nary a one.

Now the new chapter begins. I do not have fancy plans for the next steps. No fabulous encore job awaits me. I won't be traveling to exotic lands abroad any time soon. I don't have a cabin by a lake or a second home in the mountains. I suspect my semi-agoraphobic nature will keep me tethered to home base, for a while at least. I will continue to try a new recipe or two and I will enjoy my local library even more.

When next fall rolls around and I watch most of my fellow teachers head out to sea for another year of active duty, I will raise my cup of coffee in salute to some of the strongest people I know. I will also lift up a prayer for safe voyages and the stamina it takes to educate precious cargo. Above all, my fellow teachers, keep your desk drawers stocked with chocolate and a box or two of golf pencils. It is always good to be prepared.

Enough

I do most of my non-virtual shopping within a 1/2-mile radius of my house, for two reasons. I dislike shopping and I am lazy. My two favorite haunts are a grocery store that is 5 blocks from my house and a locally-owned pharmacy-has-everything store that is 4 blocks from my house (less if I drive around the backside of it, hoping I don't clip a trash dumpster in the process).

A recent early morning visit to the pharmacy store found me searching for a checkout lane with the signal light on. I heard a muffled voice at the first checkout and upon further investigation saw a frazzled checker rummaging around on the floor under the register. There was another young man crawling around on the floor, as well. I asked if their lane was open for business, and the frazzled lady popped her head up and said, yes, she could check me out but only if I wasn't using their store app. because the little reader thingy wasn't working.

I said she could rest easy because I wasn't going to use the app. because I never remember to carry my phone with me. She was relieved to hear that and proceeded to check me out while the young lad continued to dink around on the floor, attempting to remedy the app. reader problem. A line was beginning to form behind me and I could see in the checker's eyes a look of muted terror as she wondered how she would continue without the magic reader thing.

Just as I finished my transaction, I saw the blue lights on the reader machine fire up and start flashing. The checker breathed a huge sigh of relief and asked the young man, "What did you do?" He looked at her with all the hubris of youth and replied, "I fixed it."

We looked at each other and quickly agreed that we need our young friends in our lives because we are suffering from TID, Tech Idiocy Disorder. I know the checker wanted to understand how the young man fixed the problem so she could be self-sufficient if the reader blitzed out on her again. I also know the young man saw no reason to share his super power with someone a couple decades older than himself.

I know of no antidote for TID and I am not sure I am searching for one. Sometimes, I think it is technology that keeps the older generation humble. No doubt, there were a few harrumphs when the first horseless carriage putt-putted by an older person, followed by a discussion or two on the value of horses.

My 91-year-old mother tells many tales of changing technology over the decades. She experienced the beginnings of car travel, party-line telephones, rural electricity and indoor toilets. She dabbled in computers for a few years before her mind started weakening. Now, she looks at me and says, "I don't even know what a smartphone is and I don't want one. I have everything I need and that's enough."

Amen.