Some things remain the same…

It was exactly six years ago today that I taught my last classes as a middle school teacher in the public schools….or at least I thought.  Sure, I had some plans for retirement, but it would seem that the God of my understanding wasn’t so sure I was ready to pack it all in quite yet.  There would be several adventures awaiting that would take me back into the classrooms I loved.

After the six months of required time out of the school setting, I returned to substitute teaching on a day-to-day basis.  The jobs were usually simple and required a minimal amount of preparation.  I got to visit quite a few different schools and of course also subbed at the school I had retired from the year before.

Then came my first opportunity to teach for an extended period as an interim teacher for someone who was going to be out for maternity leave.  I had “just happened” to see the parent of a former student while at a cafe and she was  principal at an elementary school.   She inquired of my availability and after visiting the school, I decided to take that job for a six week period.  Teaching at an elementary school was quite a change from the middle school setting and that experience gave me a whole new respect for teachers of children that age.

There have been since that point in time five more maternity leaves I worked for teachers, all but one of which were in the elementary setting.  Each one presented its own special challenges and I don’t mind saying that when the six weeks was said and done, I was reading for a break.

There was also one situation in which a teacher was going to be out for the first eight weeks of school due to surgery.  I was asked if I would be interested in filling in for this slot until he was able to return.  That job was especially interesting since the students would not be meeting their actual teacher until after the first two months of the school year.  Things went really smoothly in this assignment despite the fact I was suffering from disc problems in my neck and was in almost constant pain.  I would have to admit when the teacher announced his return, it was a bit difficult to give up the class of students I’d gotten to know so well.  But such is the life of an interim teacher.

There have been two cases over the past couple of years in which I served in interim positions that have been what I could best term “beyond the call of duty.”  The first one was at the middle school I had retired from five years previous.  A teacher was retiring from teaching at the end of October and the principal needed someone to work for nine weeks until mid-year college graduation, when another teacher could and would be hired. Well that nine weeks came and went without a replacement being found, so I finished out the final eighteen weeks as well.

This past school year I once again served a maternity leave for the same teacher I had filled in for on my first.  It was the six week period right before Christmas  break and I figured the rest of the school year would be spent subbing a day here and there.  Turns out I was wrong.

I received a call from a middle school principal saying that he needed an eighth grade science and social studies teacher for the second half of the school year.  I had not previously worked at this school, so I had to think about it a while longer and then finally decided to take the job.  It was a position  filled with many challenges, but I persevered and just last week taught my second consecutive “last day of school.”  Once again it was time to retire.

If you would have told me six years ago at my retirement that I would be spending the better part of the past two years back in the classroom teaching full time, I would have questioned your sanity.  But that is exactly the way it has played out.  While my current plans are just to substitute from day-to-day for the upcoming school year, you never know quite what might be in the road ahead.

Just one of the things in my life that always seems to remain the same.

David Lee