into the dustbin of history

 

retirement looms

retirement looms:

when my last day of contracted work comes to an end,

I feel it as an impending release,

a release from external expectations that direct my days,

those expectations no longer front and center for me to have and follow,

I feel a release coming,

like at the end of a workday, coming home,

like at the end of an awake day,

sleep allowing care to forget itself

until interior currents metamorphose it back into dark dream,

on the journey toward letting go,

many small goodbyes, many small deaths,

come at me, call to me, 

my understanding, knowing, doing about to be replaced

by another's different answer to what they will feel is the call

they should follow, my calling irrelevant to them,

the last few years other teachers have left,

impressive replacements have arrived,

often so sure in their own music to follow

they seem to not even consider other rhythms, other melodies,

decades of evolved American history curriculum not even worth considering,

instead the source for their own methodology

was what they consider they can provide,

at the best what they think the students need to thrive,

and, to be honest, that's how I was when I started,

ready to make my own mark,

mostly lost in what my will could create,

the insights and achievements of the ideas I have brought 

to CFS middle school for over half a century

will probably be comfortably tucked away,

at best into nostalgia,

with no imperative to see me even as an elder

from who one might learn,

in my own teaching I have shamelessly learned from others:

carefully considering the kids and what they need,

carefully considering what I'm good at, what I can give,

carefully considering what I can know 

of what fellow teachers have carried forward,

their insights worth taking seriously,

even if I feel another way seems even better,

a great and deep truth is that individual revelation and control

is at the heart of great teaching,

another great and deep truth is that other teachers

share the same goal and find other paths to get to it,

and that we can learn from considering those paths,

as I move toward retirement,

I fear that my insights will be more of a forgettable past

than of a vibrant, inclusive future:

the Day of the Dead, the School Store, Science Day, Around the World,

the decades of scrapbooks, the stored artifacts,

my almost unique chalkboard,

distant from the present, like being at a museum

and only worth a moment of remembering,

"Hey, I remember when a movie cost only a quarter!"

and then it's time to move on to what's new,

the books my classes have read, the writing forms we have used,

my overarching vision of "why" and "how" not really relevant,

I'm old, and part of me lives in the past,

I savor the memories of seeing kids, knowing kids,

of helping kids see themselves truly,

and releasing the power of their selves 

that should not, that will not, be denied,

it is outrageous, and wonderful, that a school exists

that can every year renew itself and be there

so that that of God in each person can know itself, can reveal itself,

may that truth continue, even without my help.

by Henry H. Walker

March 2, ‘24