Cleaning out my office: who would have thought it would be so hard?

I have been cleaning out my office and, in the process, reliving my life at CCP. I decided I would reduce the contents of my office  to two boxes and I am almost there.

There’s a whole lot to throw out. I’ve accumulated 35 years of teaching materials, and for some inexplicable reason have saved all kinds of memos. I’ve unearthed various memos on issues I once cared about. I no longer have the same degree of passion or even interest and very few are worth recycling, but when I looked at the file labeled “Faculty Senate,” I hesitated before throwing it into the overflowing trash can. This is one issue I'd like to address one more time before I hand in my keys and walk out the door. Who would have thought that this issue would still matter to me when all those hard fought fights about curriculum are of so little interest?

At my college we do not have a faculty body independent of the union and I’ve always thought that my professional live was the poorer as a consequence. I’ve never bought the assumption that every educational issue is a union issue and believe there is a real tension between my identity as an educator and my identity as a union member.

So I sent my last memo, but somehow the College’s email program or the union’s listserv doesn’t want to receive it. Is this a sign, I should just give up on this??

Turning in my last set of grades

Last Tuesday, a few minutes before the midnight deadline, I turned in my last set of grades. Making all those judgment calls is the absolutely worst thing about teaching.

 I’ve often envied my husband who teaches math. I should say taught math—it’s past tense for both of us. His grading system is clear, objective, much more easily justified than mine. There’s a right answer and a wrong answer.

 Grading in Women’s Studies, Humanities, English is unavoidably subjective. I really try to be fair, but my biases inevitably creep in. How do I factor in class participation in a way that that’s fair, impartial?  How do I justify a C grade for student X and a B for student Y?  And then Student Z has been dealing with so many problems this semester; shouldn’t this be taken into account in some way???   I am so relieved that I never have to go through this again.

 I may have made a real contribution to grade inflation this time around, but since I’m retiring I don’t have to worry that I am sliding down the slippery slope in which A becomes the default grade.

 Teaching can be fun; evaluating students’ performance is always a headache. Ironically although I have spent decades evaluating students, I myself have never been evaluated. I have been teaching at the College since 1974 when I began as part-timer. I was hired full time in 1977, so have spent a total of 35 years teaching at the College and never has anyone entered my classroom to evaluate my teaching.  Never has anyone evaluated my syllabi, course outlines and made suggestions for improvement.

I must admit it was kind of nice to close my classroom door and do whatever I wanted. Would I have been a better teacher if someone had visited my classes and evaluated my teaching? Probably. Thanks to an uncompromising union  and an often cowardly management we have no meaningful evaluation system, and I have ended my teaching career without anyone EVER evaluating my classroom performance.

My last class

I had wondered if I would feel any sadness about teaching my last class, any tinge of regret.

Fortunately, my last class was my best one this semester, my Community Involvement class. I have some terrific students in that class and everything went well, but my feeling at the end of the day was pure relief. I’ve gotten through my last semester, did a decent (if sometimes uninspired) job and ended on a good note.

 If I had stayed on any longer, there’s a chance that my last class might not have gone so well. If I stayed a year or two, I might have started screaming uncontrollably when a student answered a cell phone in class.  There’s also a good chance that I would have cancelled quite a few classes out of sheer exhaustion.

 So no regrets about leaving teaching.  Just relief that I got through the semester.

 I still have mountains of papers to grade, but the performance part of the job is over.  Although I have lost interest in teaching the same courses I’ve taught for many decades, and have totally lost interest in the pedagogical issues that were once an all–consuming passion, when I’m in the classroom I usually enjoy the interaction.

As my husband put it, you’re like a professional actor in a long running play,  Women’s Studies 101. You’ve done it a million times, but like a good pro, when you walk into the classroom something clicks and you perform.

 It may be like this on other jobs as well. I was telling my dentist about this and he said, “It’s kind of like the practice of dentistry. I’m getting bored and sometimes don’t want to go to work, but when I get there and interact with the patients, it’s fine."

 The anticipation was always so much worse than the reality. The past few years I was beginning to dread going back go work when September rolled around. In August, I felt like a condemned prisoner counting down the last few precious days. But then I got back into the groove and  managed to get through.  My guess is if I had stayed, it would have been a whole lot harder to get back into the groove (harness?)

 So, bottom line, I got out at the right time, well before total burn-out.

The last few weeks are the hardest

The April 15^th retirement party and dinner was actually fun. The party was fairly small— not too many folks retiring in these hard times.

 

I skipped the English Department retirement party. How many retirement parties can one take? Also, some of the folks I never want to see again would probably have been there.

 

 The last few weeks really are the hardest. One of my colleagues who has seen many of his age cohort retire told me, “They all said when you make the final decision to retire all those dissatisfactions  you repressed-- so you could keep on going day after day—rise to the surface. When you’re no longer facing years on the same job, it’s safe to acknowledge that you’re burning out."

 

 I have some really good students this semester. I was afraid I would get the class from hell my last semester but fortunately that didn’t happen. So I have some good students who deserve good teaching and I am trying to hold up my end.  I want to end this thing honorably, but I am exhausted.

 

In teaching, no matter hard you work, it’s never  enough. There are always classes you could have prepared better, papers you could have graded more carefully, students you could have tried harder to reach etc etc.

 

I will soon be facing my last stack of papers to grade. It’s the paper grading that drives so many of us into early retirement. A friend (a retired Women’s Studies professor) told me she had a dinner for a group of retired academics and they all said that last set of papers is the hardest to get through.  In your mind, you’re already retired, but the papers are still there.

 

From the perspective of someone with a really hard job, I guess I sound like an impossible whiner. Okay, I’m not scrubbing floors, emptying bedpans or washing dishes for a living, but teaching really does take an emotional toll.

 

Well, time to stop whining and get back to grading those papers.

Retirement parties

I’ve never been much for special occasions and my husband is even worse. His aversion to celebrations has pushed me even further in that direction. We don’t even celebrate our wedding anniversary.

So now there is the retirement party conundrum. I’m uncomfortable with occasions like this. When the wonderful people I’ve worked with in the Women’s Studies program suggested a retirement party for me, I countered with "how about a passing the torch event?”

I was much more comfortable with this and thought it would be better for the program. The new Women’s Studies coordinator would have a chance to share her vision and hear colleagues' ideas for future program development.

So with this shift in focus, I started looking forward to the party and really enjoyed it. Many of the people I like best at the college were there and I am so happy there is a wonderful person to take over the program I built—-my little legacy. There’s nothing worse than putting your heart and soul into building something and then have it fall apart when you move on.

The College wide retirement party on April 15 won’t be so much fun. It won’t be a small group of people I really like and respect. One of the really good things about retirement is that there are some people I will never see again. (When you work in a place for a long time, you can develop deep friendships and deep animosities.)

My husband is retiring at the same time; we were an office romance 30 years ago. He is not the kind of person who holds grudges and doesn’t mind chit-chatting with old adversaries. I sometimes see him talking amiably with the worst person in the college, a person who once viciously attacked him.

I’ve often wanted to be as even tempered as he and once said to him, “I wish I could get over things as quickly, as easily as you do.” His reply: “I wish I could care about things the way you do.”

I have more intense friendships and more intense hatreds; this is playing it self out in saying good-bye (or good riddance) to my colleagues.

Of course, some are really good friends and my relationship with them will continue, but I will have to put some effort into maintaining the ties.

More on this after April 15 retirement party.

I didn’t chicken out. My retirement decision is now irrevocable.

I didn’t chicken out. My retirement decision is now irrevocable. I had the choice between a retirement incentive of one year’s salary (no benefits) and a sabbatical (a half-year’s salary and benefits) with the option of retiring or returning at the end of the sabbatical. March 15 was the deadline for the decision.

Before the financial meltdown, I wouldn’t have given it a thought—I was taking the retirement incentive. I didn’t need to hold onto that option to return.

The economic mess made me think twice. I have one of these dithering, ambivalent- about-everything personalities. I would have spent that entire sabbatical year fretting: Should I go back or not? I decided that I needed finality. An irrevocable decision is scary, but it’s a relief that a decision has been made.

If I had any serious doubts about the wisdom of retiring, they were laid to rest when I opened my work email yesterday and saw a bereavement notice: the husband of a colleague, a man I think in his late 60’s, had died. I come from one of those families where people keel over from heart disease at an early age. If genes count for anything, the best I can hope for is low 70’s. I want to use this time well.

My husband and I are both (we think) healthy and although not as sharp as we once were (or thought we were) we have our intellectual interests and the capacity to pursue them. I don’t want to spend whatever time I have left doing the same old thing I have been doing for over 3 decades. Now on to the next stage.

These "should I or shouldn’t I retire" conversations are going on all over. According to my own unscientific survey, people with partners are more likely to take the plunge. There will be 2 social security checks, maybe 2 pensions, 2 greatly diminished 401k accounts. But then as that bereavement notice brought home to me, 2 can suddenly, unexpectedly become one.

My husband and I can live happily in retirement on less money (as long as we have each other). Much of what I like to do doesn’t cost money—-reading, puttering in my garden. My one expensive taste is travel and, in recent years, my husband I have been traveling upscale (for us). He thinks we can still travel, if we scale back.

I can deal with cutting back but I can’t go back to the way I traveled in my 20’s. (Not that he’s suggesting anything this draconian.) I bummed around Europe in the late 60's staying in youth hostels and crummy flop houses. I traveled around South America in the early 70’s in rickety little buses. Now the buses have to be air-conditioned, the bath rooms in the room--not down the hall--and no lumpy mattresses. Getting a good night’s sleep can be challenge at this stage of life.

So the traveling plans may have to be scaled back or maybe put on hold, but that’s okay. In 7 weeks, I will be free!!!!

I had never intended to retire this early.

I had never intended to retire this early. I thought I would go on forever. The original plan was to hang in until age 70, maybe a little earlier if I detected signs of burn-out. I wanted to stop teaching before I was totally burned-out. It's a matter of professional pride. I don’t want to be a burned out teacher, a spectral presence creeping along the hallways, the ghost of my former self.

Well, I may have miscalculated. I think I am burning out ahead of schedule. I will be 64 (4 months shy of 65) at end of this academic year and the signs are accumulating that it is time for me to go. In my case, these were the warning signs.

No interest in doing anything new:

Although I have been teaching at the same community college for 35 years, I managed to reinvent myself a few times and keep going by developing new courses, new programs. I started as a teacher of remedial education, but I lost the faith. I could no longer ignore the enormous gap between what I was doing in my classes and anything remotely resembling college level. So I focused on developing college level courses—a revamped composition course, an inter- disciplinary humanities course which was a lot of fun. What kept me going was a service learning course which allowed me to draw on my second (and most rewarding albeit non-paid) career as a community activist. But the best reinvention of all was as a Women’s Studies teacher 13 years ago. Now that's starting to get same-old, same-old. I’ve run out of the energy to create something new. So it’s time for me to go.

Increased depression, ( anger?) at students’ worsening language skills:

I know all old folks complain that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, but the skills decline is real. I believe passionately in the mission of community colleges and I have some wonderful students. But I can’t deal with flunking 50% of my students, which I would have to do if I were maintaining anything approaching reasonable standards. My standards get lower and lower with each passing year. I started to wonder how low can I go? I decided I didn’t want to find out. So it’s time for me to go.

Not wanting to go out on cold, snowy days:

Maybe this sounds trivial but I have heard it form other 60 something teachers. Driving in bad weather has become harder for many of us. One of my colleagues arrived one day with her retired husband. I asked him what he was doing at the College and my friend said she told him he had to drive her in; she just could not handle it that day. Another said that circling about looking for a parking space was too much and she gave up and went home. I have a bad ankle and worry about slipping on the ice. So it’s time for me to go.

I could go on and on, but what’s the point? I want to look forward to something different. I decided to start this blog to chart the next stage and maybe spark a conversation with other women entering retirement. When I am actually retired, I’ll have the time to develop an interactive web site with links to a range of resources available to women in retirement.

Anyway that's the plan—along with finally finishing a research project on second wave feminism in Philadelphia, learning Spanish, doing a little traveling ( if our retirement funds don’t completely melt away), staying involved in the feminist/ social justice movement which gives some sense of purpose to my life, getting my garden in shape, reading all those books I want to get to before I check out, and hanging out with my wonderful husband. (After 2 disastrous marriages, I finally got it right the third time around.)

The plan depends on not being totally broke, my health, my husband’s health, but it’s time for the next stage. It’s really time.

I have until March 15 to withdraw my intent to retire. Will I chicken out? Sure hope not.