I can hear my anti-fans (mostly “friends” and family) now: 

“Here’s Tullis, writing another teacher column.  Here he is, writing as if he’s the only teacher who ever retired.  What’s he going to complain about this week?”

I’m certainly not the only teacher who ever retired, but I happen to be one who writes a column.

Insert raspberry emoji here.

Closing up a chapter in your life is weird. As I’ve said a bunch of times, I keep thinking someone is going to come up to me and say “Just kidding. You have to teach a few more years.”

I have looked, several times, at photos from the last 34 years.  In my mind’s eye, I still look the same as I did back then, but the photos are evidence that the fresh-faced kid who didn’t have any business being in charge of 25 8-year- olds was young.  

Too young. But I guess we all have to start somewhere.

If I could go back and somehow steer that kid in the right direction, I would.  He thought making kids into little adults was the way to go. He put more emphasis on getting homework completed and making sure everything was so-so, and probably not enough time tuning into all of the important things.  

A great source of pride was being able to keep a class quiet and make them walk down the hall like soldiers.

My old-teacher self got rid of homework a few years ago.  

Although I still value “quiet” when needed, my students are louder than they ever were.  I have gotten to where I can’t stand having kids in their seats, quiet, for too long a time.  But still, the young me that liked things in order and kids behaving is still around.

I like to think that the old me might have gotten the chance to communicate with that young teacher, at least a little bit, somehow, some way.  

When I was a young teacher, I had fun with my students. We laughed a lot, we sang songs to remember facts. We danced. We did skits and plays, and we had contests to see who could memorize their multiplication tables. We passed around a toy (and later a real) microphone and took turns telling about something that was going on in our lives. We talked and wrote about exciting, sad, funny, and scary things and we stood up and read them to our classmates, if we wanted to.

If I hollered at them for anything, I usually talked about it later and wasn’t above apologizing if I thought I should.  

Now, the current me isn’t bragging about how great I was as a young teacher or talking about all these great and innovative things I did during my teaching career.  But I think it’s important, as you reflect on your career, that you don’t dwell too much on what you did wrong. You have to try and remember the things you might have done well.  

This is true for parenting too, isn’t it?

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts a teacher can get is a conversation or letter from a former student.  

The reason that it is such a great gift is because kids are so much more insightful than we give them credit for. Then, when they become adults, they have a whole new way of looking at things. Usually, you get some positive feedback. I mean, after all, most kids who seek you out as adults are those who care about you.

The ones who didn’t care for you or your teaching style will steer clear.

I would like to go back and tell my young teacher self not to worry about impressing parents or people in the community, because there are always going to be people who don’t recognize how hard you work or what you are doing. In fact, oftentimes, you will wonder if anyone respects the job you do, even those on your faculty who aren’t in charge of classrooms full of kids.  You will constantly deal with people who aren’t professional and people (even on your faculty), who don’t value teachers.  

Although I often go on and on, repeat myself, and overstay my welcome, I think my advice to my younger teacher self would be pretty cut and dried:  

Always be prepared.  Try to pay attention to every kid, every day, at least a little bit. Do your best with the challenges, and find places to enjoy your job and students every day. Laugh. Make sure you are taking care of yourself and your family. Don’t feel that you have to grade everything. If there is a kid you find hard to connect with, keep trying and don’t give up.

Oh, and even if you think you can’t afford it, stock money away as soon as you start getting paychecks.

I’ll probably think of several more after I submit this, but for now those are the nuggets of wisdom I wish to impart on my young teacher self and new teachers everywhere.

One more thing:  if you are a youngster going into the field of teaching, you have my utmost respect and I am enormously grateful to you and proud of you.

Stick with it.