"I was a teacher...."

Dear Diary,

Someone I met the other day asked me, "What did you do before you retired?" Of course, my knee-jerk response was, "I was a teacher." This morning I was in the guest room where hangs a poster of the General Maxims written by Bronson Alcott, Louisa May's father, in the 19th century. It hung in my school office for years. Despite its rather archaic language, so many of the tenets he spoke of did guide my teaching. I've done a collage with it and a small photo of me in my grade one class around 1990. The old school house is near my home.

Whenever I had student teachers over the years I would have them write up their own list of maxims, how they planned to practice their craft. I felt it important. My over thirty year career as a teacher embedded these principles into who I am and I now think I should have responded to the question with, "I am a teacher. I use to do it for pay, now I just do it for pleasure."

I think that is probably true of most people who have dedicated a lifetime to a particular career. You don't turn it off when you retire, not if it was truly a passion for you. You find new ways to practice that passion. Through my genealogy I learned that Bronson Alcott was a great uncle of mine. His 4X great grandmother was my 9X great grandmother. I began visiting Concord when I was in my twenties and still go every few years. I bought the Maxim's poster at the gift shop at his house, the Orchard House. Back in the late 1990's a group of us talked about starting a Charter School and we chose Orchard House as a name. It never transpired but every time I go into the guest room and see that poster I think about my years of teaching and my love for the profession...wonderful memories for this Sunday morning.